"Clark Magnuson" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
"Clark Magnuson" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:
Remember, solar
insolation, at low latitudes and high noon, is around 1 kW/m^2, or
slightly more.
I have been in power conversion for 30 years.
I have been saying for years that if there is a kiloWatt per square
meter in sunshine, there is no, and never will be, an energy shortage.

The problem is the media is written by non science thinking left brain
reporters that don't understand capitalism either.

I have to admit I'm not sure of what you're implying in the first
paragraph above. I think I know, but would you elaborate a little bit?

--
Ed Huntress
http://www.energyadvocate.com/allfuels.jpg
If the US annually consumes 100 exaJoules, and we have sunshine 1/3 the
time, then we would need some land:
Power = Energy/ time
P = 100 x 10^18 /[365 x 24 x 60 x 60] = 3 EE12 Watts
Area = Power needed [Power delivered/ unit area]
A = 3 EE12 Watts/[1kW/m^2] = 3 EE9 square meters
mile = 5,280 feet = 1625 meters
sq mile = 2.6EE6 sq meters
sq miles needed = 3 EE9/ 2.6 EE6 = 1100 sq miles
Sunshine only 1/3 the time...3300 sq miles
The US has 3.6EE6 square miles
We need .1% of our land to meet our energy needs.

Aha. That's what I thought you meant, but I wasn't sure.

Yes, we have plenty of sunshine. And we have some simple technologies for
using it replace significant portions of our energy useage, especially
residential hot water and space heating. There are huge gains that could be
made there and they don't have the ugly side effects of such alternatives as
corn ethanol, nor the marginal net energy production of PV.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_e...nd_consumption
As a check, if an American uses 12 kW then they each need 36 sq meters.
300,000,000 Americans would then need 1EE10 sq meters.
This would be 100,000 meters on a side of the area.
At 1600 meters per mile, that would be 65 miles on a side = ... 4200 sq
miles

Close enough.

--
Ed Huntress