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Elon musk made a point in a recent talk, the entire demand of the USA could be satisfied with a 100x100 square miles of solar panels. Thinking in those terms, y

• ncmncm 4y ago
  There is a video debunking that: 10,000 square miles, to start with. But really, a fair bit more than that. Or would be, except we have wind and hydro. And even nukes and geothermal. It will honestly take one hell of a lot of panels, any way you count them. But that just hammers home how much we are still spending every day on coal, oil, and gas. We will spend less when most of our power comes from the panels, even with the capital cost of the panels figured in.
• guerrilla 4y ago
  Elon Musk lies a lot, not sure why you didn't validate that before parroting it because it's definitely false.
• 8bitsrule 4y ago
  Not sure (it's been a long time) but I think that a figure like that (a square 200 miles on a side) arose long ago based on a constant insolation (so, spread around the world, not one location) and 100% capture(??). (For world electricity use only, based on usage at that time.)
• quickthrower2 4y ago
  Even if 100 by 100 is correct and it isn’t more that is an insane engineering project, and a lot of land. More than Lebanon, for example.
  • pjc50 4y ago
    Alternatively, covering less than half the car parks in the US with solar roofs. "A 2011 study by the University of California, estimated there are upwards of 800m parking spaces in the US, covering about 25,000 square miles of land." https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/sep/27/cities-eliminating-car-parks-parking https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/sep/27/cities-elimin...