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Nuclear power plants can be made to be very safe and reliable. Which is why we continue to produce a few of them every year.
Only in the military or with massive governmental support. In the US no company will build a plant without government guarantees protecting them from capital cost risk.
One could argue that the world, as we know it, has always been 100% solar. Every bit of energy has been derived from the sun in one way or another. As far as PV energy, I think it's an ultimate goal but a diversified portfolio of energy sources and storage would be prudent. There are some locations that do not receive much sun radiation; therefore solar would not be a viable solution without long transmission and storage.
Personally, I think the third-world countries can skip a lot of the polluting steps to industrialize by jumping to cheaper and more sustainable solutions. For instance, many African and south Asian countries could jump to solar and bypass coal power plants.
One could argue that the world, as we know it, has always been 100% solar. Every bit of energy has been derived from the sun in one way or another. As far as PV energy, I think it's an ultimate goal but a diversified portfolio of energy sources and storage would be prudent. There are some locations that do not receive much sun radiation; therefore solar would not be a viable solution without long transmission and storage.
Personally, I think the third-world countries can skip a lot of the polluting steps to industrialize by jumping to cheaper and more sustainable solutions. For instance, many African and south Asian countries could jump to solar and bypass coal power plants.
The sun and earth bound nuclear energy are the only two sources of energy that have ever been on earth.
Solar is the answer...........it's obvious. It only has to be made accessible to the masses with technology, and there is no technology more tried and true than silicon based technology. It get cheaper and more capable over time.
We need a storage solution, and that is coming fast!!!!!
How large would solar panels footprint be if we were 100% solar with current technology? Any studies on the impact of shading from the panel array? Does removing energy for solar sourced electricity with solar panels impact the earth surface temperature etc?
How large would solar panels footprint be if we were 100% solar with current technology? Any studies on the impact of shading from the panel array? Does removing energy for solar sourced electricity with solar panels impact the earth surface temperature etc?
You follow, this is more of a concept discussion, than any sort of direct proposal?
And as DC noted, a mix would be desirable -- playing towards various areas strengths. Wind in some places, Hydro and Waves in others. Geo and Ocean Thermal in others . . .
In practice, we would probably want a portion of panels very close to the end-user -- say their roof or parking lot, or barn, etc. Saves on the transmission.
As far as Earth Temp. The ocean tends to be a Very Large sink for the Solar Thermal Energy. But it does hit all the surface of the world. One of the big "storage" devices in our human lives is our own Concrete. Heats in the day, and carries Heat into the night. But most heat on the surface, just warms the air. And then that hits the world during the day, just escapes into Space over night.
But the numbers they are showing on this graphic is 377,000 Sq Kilometers.
Which is about 145,000 sq miles.
Which is about 380 x 380 miles.
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Other huge (and incorrect) assumptions are that it would actually take this much energy. It would not. In Practice, Much Less. Our present methods use So Much Energy to make our current forms of Energy (for Example -- Oil Production and Refinery takes massive amounts of Electricity). And Electric Transportation takes much less Energy than Oil-Based Transportation. With all those losses gone, we would be using Much Less Energy, overall.
Absolutely. Without question. Many, many times over.
This simple fact, as clear as it is to experts, still seems to be a radical idea to many members of the public, who appear unaware of the vast amounts of clean, free, renewable energy we have available to use, if we only will.
According to a June report from an MIT conference on renewable energy, using current technology we could harvest an amount of energy equal to the entire consumption of the US utilizing only 6/10ths of 1% of American land area. http://www.eforenergy.org/docactivid...compressed.pdf
Previous calculations from MIT have stated that the current energy consumption of the entire world could be equalled by solar power installations occupying only 10% of the unpopulated deserts of the world. Get the picture yet?
The following details come from an unusually informative infographic which strives to make this point clear to one and all in a visual display. You can find it at https://www.quickquid.co.uk/quid-cor...rld-100-solar/
The solar energy falling on one square mile of earth in a year is equivalent to 4 million barrels of oil.
In one 40 minute period, all the energy falling on the earth could fulfill mankind's current energy needs for a year.
The near-total annual energy consumption by mankind in 2013 was about 500 Exajoules.
The total annual solar energy absorbed by the earth's atmosphere each year is 3.9 Million Exajoules
If you're not good with math, that means that the sun provides 7,800X as much energy to the earth as the total of all the energy mankind currently uses.
But what does that mean in terms of... you know... those PV panels people are putting on their roofs? If you covered Germany in PV panels, that amount of surface area, properly placed, could provide as much energy as the entire world currently uses. In other words, it would only take .2 % of the land area of the globe.
The infographic then goes on to show how much total surface area would be required at the rate of 15% efficiency, like current PV panels; at 19.2%, like thin film collectors; and at 31.8%, like concentrated PV panels, which use optics to concentrate light on PV cells. It's very interesting, when you see the areas actually needed mapped onto the whole world, to finally recognize how small that area really is.
Sure, we need to develop the infrastructure to support the switch to using clean renewable energy, but the energy is there, anytime we're ready to use it.
Here are more than 40 references that were consulted in the making of this infographic...
I'm not sure if it's necessary or even desirable that the world be 100% solar. There are other environmentally healthy solutions besides just solar. Human powered electricity per this video is one good option:
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