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> _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] 26
by 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 agoIn the context of powering an entire continent, it's still small.
- WJW 6y agoThat'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 agoSpending 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 agoI assume at that point you just buy the factories.
- stickfigure 6y agoAt that scale you have to buy the factories that make the factories.
- dumbfounder 6y ago@mywittyname Nay, you MAKE the factories.
- wolco5 6y agoAnd increase the base price of materials to outset gains but hopefully create a scale for materials that reduces price over time.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- pedro_hab 6y agoIn 2010, expenditures on energy totaled over US$6 trillion, or about 10% of the world gross domestic product (GDP). 58T is the opposite of pretty reasonable. Even if you could assume it wouldn't need any maintenance, which you can't, it's too much money for anything.
- fastball 6y agoNot sure why you're being downvoted, you are exactly correct. 60T is 10x more than global energy expenditure in 2010, and that's just for the Western Hemisphere, which I'm fairly certain expends significantly less energy then the Eastern. Edit: just checked, and I was correct. In 2010, Western Hemi energy demand was ~130 PBtu, while Easter Hemi demand was ~330 PBtu[1], or 2.5x more. So at this same price point, it would be 210T to power the whole world with solar, or 50% more than global GDP in 2019 (but only using 2010 energy consumption numbers, so it's actually much more). And of course you'd need to keep adding more solar as demand went up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#/media/File:World_primary_energy_consumption_in_quadrillion_Btu_by_region.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#/medi...
- WJW 6y agoYou wouldn't have to keep spending that amount every year though. A solar panel lasts for several decades and maintenance (especially at scale) is way less than a percent per year. I included 30 year depreciation in my calculations for a reason.
- fastball 6y agoBut is that maintenance lower than the existing maintenance burden? Even then, this is still a wildly conservative estimate in terms of price. For example, you're also not taking into account any of the things that can't currently be easily electrified, such as passenger jets.
- WJW 6y agoIt'd need to be lower than the existing maintenance plus fuel burden of course, since sunshine is free but oil and coal are not. In any case, if you can't change the power source (as you say, passengers jets are pretty tricky to electrify) then you don't have to build solar panels for those so the upfront cost would go down. Thinking about it more it would seem likely that as overall oil consumption falls, the relative cost of oil derivatives like jet fuel would go up because the advantages of scale decrease from what they are now. It's a pretty fascinating subject since solar prices seem to follow a Moore's law type price evolution at the moment while oil will get cheaper as well while demand decreases. Presumably there is a balance point somewhere?
- pedro_hab 6y agoI wouldn't call it small, I'd call impractical at best. If thats small, how can you describe the size of nuclear power plants required to do the same job? And power plants would be way smaller and aren't impractical.
- hcurtiss 6y agoAgreed. And covering that amount of land mass would have profound environmental impacts.
- aeternum 6y agoSolar efficiency has improved significantly since that stat as panels went from 13-14% to 18-20%. Which brings land area down to more like 10k square miles.
- ben_w 6y agoAye, but op has misremembered. A Texas-sizes PV farm with 20% efficient cells, and assuming 25% duty cycle for night and winter, would produce ~35 terawatts. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=texas%20area%20%2A%201000%20W%2Fm%5E2%20%2A%2020%25%20%2A%2025%25 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=texas%20area%20%2A%2010... Worldwide power consumption is about 18 TW, electricity is about 3 TW. And current PV looks like it’s good for 20+ years so you’re getting that power at about $3 trillion per year. The only reference I can find to current energy costs is this from Wikipedia: """In 2010, expenditures on energy totaled over US$6 trillion, or about 10% of the world gross domestic product (GDP)""" - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption On that basis, you’d be getting roughly twice as many exajoules for roughly half as many USD.
- hoten 6y agoAlso, you wouldn't have to power as many Texans. More for everyone else.
- newyankee 6y agoMost PVs nowadays are guaranteed for 25 years and expected to last well north of 30 years. Some Chinese cos give 30 year warranties. BYD on its site also mention 50 year lifespans.
- throwaway894345 6y agoSo we could halve our energy expenses ... but we aren't doing it? Why not?
- ben_w 6y agoWe are doing it. PV is growing as fast as people can build factories and install panels. (Also: Quarter of the expenses if you keep power use the same: It’s half cost for double the energy)
- throwaway894345 6y agoAh, interesting. So are these PV workers in crazy high demand then? I feel like I haven't heard about the kind of wild growth in the PV industry that one would expect from such a significant endeavor?
- rajansaini 6y agoI'm not at all familiar with this domain, but wouldn't this kind of farm be incredibly vulnerable to a foreign threat?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- notJim 6y agoFrom wikipedia: The plant will be able to store solar energy in the form of heated molten salt, allowing for production of electricity into the night. Phase 1 comes with a full- load molten salt storage capacity of 3 hours. Noor II, commissioned in 2018, and Noor III, commissioned in January 2019, store energy for up to eight hours. Very cool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouarzazate_Solar_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouarzazate_Solar_Power_Station
- jgalt212 6y agoIndeed. If the entire planet resided in TX, each person would get 1100 sq feet to themselves. That's a very large 1BR, good sized 2BR apt.