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>Another showed how much land we would need to dedicate to solar panels to power the country (also not much). Indeed. I seem to recall seeing that you could p

by na85 6y ago

>Another showed how much land we would need to dedicate to solar panels to power the country (also not much). Indeed. I seem to recall seeing that you could power the entire western hemisphere with just a Texas-sized solar farm.

Allower 6y ago
When did Texas become small?
willis936 6y ago
And if power demand increases another order of magnitude? I don’t think anyone seriously argues that 100% of power should come from solar; it’s just a demonstration of relative quantities.
- ben_w 6y ago
  We’re only four of those away from having to choose between a Dyson swarm or ending growth.
  - willis936 6y ago
    I think after two we would probably be able to make our own fusion reactors of whatever size desired. This would avoid having to waste precious terrestrial area or deal with space power transmission.
    - ben_w 6y ago
      The origin of the power isn’t the only thing that forces you to make this choice. If fusion (or anything else) adds four orders of magnitude (~200 PW) of new power at ground level, the new global average blackbody equilibrium temperature would increase from about +15 C to about +70 C.
huehehue 6y ago
> _just_ a Texas-sized solar farm Have you seen Texas? Boy howdy. That's 23,155 Noor Power Stations[0]. Scaling costs linearly, that's $58 trillion[1]. [0] 268597 (tx) / 11.6 (noor) square miles [1] $2.5b * 23,155
- na85 6y ago
  In the context of powering an entire continent, it's still small.
- WJW 6y ago
  That's big, but so is the western hemisphere. 58 trillion USD to power the entire western hemisphere seems... Pretty reasonable? Assuming it depreciates over 30 years that's about 2 trillion per year, or "only" about double what the USA spends yearly on its military.
  - sbierwagen 6y ago
    Spending 58 trillion on solar panels would probably induce some pretty good economies of scale, too. What kind of volume discounts do you get on a 15 digit purchase order?
    - mywittyname 6y ago
      I assume at that point you just buy the factories.
      - stickfigure 6y ago
        At that scale you have to buy the factories that make the factories.
    - dumbfounder 6y ago
      @mywittyname Nay, you MAKE the factories.
    - wolco5 6y ago
pedrocr 6y ago
Back of the envelope tells me you can power the whole world's current energy needs, not just electricity, with an area that's 3/4 of Texas: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B3Vtm-bk8NIntYc8mZRwcpikF-U2VkBDOLt8PaDjR1c/ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B3Vtm-bk8NIntYc8mZRw... Getting 10x our total energy would only require half the Sahara. We have plenty of deserted place for this if that's what we wanted to do. Transporting and storing that energy is more the issue, which is why hydro/wind/solar mixes aided by batteries/nuclear are probably what we'll be focusing on for the next few decades.
- azinman2 6y ago
  You’re missing the fact that that area you’re trying to put panels on is not perfectly flat, and existing animals/plants/rivers live there.
  - vagrantJin 6y ago
    Please, feel free to use the deserts in Africa. I can assure you, there are hardly any animals and rivers there. Plenty of man power to do maintenance work too and the sun shines bright like a diamond.
fastball 6y ago
Or we could do nuclear instead for a vastly smaller footprint.
- na85 6y ago
  Of course we could, but it's a thought exercise.
  - fastball 6y ago
    Yes, and my comment is an extension of the thought exercise...
- jodrellblank 6y ago
  For some values of "could". If your country hasn't built a working public nuclear power plant in several decades, at what point should we switch from "could" to "couldn't"? The UK built several in the 1960s, now we have one in progress built by France, which is 10x more expensive, overbudget, delayed, and I wouldn't be certain of it ever being finished until I see it. Last time I looked, the USA was in a similar position. Hasn't started building one in at least 40 years[1] and the one I saw on that list finishing in 1990 (Seabrook) I thought might be more recent, says it was permitted in 1976, took 14 years to get Unit 1 working and Unit 2 was cancelled due to delays, and cost overruns. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. The current 92 of them provided 20% of the USA's electricity generation. So you'd need another 368 to do the other 80%. How long will they take to build, 15 years each? 55 years to go all nuclear, assuming you build ten at a time. How do you get from "we haven't built a nuclear power plant in 40 years" to "we could build 10 at a time continuously for the next half-century" in a convincing way? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States#Nuclear_power_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St...
  - exclusiv 6y ago
    > "we haven't built a nuclear power plant in 40 years" to "we could build 10 at a time continuously for the next half-century" in a convincing way? The same way we were like let's go to the moon, build the transcontinental railroad or some nuclear bombs. Everything is a hell of a lot easier and possible if you have alignment. As with most technical projects, the technical problem is usually not the barrier to achievement.
s1dev 6y ago
Of course you wouldn't actually put them in Texas, but since this seems to be missed a lot: It hails reasonably frequently in the Midwest (incl. Texas)
- freeone3000 6y ago
  Right, you'd put them in the desert. New Mexico and Arizona.
AngryData 6y ago
The problem with such a figure is people assume that means we would become energy sustainable, but there are tons of non-electrical energy usages that also need to be replaced with electrical processes. And unfortunately those processes that aren't electrical already are that way usually because it is way less efficient, and thus requires significantly more electricity generation to make up for the loss in efficiency. Fertilizer production for example uses lots of natural gas, replacing that natural gas with an electro-chemical process is possible and we know how to do it, but it also means the energy requirements rise nearly 10x as much, thus requiring significantly more panels to make up for it. And that is the same for the majority of chemical reagent production and material processing methods. So while im all for solar and hope we build tons of it, I don't see it becoming the primary energy generation source of the world any time soon. The solar farms that we would need will be the biggest man made wonders in the world, which I don't see as all that feasible in our economic and political environment.
- triceratops 6y ago
  Could we continue using fossil fuels for processes like that and use excess solar and wind for carbon capture to offset emissions from those processes?

by na85 6y ago

Allower 6y ago

When did Texas become small?

willis936 6y ago

And if power demand increases another order of magnitude? I don’t think anyone seriously argues that 100% of power should come from solar; it’s just a demonstration of relative quantities.

ben_w 6y ago
We’re only four of those away from having to choose between a Dyson swarm or ending growth.
- willis936 6y ago
  I think after two we would probably be able to make our own fusion reactors of whatever size desired. This would avoid having to waste precious terrestrial area or deal with space power transmission.
  - ben_w 6y ago
    The origin of the power isn’t the only thing that forces you to make this choice. If fusion (or anything else) adds four orders of magnitude (~200 PW) of new power at ground level, the new global average blackbody equilibrium temperature would increase from about +15 C to about +70 C.

huehehue 6y ago

> _just_ a Texas-sized solar farm Have you seen Texas? Boy howdy. That's 23,155 Noor Power Stations[0]. Scaling costs linearly, that's $58 trillion[1]. [0] 268597 (tx) / 11.6 (noor) square miles [1] $2.5b * 23,155

na85 6y ago
In the context of powering an entire continent, it's still small.
WJW 6y ago
That's big, but so is the western hemisphere. 58 trillion USD to power the entire western hemisphere seems... Pretty reasonable? Assuming it depreciates over 30 years that's about 2 trillion per year, or "only" about double what the USA spends yearly on its military.
- sbierwagen 6y ago
  Spending 58 trillion on solar panels would probably induce some pretty good economies of scale, too. What kind of volume discounts do you get on a 15 digit purchase order?
  - mywittyname 6y ago
    I assume at that point you just buy the factories.
    - stickfigure 6y ago
      At that scale you have to buy the factories that make the factories.
  - dumbfounder 6y ago
    @mywittyname Nay, you MAKE the factories.
  - wolco5 6y ago

pedrocr 6y ago

Back of the envelope tells me you can power the whole world's current energy needs, not just electricity, with an area that's 3/4 of Texas: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B3Vtm-bk8NIntYc8mZRwcpikF-U2VkBDOLt8PaDjR1c/ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B3Vtm-bk8NIntYc8mZRw... Getting 10x our total energy would only require half the Sahara. We have plenty of deserted place for this if that's what we wanted to do. Transporting and storing that energy is more the issue, which is why hydro/wind/solar mixes aided by batteries/nuclear are probably what we'll be focusing on for the next few decades.

azinman2 6y ago
You’re missing the fact that that area you’re trying to put panels on is not perfectly flat, and existing animals/plants/rivers live there.
- vagrantJin 6y ago
  Please, feel free to use the deserts in Africa. I can assure you, there are hardly any animals and rivers there. Plenty of man power to do maintenance work too and the sun shines bright like a diamond.

fastball 6y ago

Or we could do nuclear instead for a vastly smaller footprint.

na85 6y ago
Of course we could, but it's a thought exercise.
- fastball 6y ago
  Yes, and my comment is an extension of the thought exercise...
jodrellblank 6y ago
For some values of "could". If your country hasn't built a working public nuclear power plant in several decades, at what point should we switch from "could" to "couldn't"? The UK built several in the 1960s, now we have one in progress built by France, which is 10x more expensive, overbudget, delayed, and I wouldn't be certain of it ever being finished until I see it. Last time I looked, the USA was in a similar position. Hasn't started building one in at least 40 years[1] and the one I saw on that list finishing in 1990 (Seabrook) I thought might be more recent, says it was permitted in 1976, took 14 years to get Unit 1 working and Unit 2 was cancelled due to delays, and cost overruns. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. The current 92 of them provided 20% of the USA's electricity generation. So you'd need another 368 to do the other 80%. How long will they take to build, 15 years each? 55 years to go all nuclear, assuming you build ten at a time. How do you get from "we haven't built a nuclear power plant in 40 years" to "we could build 10 at a time continuously for the next half-century" in a convincing way? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States#Nuclear_power_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St...
- exclusiv 6y ago
  > "we haven't built a nuclear power plant in 40 years" to "we could build 10 at a time continuously for the next half-century" in a convincing way? The same way we were like let's go to the moon, build the transcontinental railroad or some nuclear bombs. Everything is a hell of a lot easier and possible if you have alignment. As with most technical projects, the technical problem is usually not the barrier to achievement.

s1dev 6y ago

Of course you wouldn't actually put them in Texas, but since this seems to be missed a lot: It hails reasonably frequently in the Midwest (incl. Texas)

freeone3000 6y ago
Right, you'd put them in the desert. New Mexico and Arizona.

AngryData 6y ago

The problem with such a figure is people assume that means we would become energy sustainable, but there are tons of non-electrical energy usages that also need to be replaced with electrical processes. And unfortunately those processes that aren't electrical already are that way usually because it is way less efficient, and thus requires significantly more electricity generation to make up for the loss in efficiency. Fertilizer production for example uses lots of natural gas, replacing that natural gas with an electro-chemical process is possible and we know how to do it, but it also means the energy requirements rise nearly 10x as much, thus requiring significantly more panels to make up for it. And that is the same for the majority of chemical reagent production and material processing methods. So while im all for solar and hope we build tons of it, I don't see it becoming the primary energy generation source of the world any time soon. The solar farms that we would need will be the biggest man made wonders in the world, which I don't see as all that feasible in our economic and political environment.

triceratops 6y ago
Could we continue using fossil fuels for processes like that and use excess solar and wind for carbon capture to offset emissions from those processes?