INFOGRAPHIC: Could the Entire World Really Run on Solar Power?

9 thoughts on “INFOGRAPHIC: Could the Entire World Really Run on Solar Power?”

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  Eclipse Now April 12, 2017 at 9:01 am

  Sorry, but storage is just vastly too expensive and impractical for solar to work. EG: You could store just a third of the German grid for a week in Tesla Powerwalls, or nuke the entire grid for 60 years. Hydro dams could store about 10 hours of Australia's grid, or nuke half the Aussie grid for 60 years. https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/storing-energy/ And don't get me started on solar thermal, which requires 15 times the concrete and 75 times the steel of nuclear, let alone costing about $15 billion per GW! Compare that to today's nukes that — in the right regulatory environment — can come in at $2 billion per GW! It will not be long before we have factory built assembly line breeder reactors that eat nuclear waste and convert it into 1000 years of clean energy for America and the UK's waste into 500 years for them, and they should come in at around $1 billion per GW! Let's just face it. Nukes are not a 'necessary evil' but a fantastic technology that is getting safer every year, and are certainly not as scary as coal which kills so many people it's like 2 Chernobyl's a day!

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  Anonymous March 22, 2015 at 7:18 pm

  Could it? Possibly. Should it? Probably not. The environmental effects of solar power are nasty. What would best power the world until something NEW and better comes along is the LFTR (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor). Clean, safe, reliable, and VERY long term sustainable.

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  Ayah Alfawaris December 23, 2014 at 3:24 am

  Great effort, but I think you're mixing between thinfilm and silicon pv! Silicon PV has higher efficiency than Thin-Film.

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  Anonymous November 28, 2014 at 3:01 am

  what is stopping us from 100% solar energy? tech is here, concentrated energy panel can generate electricity at night. #Gaiacoin takes complete different approach to tackle environment issues http://t.co/l6OKfDgMzo

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  Anonymous November 16, 2014 at 7:58 pm

  Deceptive and inaccurate articles feed the sceptics insanity. Please stop!

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  Anonymous November 16, 2014 at 3:46 pm

  I welcome your effort......but you seem to ignore CSP....that is concentrated solar power. Although looking like a Jules Verne's fantasy...CSP has some advantages over PV. CSP is compatible with molten salt thermal storage. And, also, as mirrors are concentrating solar rays on a tower there is no need for copper wires like with PV plants. PV are more adapted to decentralized production. Let's suppose all the electricity for the whole Earth is generated around 2050 with CSP ( just for the sake of having an order of magnitude ) it will require something in the order of 1 million square Km. The deserts of the world quite evenly distributed (California, Sahara. Go bi, Thar, Australia...) amount to something like 10millions square Kms. Therefore we have the technology....the land...to satisfy our needs (and I didn't include the distributed potential of the roads, roofs, etc...obviously enormous ). Regarding nuclear power...around 4 powerplant of 1Gw (Three Mile...Tcherno....Fuku...) have presented serious accidents...something like 1% of the total instaled nuclear power. Do you really think there will be NEVER...such accidents? Just one or two...and the debate will be closed!

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  Anonymous November 16, 2014 at 6:29 am

  Someone who obviously has not heard of storage before

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  glerner November 14, 2014 at 4:26 pm

  For powering the world on 100% solar, you left out the cost and construction time for trans-global power delivery systems. Or do you expect the USA to go to bed at sundown? Or that solar energy will magically appear where needed when the sun shines on the other side of Earth? You didn't think about power delivery systems, did you? What engineering and construction difficulties will there be, implementing trans-Pacific power lines from Arizona to all of Asia? How much will that power distribution system cost to build and maintain? Several times the cost of the solar panels. How about security for solar-generated electricity traveling across the Middle East to Europe, across the Sahara to America? How do you protect long stationary targets for ISIL to bomb every week? How many USA troops are you going to kill guarding your "all solar" plan? For every one square mile of solar cells a region needs during peak local use, it will also need solar cells to supply power to the night side of the planet. Have you calculated that amount? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544214007981 shows how expensive it will be (but possible) to power California with only solar photovoltaic + solar thermal + onshore/offshore wind + tidal/wave -- even not counting the expense of rebuilding the national power grid to handle thousands of small power sources and keep those sources synchronized, it would be about 10 times as expensive as Molten Salt Reactors would be. Molten Salt Reactors use no water, so have none of the water-based safety issues that Light Water Reactors have. They use molten fuel, so can use over 99% of the fuel (LWR uses about 2%). Some types of MSR can convert LWR 1000kg of 200,000 year waste storage, into 1 gigawatt-year electricity and 170kg waste to store for only 350 years. With no high pressure, there is no need in MSR for high-pressure pipes, no high-pressure safety systems, no need in MSR for a steam containment building. Molten Salt Reactors can be factory built, shipped and installed underground, for total lifetime cost lower than coal (not even counting the medical expenses from using coal). http://liquidfluoridethoriumreactor.glerner.com/2012-what-is-a-lftr-short-clear-version-new-to-lftrs/ Solar power needs either energy storage systems (with capacity for over a month of bad weather), and/or trans-global transmission lines, or base load power (coal, natural gas, or modern designs of nuclear plants). Your paper calculations are interesting, but unworkable. You are lying about "100% Solar" as a realistic solution. You need to talk to engineers. p.s. You lie about "half of Germany's electricity demand". http://www.thelocal.de/20140619/germany-produces-half-of-electricity-needs-with-solar-power says "Analysis from the Fraunhofer ISE research institute showed solar panels in Germany generated a record 24.24 GW of electricity between 1pm and 2pm on Friday, June 6th. And on Monday June 9th, which was a national holiday, solar power production peaked at 23.1 GW, which equalled 50.6 percent of total electricity demand - setting another milestone." That is peak solar producing 50% of national demand for one hour (or for the few minutes the peak lasted), on a holiday. Not 50% for the day.

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  dcard88 November 12, 2014 at 2:41 pm

  I come up with about 2500 square miles for the US. There are more than 40,000 square miles in the Mohave desert alone. Presumably about 50% could be used for solar.