Solar panel acreage to power the globe?

[Hakurei Reimu]

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.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

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?

[DickRill]

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!

[Hakurei Reimu]

You're not really keeping up with the thread are you?

Ah, I had no idea it turned into a joke thread.

[Hydra009]

can'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?

[aileron]

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.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

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.

[ApostateLois]

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.

[DickRill]

The case for solar panels:

http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/03/princeton-researchers-use-sunlight-to-convert-co2-more-efficiently-than-plants-do/

Case closed.

[stromboli]

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.

[stromboli]

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.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

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..