3 ms·

> you would look much less foolish if you read more than just the introduction to my notes; i did a great deal more math than that Perhaps, but I see nothing i

> you would look much less foolish if you read more than just the introduction to my notes; i did a great deal more math than that Perhaps, but I see nothing in your post that actually corrects for effective solar irradiation on Earth, or for the fact that half the Earth's surface is by definition not receiving any sunlight at any given time, or for the fact that most of the Earth is water and not land (although I suppose you dropping the 4 from the multiplier for the surface area is meant to account for that). In other words, at no point did I see anything that took into account the error I pointed out.

kragen 3y ago
you didn't point out any errors; maybe you noticed one and forgot to mention it. please let me know if so if you're interested in taking the capacity factor into account, which accounts for things like night, clouds, and oblique illumination, a number of my other notes in https://dercuano.github.io/topics/solar.html https://dercuano.github.io/topics/solar.html (linked from the bottom of my above-linked note) do that; for example in https://dercuano.github.io/notes/japan-energy-autarky.html https://dercuano.github.io/notes/japan-energy-autarky.html i calculated that energy autarky for japan, if purely solar, would require 5% of its land area and about 1.7 trillion euros of solar modules, taking into account all of those factors as well as panel efficiency. since then, the price has dropped by more than a factor of 2, but the land area required remains about the same, or slightly increased (floating that 5% of their land area on solar barges off the coast, instead of occupying precious land area, is also clearly feasible; it just isn't economically competitive, much like nuclear power) of course, the real-life solution also involves wind and grid-scale storage perhaps it goes without saying that very few places are as densely populated or as heavily industrialized as japan, so much smaller fractions of their land area would suffice
- kragen 3y ago
  > you didn't point out any errors; maybe you noticed one and forgot to mention it. please let me know if so i'm still waiting, it's been two days

kragen 3y ago

you didn't point out any errors; maybe you noticed one and forgot to mention it. please let me know if so if you're interested in taking the capacity factor into account, which accounts for things like night, clouds, and oblique illumination, a number of my other notes in https://dercuano.github.io/topics/solar.html https://dercuano.github.io/topics/solar.html (linked from the bottom of my above-linked note) do that; for example in https://dercuano.github.io/notes/japan-energy-autarky.html https://dercuano.github.io/notes/japan-energy-autarky.html i calculated that energy autarky for japan, if purely solar, would require 5% of its land area and about 1.7 trillion euros of solar modules, taking into account all of those factors as well as panel efficiency. since then, the price has dropped by more than a factor of 2, but the land area required remains about the same, or slightly increased (floating that 5% of their land area on solar barges off the coast, instead of occupying precious land area, is also clearly feasible; it just isn't economically competitive, much like nuclear power) of course, the real-life solution also involves wind and grid-scale storage perhaps it goes without saying that very few places are as densely populated or as heavily industrialized as japan, so much smaller fractions of their land area would suffice

kragen 3y ago
> you didn't point out any errors; maybe you noticed one and forgot to mention it. please let me know if so i'm still waiting, it's been two days