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Also there would be national security concerns. You can't just put all solar panels in Sahara because some local African dictator or strong man can just decide

Also there would be national security concerns. You can't just put all solar panels in Sahara because some local African dictator or strong man can just decide to sabotage or just simply turn off the electricity as a power play. Each country would have to have these panels installed on its own territory to be able to have any sovereignty and not be easily blackmailed. You can't put all your eggs in one basket, especially if the basket is an area of Earth where there is very little law and order and constant revolutions, uprisings, terrorism and general political instability.

mrpopo 8y ago
You can't just put all solar panels in Sahara because of so many more important reasons, mainly energy transportation. Power lines will never be that efficient, and battery storage would be prohibitively expensive (and I am not even sure there would be enough rare metals on earth to build that many batteries). We worked hand in hand with middle east dictators for centuries now, to get their oil. Oil is interesting because it is cheap to transport (pipelines).
pjc50 8y ago
Also counts against nuclear reactors: do you really want to give the same strongmen and dictators the first step towards nuclear weapons?
- richardknop 8y ago
  Well, I mean we shouldn't export nuclear tech to really unstable third world countries. That's obviously a bad idea. But I see no problem in building nuclear plants within borders of western stable democracies. I was replying to a suggestion that it would be trivial to generate all of the world electricity by covering Sahara with solar panels. Was just pointing out how silly that sort of thinking is.
  - vbadams 8y ago
    Western democracies won't be stable for much longer. I give it 10-15 years before we have civil strife due to demographic changes. If we didn't foolishly throw away our high trust society we could have nuclear power and many other nice things. It seems diversity isn't a strength after all.
  - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
    So how do you the third world obtaining power?

mrpopo 8y ago

You can't just put all solar panels in Sahara because of so many more important reasons, mainly energy transportation. Power lines will never be that efficient, and battery storage would be prohibitively expensive (and I am not even sure there would be enough rare metals on earth to build that many batteries). We worked hand in hand with middle east dictators for centuries now, to get their oil. Oil is interesting because it is cheap to transport (pipelines).

pjc50 8y ago

Also counts against nuclear reactors: do you really want to give the same strongmen and dictators the first step towards nuclear weapons?

richardknop 8y ago
Well, I mean we shouldn't export nuclear tech to really unstable third world countries. That's obviously a bad idea. But I see no problem in building nuclear plants within borders of western stable democracies. I was replying to a suggestion that it would be trivial to generate all of the world electricity by covering Sahara with solar panels. Was just pointing out how silly that sort of thinking is.
- vbadams 8y ago
  Western democracies won't be stable for much longer. I give it 10-15 years before we have civil strife due to demographic changes. If we didn't foolishly throw away our high trust society we could have nuclear power and many other nice things. It seems diversity isn't a strength after all.
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  So how do you the third world obtaining power?