3 ms·
At Canadian solar intensity levels? I'd be surprised if it's only 3.5x. You can't count on average intensity for the year either, you really need to look at the
by eloff 8y ago
At Canadian solar intensity levels? I'd be surprised if it's only 3.5x. You can't count on average intensity for the year either, you really need to look at the lowest intensity and go with that number. You can use battery storage, but you are not going to be storing electricity from the summer for the winter.
Anyway even at 10x, Canada has a LOT of land, that's totally viable and wouldn't even make a dent in land-use compared to say agriculture.
- martythemaniak 8y agoYeah, it's probably a conservative number. But the Toronto area (~20% of Canada's population) would not be much different from Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc. And yeah, Canada has a lot of land, but once we ask Canadians "How would you like to chop down 5 Torontos worth of forest to cover them in silicon panels and make it into a lifeless desert?", then maybe some people will reconsider the relative merits of nuclear.
- eloff 8y ago5 Torontos worth of forest is nothing. In BC for just the last two years we lost forest half the size of Switzerland to fires. If you think how much land is cleared and maintained clear for agriculture in Canada, 5 Torontos is a rounding error. Land is cheap and abundant it's a non-issue for the kind of area we'd need to even power the whole world 100% on solar. Habit losses would be more than made up for by not continuing to accelerate climate change.
- earthboundkid 8y agoAlso, you can put solar panels on the roof of buildings in actual Toronto and not have to lose any additional footprint.