(http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q490/atheola/14499137841_8d1a612b4f.jpg)
The little square D represents Germany, the big square, Welt the entire planet. It's total acreage needed of solar panels according to a graduate thesis from the Technical University of Braunschweig.
I don't know how accurate it is, but isn't it certainly worth finding out?
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/25/1309388/-Solar-Panel-Acreage-Needed-to-Power-the-Entire-Planet-158-mi-x-158-mi?detail=email
Doesn't seem like much. We wouldn't need actual acreage, either, just solar panels on the tops of existing buildings and in road beds. There are millions of miles of highway collecting heat, which is totally wasted. It could be used to power homes, businesses, pretty much everything. Of course, the oil companies are not too happy about that prospect and are doing everything they can to discredit solar (and wind) power even as they scramble to cover up oil spills and justify the destruction of the environment through their mining activities.
The amount of sunlight falling on the earth is actually pretty damn huge compared to the amount of energy we use.
Don't put solar panels under roads, though, or any other surface meant to bear loads. They're fragile, and any transparent surface you dare put up top is going to be scratched up quickly and reduce efficiency. Put them over or by the side, and angle them. That gets the most efficient use, and makes good engineering sense. (Ie, none of that solar freakin' roadway bullshit.)
The study isn't saying to put it all in one place, just making it easy to visualize. In the US alone every bit of that space is readily available on freeway medians coast to coast, hundreds of thousands of available acres used to do nothing except give low tech jobs to people to cut grass. Some medians are a mile across and they stretch for miles upon miles sitting empty right along side of already developed infrastructure. I've always though hiway medians were the most wasted space on the planet, bar none.
Well, how would you use them?
Fill Death Valley with solar panels. Nothing can live in there anyway. It's just open desert. In fact, the shade can probably offer a more habitable area for life there.
Quote from: Hakurei Reimu on June 29, 2014, 11:08:19 PM
Well, how would you use them?
Magical median fairies would transform them..
Want to be a tad more specific with the question?
Quote from: PickelledEggs on June 29, 2014, 11:12:41 PM
Fill Death Valley with solar panels. Nothing can live in there anyway. It's just open desert. In fact, the shade can probably offer a more habitable area for life there.
can't do it. Death valley is a national park.
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on June 29, 2014, 11:17:58 PM
can't do it. Death valley is a national park.
Oh... :/
Sent from your mom
Dallas to LA is about 1300 miles.. Very few trees block the hiway medians and not a hell of a lot of rain. Figure if the average median is just 1 tenth of a mile X 1300.. That's a lot of acreage..
Solar Freakin' Roadways!
http://youtu.be/qlTA3rnpgzU
Quote from: GSOgymrat on June 30, 2014, 12:11:09 AM
Solar Freakin' Roadways!
http://youtu.be/qlTA3rnpgzU
Sounds like way to much maintenance cost, plus makes it harder to run from the cops at night..
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on June 29, 2014, 08:40:16 PM
The study isn't saying to put it all in one place, just making it easy to visualize. In the US alone every bit of that space is readily available on freeway medians coast to coast, hundreds of thousands of available acres used to do nothing except give low tech jobs to people to cut grass. Some medians are a mile across and they stretch for miles upon miles sitting empty right along side of already developed infrastructure. I've always though hiway medians were the most wasted space on the planet, bar none.
Won't work. You're forgetting about all the medians where the endangered red necked turtle frog once took a shit and is therefore protected land which can never be touched for anything ever again. And then of course you're also forgetting about all the assholes who want gobs of cheap power so they can run every appliance ever made but who will also complain about the 'eye pollution' because the solar panels prevent them from being able to see the weeds that used to grow on that spot.
Quote from: ApostateLois on June 29, 2014, 08:14:07 PM
Doesn't seem like much. We wouldn't need actual acreage, either, just solar panels on the tops of existing buildings and in road beds.
Put stripes of solar panel on buildings between the windows. Where the area gets enough sun this would be a easy way to get power without giving up any space.
The solar panels on the roof would be good for shading the building from the sun.
Ahh...the great eboli carrying. AIDS transmitting, blindness causing mosquito migration route might be disturbed and of course the natural unnatural beauty of medians might be to unsightly for blind people.
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on June 29, 2014, 11:16:51 PM
Magical median fairies would transform them..
Want to be a tad more specific with the question?
How would you use the space? If the space is wasted, surely you have a more productive use for it in mind.
Quote from: Hakurei Reimu on June 30, 2014, 06:05:23 PM
How would you use the space? If the space is wasted, surely you have a more productive use for it in mind.
You're not really keeping up with the thread are you?
Quote from: Hakurei Reimu on June 30, 2014, 06:05:23 PM
How would you use the space? If the space is wasted, surely you have a more productive use for it in mind.
Sure!
Grow hemp on it! George Washington and Thomas Jefferson showed us the way with their hemp plantations. They knew!
Hemp is great stuff.
You can make high quality clothes, and superstrong textiles from it. And reinforce building materials for rebuilt tornado hit communities. And for the rest of us.
And you can make paper from it, so that we don't have to deforest vast swathes of centuries old woods anymore. Every year anew. Which instead can keep on sucking up the carbon dioxide we have far too much of in the atmosphere. That would seriously mitigate the greenhouse effect. Which every acre of hemp does too, of course. Hemp is a fantastic carbon dioxide converter!
And hemp relaxes. Ration every soldier 2 spliffs a day and war and mayhem will be decimated. Peace in our time... Wouldn't that be wonderful?
If grown on open soil, hemp can be harvested 2 times a year. Maybe 3.
If grown
under solar panels, under artificial light (from the solar panels) hemp can be harvested 5 times a year.
What a match! Solar panels and medians and hemp!
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on June 30, 2014, 06:49:17 PM
You're not really keeping up with the thread are you?
Ah, I had no idea it turned into a joke thread. :redface:
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on June 29, 2014, 11:17:58 PMcan't do it. Death valley is a national park.
Not to derail or anything, but why oh why is that a national park? I mean, I can see Yellowstone and even the Grand Canyon, but Death Valley?! The place is practically a hell on Earth and people want it to stay that way?
Death Valley, while inhospitable to humans, has a picturesque beauty about it. It also has a lot of wildlife and is one of the few places in the world that has sliding stones. It's better to be a national park than a strip mine.
Not to mention Death Valley is a pretty cool place if you're in a car with air conditioning. If not then, well... Not so cool. Actually it's a pretty big place. It's not all the same inferno it's portrayed.
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist
Sounds like way to much maintenance cost, plus makes it harder to run from the cops at night..
We could strap solar panels to the moose.
The case for solar panels:
http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/03/princeton-researchers-use-sunlight-to-convert-co2-more-efficiently-than-plants-do/ (http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/03/princeton-researchers-use-sunlight-to-convert-co2-more-efficiently-than-plants-do/)
Case closed.
Quote from: aileron on July 01, 2014, 12:03:01 PM
Death Valley, while inhospitable to humans, has a picturesque beauty about it. It also has a lot of wildlife and is one of the few places in the world that has sliding stones. It's better to be a national park than a strip mine.
Death Valley
http://www.nps.gov/deva/photosmultimedia/photogallery.htm
People that have been there told me it really is awesome. This year we are going to Glacier in Montana. Next year, Death Valley and (I hope) finally make it to Yosemite.
Solar is becoming more efficient all the time, and also more adaptable. there is a strong homegrown initiative to teach and assist residential solar upgrades.
Guess which suburb of Dallas and is the corporate HQ to Exxon uses solar panels to light all its street lights.
Hint: some guy who wrote Christmas music had the same first name and he had a German capital as his last name. The same city is also the HQ of TBS..Trinity broadcasting..