Green Stats: 89,000

What is the time frame on this consumtion?

You shouldn't count the sun and wind separately - the sun is fundamentally what drives the wind, so that little blue cube should really be inside the big yellow one. Hydroelectric, too, is really just another solar power technology. In fact, of all the energy technologies discussed there are only three that aren't ultimately solar energy in one way or another: geothermal, nuclear fission, and fusion.

That's interesting but, correct me if I'm wrong, wind is created by differences in regional temperatures? Since the reason we have temperature differences to begin with is due to solar energy (geothermal excluded) then wind energy (and hydro energy for that matter - water cycle) is simply converted solar energy.

Just wondering if I'm missing something.

Cheers

Wouldn't you know I would miss one? Tidal energy is also not solar - it's a way of tapping, primarily, the rotational energy of the Earth. Kind of treating the planet like a big flywheel that was spun up billions of years ago.

So assuming that needs do not grow... we need to cover 1/6000 of the earths surface with solar panels?

196,940,400 square miles / 6000 = 32,823.4 sq mi

Now solar panels are only, what about 20% efficient?

32,823.4 x 5 = 164,117 sq miles

So if we cover every square inch of Texas - we should be good!

If you cover Texas with solar cells. The U.S. would be a very quite place.

Correct me if I am wrong, but because the earth is rotating, Texas is not always explored to sun light. We might need 10 Texas distributed around the equation to receive what we need.

I have no problem with covering Texas (great idea). I think this visual demonstration does just what it was set out to do. Show people just how much energy is out there to be captured. When a problem "looks" like it can be solved people are more apt to start...

"So if we cover every square inch of Texas - we should be good!"

This would be spread across the globe. Just by using roofs we already have, we could probably do a lot of it.

Solar thermal can be more efficient than 20%, so that could help too.

But a mix of things (wave, solar, wind) is best.

"You shouldn't count the sun and wind separately"

In theory, of course not. But in practice, if we're looking at what is possible to harness, you can look at them separately. We're no planning to block the sun from the earth completely thus cancelling wind and hydro.

Unfortunately solar panels cost way more than the energy they displace, and have their own environmental issues with regard to their manufacture.

"Unfortunately solar panels cost way more than the energy they displace, and have their own environmental issues with regard to their manufacture."

Yes, prices have to come down, and they're orders of magnitude lower now than they were in the 70s. A few more years and we'll be there.

As for making them, it's still much cleaner than a coal plant, and that process can be improved too (using clean energy to make solar panels, etc)

PV definitely requires a ton of energy to make, and is probably sub optimal.

However, CSP could be done pretty easily I think.

"PV definitely requires a ton of energy to make, and is probably sub optimal. "

Bull.

PV, like wind turbines, repay their energy investment fairly quickly. If they are made with clean energy, the problem is further reduced.

I think the important thing to take away from this is that we would need to capture 5% of ALL wind power to satisfy our current consumption, whereas capturing our 15TW out of 89000, isn't even a drop in the bucket (not even 0.01%).

Anyways, I have seen these stats a few times and it is very significant.

Also, yes many other types of energy are based off of solar, however this shows more so, how much more solar energy is possible than the alternatives.

BlackGriffen,

And since the sun is nuclear fusion and geothermal is largely nuclear fission... really all of the boxes should be embedded within a big Nuclear box.

I suppose tidal energy is really the only source not ultimately coming from a nuclear process.

So there you have it... Nuclear is the only viable solution.

Current record for solar cell efficiency is 42.8%(in the lab). So if we were to "start" covering Texas we may get to cover half of it, and with improvements in efficiency of electronic devices and vehicles(hopefully), we may not even get to half Texas coverage, that will leave room for the wind turbines

Solar and wind are a piece of energy puzzle, there are other options too, all will need to be exploited to reduce our dependency on foreign oil.

Hey, question, does anyone know how many btu's of energy can be harnessed from solar heating, like but's sq ft? I know that the suns energy is about 1400 watts per square meter, and panels are generally around 15% efficienct, but how good are solar heaters at capturing the suns radiant energy.

I was playing around today, I took a 4'x4' sheet of plywood I had in the garage, but a 4 inch frame on it to make a box. I then took 1/2 inch styrofoam insulation panels and spray painted them with flat black paint (disolves them some). I covered the box with window film, about the same thickness as plastic wrap for food. In the box I had a 4 by 4 inch opening top and bottom.

I dragged it into the sun, and set it on a 45 degree angle. I stuck a thermometer prope in the bottom and top, making sure neither got any direct sunlight. I immediately could feel warm air coming out o the top port at a reasonable flow, and was flooed when I say that the temperature was 162 degrees flowing out, with 80 degrees going in, so an 80 degree temperature rise.

But I have to measure the flow to get the volume per unit of time so I can calculate the btu's.

A real rough judgement of the air flow is about 6 feet per second, and if I run the math out, this comes to about 2600 btu/square meter.

Interesting anyway, again I was totally amazed at the amount of heat I got in such a short period of time, and the box was just slapped together real quick, probably had many air leaks.