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Ivanpah is solar thermal. Nobody is advocating for solar thermal, photovoltaic has decisively won.
by bryanlarsen 6mo ago
Ivanpah is solar thermal. Nobody is advocating for solar thermal, photovoltaic has decisively won.
- foolfoolz 6mo agomount signal, the largest PV plant in california makes 1,200GW/hrs per year. it would still take ~15 copies of mount signal for a single diablo canyon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Signal_Solar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Signal_Solar my whole point is solar is great, but the insane scale it requires to get reasonable output is really underestimated. you would need solar fields 100sqmi big. probably many of them. solar alone won’t be the future of humanities energy needs because it’s not efficient enough. we should still keep building solar. but if we aren’t building nuclear too its not enough growth
- Toutouxc 6mo agoThe other day I calculated what it would take to run my entire country on pure solar, assuming magical infinite storage capacity. Even here in Central Europe, the required area for all the panels was a pretty insignificant number that, even if built as a single huge circle, would easily fit in many different places.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- wortelefant 6mo agoDid you ever calculate the cost for a hypothetical battery that could keep solar power available whenever the sun does not shine? This is where nuclear, well, shines
- beams_of_light 6mo agoWhat truly are humanity’s energy needs, though? Do we need Facebook? Do we need Instagram? Do we need deepfakes and AI music?
- bryanlarsen 6mo ago100 square miles isn't big, the US is 3.5 million square miles. It's also the size of a nuclear plants emergency planning zone, so sizes are comparable.