Why Solar Power Sucks

Have you ever wondered how many solar panels we would need to power the world? I mean, liberals are always touting solar power as the cure for our energy problems. Well, The Land Art Generator Initiative, has done some math, and determined that based on today's usage, we would need 366,375 square kilometers of land, with nothing but solar panels, to meet today's energy needs. That means you would have to cover every square inch of the state of New York and every inch of the state of Minnesota.

How much would we need to meet future energy needs? Well, they have determined that we would need 496,805 square kilometers, with every square inch covered in solar panels. Just how big is that? Well, you would need to cover the states of Ohio, New York, Florida, Massachusetts, Vermont and Delaware, as well as the cities of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Denver and Topeka, as well as another 47 sq kilometers. Wow, seems practical.

The site makes these comparisons:


Compare it to highways:

At a density ratio of 800km per 1000 square kilometers and a total length of 75,440km, the overall area of the US interstate highway system (constructed entirely between 1956 and 1991 – 35 years) is 94,000 square kilometers, or 20% of the overall required area for the world. The US also consumes about 20% of the world’s energy. (if the efficiency of conversion from solar to electricity was 100%, the area of USA highway would be equal to exactly that required to run the world). Indeed if every nation were to embark on a state program of the scale of the US highway system we could be finished with the required infrastructure in 20-40 years.

Compare it to golf courses:

The typical golf course covers about a square kilometer. We have 40,000 of them around the world being meticulously maintained. If the same could be said for solar farms we would be almost 10% of the way there.
Below is an illustration showing how that would look if you spread the panels across the planet, based on weather panels, and energy usage.

5 comments:

Artfldgr said...

Guess what else?
they take more energy to produce than they produce in their 20 year lifetime... AND they cause HUGE amounts of waste with a lot of clorine polution. polysilicon requires some nasty processes.

Anonymous said...

I think you miss the point of that page. Considering we're talking about powering the ENTIRE WORLD, AND most of those power plants will be in unused desert lands, then that's actually GOOD.

Nifty Nick said...

I did not miss the point,I understand the scope, and no, it is NOT good. Consider how much smaller a foot print nuclear power plants would use. Consider cold fusion. Solar power is not efficent, and it is NOT clean either.

Anonymous said...

You have the point. But there is another alternative solar power. Which is Solar Power Generator . I think this one seems so practical instead of that solar panels.

Anonymous said...

Wow. I'm so lucky. I built my own nuclear reactor in my house. Now, I'm completely off the grid. Don't tell my garbage man that I just put the used nuclear fuel in my trash. This makes the whole thing nearly free to operate. It's great.

Oh, wait I can't really do that, but I can put solar panels on my roof meaning that they use no land that isn't already used. And with today's technology, they use less energy than it costs to produce them, not more, and they're getting better every year. Not the most cost effective choice yet, bu with the current rate of improvement, they will be in about 5-10 years.

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