When we get to 100% solar/wind, we’ll starve because there won’t be any ground left to plant in. It will all be covered by panels and turbines.
That's kind of what I was thinking. There has to be some sort of formula that defines how much power you get per square foot of solar panel.
One estimate says that in Missouri, my home state, the average household uses 100 million BTU's per year, which comes to about 29M watts. Solar panel efficiency is about 14.58 watts per square foot, so the average household would need about 5,500 square feet of solar panels just for their household use. Now, there are some big houses here, but most houses are under that, so, the panels would have to go on the roofs, and into the yard.
Then, what about apartment buildings, offices, hospitals, etc? How long before the environmentalists would claim that the solar panels are killing vegetation and occupying too much arable land?
“When we get to 100% solar/wind, we’ll starve because there won’t be any ground left to plant in. It will all be covered by panels and turbines.”
I read a study about “green energy” and the amount of real estate required awhile back. The current demand for electricity in the U.S. would require all of the land of AZ, CA, ID and OR if we were 100% green energy dependent.