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You could power the entire US using less than 1% of farmland for solar. I can’t see this being a huge issue?

by jncfhnb 3y ago

antisthenes 3y ago
It's not. There's also enough barren desert space just in Nevada to power the entire continent of North America.
- logifail 3y ago
  > There's also enough barren desert space just in Nevada to power the entire continent of North America. Q: How do you transport that across "the entire contient of North America"?
  - brk 3y ago
    A: Wires It really is a solved problem.
    - dzhiurgis 3y ago
      But will it impact 0.0000001% of native desert fauna? Perhaps we should keep burning coal then.
    - logifail 3y ago
      > It really is a solved problem. <chuckle> "Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid." https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/07/ai-data-centers-power/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/07/ai-data-c... "Energy experts and analysts have warned for years now that America’s power grid will not be able to accommodate the explosive growth in electricity demand it faces without a huge increase in generation capacity." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2024/03/11/green-energy-disaster-grid-renewables-power/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2024/03/11/green-ener... "The U.S. electric grid is often described as a vast, synchronized machine — a network of wires carrying electricity from power plants across the country into our homes [...] in reality, there is no single U.S. grid. There are three — one in the West, one in the East and one in Texas — that only connect at a few points and share little power between them. Those grids are further divided into a patchwork of operators with competing interests. That makes it hard to build the long-distance power lines needed to transport wind and solar nationwide." "Many spots with the best sun and wind are far from cities and the existing grid. To make the plan work, the nation would need thousands of miles of new high-voltage transmission lines — large power lines that would span multiple grid regions." https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/12/climate/us-electric-grid-energy-transition.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/12/climate/us-el...
      - jncfhnb 3y ago
        Thousands of miles of transmission lines seems reasonable though? We have hundreds of thousands already.
        logifail 3y ago
        > Thousands of miles of transmission lines seems reasonable though? Step 1: Stop worrying about coming up with an idea for a startup... Step 2: Build "thousands of miles of transmission lines" Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit!
        jncfhnb 3y ago
        What an irritating reply. 1) We already build thousands of transmission line miles per year, so describing this as unreasonable is just out of touch 2) the ??? step is just regular transmission utility business. There’s no ambiguity here.
  - Terr_ 3y ago
    A bigger issue would be how you handle not all of America being in sunlight at the same time, or what happens When that section happens to be freakishly cloudy.
  - johnea 3y ago
    Electricity, unlike oil, can flow through a transmission line. Leaks are not an eco disaster...
    - toast0 3y ago
      When the electricity leaks and starts a wildfire, that's a disaster.
      - max-ibel 3y ago
        the high voltage lines are probably not causing wildfires; it's the low voltage wooden poles that do.
  - antisthenes 3y ago
    For starters, you could power Nevada and the neighboring states with mostly solar. Mexico has their own deserts to power their country with solar and Canada is already well ahead on renewables through hydropower. Don't worry about premature optimization.
  - aurizon 3y ago
    very high voltage transmission lines do this well.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
Axsuul 3y ago
Transmission is a huge challenge – you can't just generate solar energy in one place. You need to generate it near the actual consumers.
- Robotbeat 3y ago
  1) You actually can, as high voltage DC transmission lines have shown in China (and some places in the US), where you can transmit for literally thousands of kilometers. Transmission is a political problem, not a technical one. Which doesn't make it easier to solve (it's harder to solve political problems, as a rule), but your sort of argument contributes to making it harder politically, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. 2) Making it near consumers makes little difference to overall land-use. Yes, you can make more solar power from the same area in desert than in more temperate climates, but you're still talking a very small amount of land.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  Doesn’t seem like a contradiction?

You could power the entire US using less than 1% of farmland for solar. I can’t see this being a huge issue?

antisthenes 3y ago

It's not. There's also enough barren desert space just in Nevada to power the entire continent of North America.

logifail 3y ago
> There's also enough barren desert space just in Nevada to power the entire continent of North America. Q: How do you transport that across "the entire contient of North America"?
- brk 3y ago
  A: Wires It really is a solved problem.
  - dzhiurgis 3y ago
    But will it impact 0.0000001% of native desert fauna? Perhaps we should keep burning coal then.
  - logifail 3y ago
    > It really is a solved problem. <chuckle> "Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid." https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/07/ai-data-centers-power/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/03/07/ai-data-c... "Energy experts and analysts have warned for years now that America’s power grid will not be able to accommodate the explosive growth in electricity demand it faces without a huge increase in generation capacity." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2024/03/11/green-energy-disaster-grid-renewables-power/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2024/03/11/green-ener... "The U.S. electric grid is often described as a vast, synchronized machine — a network of wires carrying electricity from power plants across the country into our homes [...] in reality, there is no single U.S. grid. There are three — one in the West, one in the East and one in Texas — that only connect at a few points and share little power between them. Those grids are further divided into a patchwork of operators with competing interests. That makes it hard to build the long-distance power lines needed to transport wind and solar nationwide." "Many spots with the best sun and wind are far from cities and the existing grid. To make the plan work, the nation would need thousands of miles of new high-voltage transmission lines — large power lines that would span multiple grid regions." https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/12/climate/us-electric-grid-energy-transition.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/12/climate/us-el...
    - jncfhnb 3y ago
      Thousands of miles of transmission lines seems reasonable though? We have hundreds of thousands already.
      - logifail 3y ago
        > Thousands of miles of transmission lines seems reasonable though? Step 1: Stop worrying about coming up with an idea for a startup... Step 2: Build "thousands of miles of transmission lines" Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit!
        jncfhnb 3y ago
        What an irritating reply. 1) We already build thousands of transmission line miles per year, so describing this as unreasonable is just out of touch 2) the ??? step is just regular transmission utility business. There’s no ambiguity here.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  A bigger issue would be how you handle not all of America being in sunlight at the same time, or what happens When that section happens to be freakishly cloudy.
- johnea 3y ago
  Electricity, unlike oil, can flow through a transmission line. Leaks are not an eco disaster...
  - toast0 3y ago
    When the electricity leaks and starts a wildfire, that's a disaster.
    - max-ibel 3y ago
      the high voltage lines are probably not causing wildfires; it's the low voltage wooden poles that do.
- antisthenes 3y ago
  For starters, you could power Nevada and the neighboring states with mostly solar. Mexico has their own deserts to power their country with solar and Canada is already well ahead on renewables through hydropower. Don't worry about premature optimization.
- aurizon 3y ago
  very high voltage transmission lines do this well.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

Axsuul 3y ago

Transmission is a huge challenge – you can't just generate solar energy in one place. You need to generate it near the actual consumers.

Robotbeat 3y ago
1) You actually can, as high voltage DC transmission lines have shown in China (and some places in the US), where you can transmit for literally thousands of kilometers. Transmission is a political problem, not a technical one. Which doesn't make it easier to solve (it's harder to solve political problems, as a rule), but your sort of argument contributes to making it harder politically, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. 2) Making it near consumers makes little difference to overall land-use. Yes, you can make more solar power from the same area in desert than in more temperate climates, but you're still talking a very small amount of land.
jncfhnb 3y ago
Doesn’t seem like a contradiction?