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And you would cause untold destruction to amazon rainforests, among other things. No, you can't just pave desert with panels and magically solve power generati
by p_l 5y ago
And you would cause untold destruction to amazon rainforests, among other things.
No, you can't just pave desert with panels and magically solve power generation without ugly environmental consequences, that doesn't work even in computer games.
- ben_w 5y ago> And you would cause untold destruction to amazon rainforests, among other things. Why would putting all the panels in a desert do that to a rainforest on a different continent? And how much of the Sahara do you think we’d need to cover in PV if for some strange reason we didn’t put any on rooftops, brownfield land, parking lots, car bodies, and (for most of the world) closer deserts? http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=area%20sahara%20%2F%20%28%28global%20power%20use%29%2F%281kw%2Fm%5E2%2A20%25%2A25%25%29%29 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=area%20sahara%20%2F%20%...
- p_l 5y agoBecause, surprisingly, various ecosystems including Amazon rainforests are dependant on sand picked by wind from Sahara. Ecology can be weirder than you think, and having intercontinental dependencies is surprisingly common.
- ben_w 5y agoSensitive enough that 0.5% land use change would do that?
- p_l 5y agoI don't remember the exact numbers from studies, but EU-funded research in that area suggested vastly higher numbers as part of removing fossil fuel dependency
- ben_w 5y agoI suggest following the Wolfram Alpha link I gave above. My assumptions, to explain the magic numbers visible in that formula, are 20% efficient and 25% capacity factor. (And the other person was actually saying electricity, which is what WA is inferring in that calculation)