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You didn't do any back of the envelope estimate. "so just about double we have now" would require what? Let's look at this chart of US electricity production.

You didn't do any back of the envelope estimate. "so just about double we have now" would require what? Let's look at this chart of US electricity production. [0] It took us about 30 years to double our electricity generation in the US from 1975 to 2005, but since then it has largely remain flat. So how quickly do you estimate that can happen? Then you have to look at renewable production separately since that's what you have to scale. What rate of renewable production is that going to take? 0. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us-generation-capacity-and-sales.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...

Robotbeat 5y ago
From the 50s to the 70s, we doubled our electricity about once per decade, so it’s not even greater than historical capabilities to do it in one or two decades. As I showed above (sorry, I edited the post after you commented…), we’d need less land for solar than we currently use just for ethanol (which we don’t need). The calculations take longer than just a quick HN post, but it’s not hard if you just add up steel, fertilizer, plastics, gasoline (only takes about 10kWh of electricity to displace a gallon of gasoline), diesel, heating with 3COP heat pumps (higher is feasible, and northern climates should use ground source), etc.