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NREL estimates 14,000,000 acres or 22,000 square miles to go 100% solar, or the entire Mojave desert.
by ch4s3 5y ago
NREL estimates 14,000,000 acres or 22,000 square miles to go 100% solar, or the entire Mojave desert.
- pfdietz 5y agoSo, about 1.4% of the total area of agricultural land in the US.
- ch4s3 5y agoYeah, which is a ton. You necessarily need to put it somewhere sunny, connectable to transmission, serviceable by roads, you need water, and it can't be too cold or hot for reasons of efficiency. The space and logistics aren't trivial.
- pfdietz 5y agoIt's not an unreasonable amount of land to power an entire country. I mean, does anyone complain that agriculture is impossible because it uses 72 times that much land?
- ncmncm 5y agoGiven that solar can be installed on existing agricultural land, both increasing crop yield and reducing water use, land for solar is not even a small worry.
- pfdietz 5y agoIt's also smaller than the land area currently used by fossil fuel production (1.3% of US land area.)