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> The wind and solar farms simulated in the study would cover more than 9 million square kilometers and generate, on average, about 3 terawatts and 79 terawatts
by jameskilton 8y ago
> The wind and solar farms simulated in the study would cover more than 9 million square kilometers and generate, on average, about 3 terawatts and 79 terawatts of electrical power, respectively.
This study is looking at a combined farm size that's almost as large as all the land mass in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ant6n 8y agoThat's a lot of terawatts. In 2013, the world used about 18 TW on average. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
- wongarsu 8y agoThat seems a bit excessive, considering that the world energy consumption is only about 18 terawatts (and only about 3 terawatts of that are electrical right now).
- Analemma_ 8y agoIf countries like China, India, Malaysia, Nigeria etc. start to have per-capita energy use close to that of the United States, global energy consumption could easily double or triple even without any increase in population. I said "if", but I really should say "when", because this is what's expected to happen as these countries modernize and start getting things like air conditioning on the same scale as US households. 79 TW of capacity will become a necessity sooner than you think.
- logfromblammo 8y agoAlso, if that much excess would otherwise be wasted, we could always use it to smelt aluminum, form it into big tanks, attach standard docking rings, fill them up with water, and launch them into a designated band of refueling orbits. Those would almost certainly be useful later in space technology development.
- wizardforhire 8y agoOr condense air and harvest co2 for sequestering.
- spacenick88 8y agoAlmost no one in Europe has per-capita energy use anywhere close to the US, so why would China? And I don't think it's just that we have less AC, though that's surely the strongest contributor.
- xyzzyz 8y agoWe have less AC, but we have more heating, which is more energy intensive than AC.
- weberc2 8y agoI’m doubtful about both of these claims (Europe has more heating than the US and that heating is more energy-intensive than AC). The latter seems particularly hard to believe given how efficient heating is compared to A.C.
- 0xCMP 8y agoIt may have to do with where the heat comes from? I live in southern most areas of US, but from what I understand it's common for heating to use Gas/etc. instead of electricity. Therefore they use less "energy" (i.e. Electrical energy) All just a theory
- sampo 8y agoThe most efficient way to heat would still be generating electricity from gas. You lose 50% of the energy (well, you can still use part of the residual heat for heating, too), but with the electricity, you can run a heat pump that heats with about 400% efficiency. 50% × 400% is still 200%, so twice as good as burning gas for heat.
- satya71 8y agoI don't have the numbers. But intuitively, AC should be less energy as it's energy transfer. Heating is usually directly adding energy to the living environment. You can get heating using heat pumps (some southern US homes have this type) but it doesn't work very well when it's too cold outside. Europe should have more heating than US, with it's more northern location.
- pesmhey 8y agoI’d like to offer a comparison that may put it into a different perspective for you. Imagine saying that a 1 TB hard drive is excessive, 20 years ago. Sure, contemporaneously, but we sure did find some useful ways to put all that excessive hard drive space to use.
- delecti 8y agoOne really good example would be water desalination. I'm sure the neighbors of the Sahara could use a glut of fresh water.
- lostlogin 8y agoA great use for the power, but also another destabilising thing for them and all the interested foreign powers to fight over.
- delecti 8y agoUnfortunately I think you're probably right. It's really a shame how many otherwise great things we miss out on because people suck. Constant "this is why we can't have nice things."
- the8472 8y agoCivilisation is to a large extent constrained by available energy, which is why new energy sources have lead to industrial revolutions. As long as you're not spending other resources on it excessively any massive amount of energy surplus can be put to good, previously uneconomical and fantastical-seeming uses. Given enough energy you could regulate the entire biosphere by brute force. And if you ever want to get serious about colonizing space a stupendous amount of energy has to be spent just lifting people and materials into orbit.
- DoctorOetker 8y agoI totally agree with you, but if any of the many variations of space elevator becomes possible, you can balance the energy and momentum of mass moving up, by mass going down perhaps returning tourism or valuable materials mined off earth
- polaritron 8y agoWhich is also awesome, but not an argument against installing massive, terawatt capacity photovoltaic solar arrays across a desert.
- DoctorOetker 8y agodid it occur to you ... perhaps I wasn't arguing against terawatt capacity PV solar arrays across desert? ;)
- mirimir 8y agoWell, the extra energy can be used for CO2 capture :) And the win of an arable Sahara would be just incredible.
- PostPost 8y agoIn this case, "large" means almost the entire Sahara, which is 9.2 million square kilometers. Africa is huge. 79 terawatts of power in the study is not unreasonable, given the population growth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara
- nine_k 8y agoGenerating terawatts is not unreasonable. But transportation of it out of North Africa would be almost as big an effort as building the solar farms in question.
- abecedarius 8y agoHow would you go about it? Lots of high-voltage lines, or is there something else that'd make more sense for this unusual setup?
- nine_k 8y agoI suppose that a lot of such transmission lines should be superconductive, if only to help put enough electricity through physically more narrow channels. Even with modern high-temp superconductors, it's a lot of expensive infrastructure, a lot of protective redundancy, and a lot of maintenance.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago> Even with modern high-temp superconductors, it's a lot of expensive infrastructure, a lot of protective redundancy, and a lot of maintenance. Which means lots of local jobs, which may not turn out so bad in the short term.
- state_less 8y agoDistributed generation seems like it would make sense (with current tech). Italy and Spain could help here. Maybe you could go from Tunisia to Europe, but supplying African countries seems more attainable. It'd be nice if you could turn the energy into a gas like methane, pull CO2 out of the atmosphere in the process. Good for the atmosphere and you could transport gas over long distances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas
- pmwhite 8y agoI wonder if hydrogen is practical to transport in large quantities. My guess is no. Your idea of methane, if it could be done efficiently, seems more likely.
- sunstone 8y agoSo in the Sahara that would probably mean all solar and a few batteries. Wind turbines would have maintenance issues from the sand storms.
- ahje 8y agoI'm quite sure the availability of cheap energy would result in quite a boost for most countries around this complex. As a result their energy consumption would most likely increase a lot.