4 ms·
13GWh is way off! 1500GW x 8600h x 0.1 capacity factor = 1,300,000GWh or 1.3e9MWh. Within an order of magnitude of US electricity demand.
by spqr0a1 10y ago
13GWh is way off!
1500GW x 8600h x 0.1 capacity factor = 1,300,000GWh or 1.3e9MWh. Within an order of magnitude of US electricity demand.
- 08-15 10y agoOh dear, you're completely right. Beer and orders of magnitude don't seem to mix. :-/
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- codecamper 10y agoI was a little off with the 1.5e12 W. More like 1.333e12 W capacity or 1,333 GW capacity. googling a bit shows that solar capacity factor is between 13 & 30% Say 18% for a variety of geographies. 1333 GW x 8760 hours * 18% = 2,100,000 GWh 2.1 e6 GWh = 2.1e9 MWh 5e9 MWh is what the US uses now. Solar is still maybe 1.5 or 2x more expensive than wind. By combining wind and solar, with 2 trillion investment, you'd get most of the way towards a major greening of the grid. (of course batteries, etc will make it more expensive & EVs may double or more electric demand) So instead of that war & it's bloodshed, we could have gone a very long way towards solving the energy problems & uncertainty facing the US for decades and maybe even establish a system that could last us into perpetuity. Thanks for reading.