Not even close. People have run the numbers. It is approximately 15,000 square miles. That is a square 125 miles on a side. I have seen other estimates that put it at 10,000 square miles (a square 100 miles on a side). Storage and distribution are other issues but those are the numbers. It is an academic exercise, however, since our power will, in all probability, continue to be generated from multiple sources for the foreseeable future.
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35097.pdf
Regarding the requirement for replacing all autos with EVs, those numbers have also been looked at. We would need approximately 1T kWhs of additional power (per year). This is approximately 25% more than the 4T kWhs we currently generate. Essentially, we have about 20 years or so (maybe more like 30 years, gas cars sold 10 years from now may be on the road for 20 years) to gradually ramp up power production by 25% or so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blueblaze
Funny! And it makes exactly as as much sense as setting them up under a 100 mile blanket of atmosphere!
If anybody ever bothered to do the math, they would discover that solar cells are so inefficient that it would take a solar farm the size of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico to replace our CURRENT electrical needs -- not to mention all those electric cars they want us charging in our garages every night by 2035.
The Sun literally rains more energy on our planet every day that mankind has consumed since the beginning of time. If only we had a bucket to catch it! NASA actually engineered that bucket back in the 60's, when solar cells were half as efficient as they are today -- put them on a satellite and beam the energy back to earth as microwaves. The idea went nowhere.
In fact, we've known how to end petrochemical electricity generation for 60 years, but for some unknown reason, "Climate Change" demands that we destroy the ecology of entire states rather than build a bucket to capture all that free energy raining down a mere 100 miles from here -- straight up, where the sun always shines and there are no hail storms.
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