Posted on 07/23/2017 6:20:06 AM PDT by rktman
Tesla CEO Elon Musk — whose company makes electric cars and has a new solar roof panel division — reminded more than 30 state governors at the National Governors Association meeting this weekend exactly how much real-estate is needed to make sure America can run totally on solar energy.
“If you wanted to power the entire United States with solar panels, it would take a fairly small corner of Nevada or Texas or Utah; you only need about 100 miles by 100 miles of solar panels to power the entire United States,” Musk said during his keynote conversation on Saturday at the event in Rhode Island. “The batteries you need to store the energy, so you have 24/7 power, is 1 mile by 1 mile. One square-mile.”
It’s “a little square on the U.S. map, and then there’s a little pixel inside there, and that’s the size of the battery park that you need to support that. Real tiny.”
(Excerpt) Read more at inverse.com ...
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=9671
Some states should be counties....
Musk: The robots are coming! The robots are coming!
Part of the negotiation process. Elon tries to sell the whole country, too big but a state or city might be willing to try.
Elon isn’t dumb. He knows how to negotiate.
Not sure which orifice you pulled that out of.
We’re talking complete electricity supply replacement here, not austerity living.
Reading comprehension helps. I referenced power storage in that post.
Just one more reason for my oft-repeated recommendation to distribute the panels.
How thick does one have to be to not comprehend pairing solar panels with sufficient power storage?
https://ngi.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/3_Brown_NET_Power_0.pdf
Since when does pervasive & distributable solar equate to “buggy whips”? Burning coal to run turbines is the century+ old source for energy.
Nice bonus there: install solar, get cool covered parking. Interiors get brutal hot here.
“He builds products that are needed and unaffordable. If I am wrong, how do you explain this?”
By this...
“The collapse followed a surge just before the tax change, which had been announced in February, with new registrations of almost 3,700 Tesla vehicles in the first quarter — including 2,939 in March alone — compared with 1,506 vehicles in the entire second half of 2016.”
In other words people that were thinking of buying a Tesla over the following few months did it sooner to take advantage of the still existing tax benefits. Let’s see what happens in 6 months. I got a feeling that anybody that can afford that type of car is not going to be held back by $10K. I’m sure there will be some impact on sales, but not that much.
“”Tesla welcomes government policies that support our mission and make it easier for more people to buy electric vehicles, however, our business does not rely on it,” Tesla said in a statement. The company said its sales revenue in China, where it faces large tariffs, has risen without government incentives. “At the end of the day, when people love something, they buy it,” it said.”
Would need a very high voltage DC line, as AC transmission line has significant EM field losses over long distances.
Solar has about a 4-6 hour window of operation for significant output.
the north koreans will know where to aim their missles
No matter how you slice it, with solar you MUST build two power generation plants, one to generate the power and a second to store it for night, cloudy days, and for when the intermittent clouds momentarily cover the sun. In many cases, you have to build THREE power plants - 1) solar power generation, 2) solar power night storage, and 3) gas-fired peaking to regulate the grid when clouds roll in and out. Your capacity factor (utilization) of each of the three plants is terrible. The whole system concept is appallingly stupid.
I suggest you go get a degree in power systems and engineering economics. There are very sound technical and financial reasons this whole concept is only attractive to those who want to live on the government teat forever. You cannot simply wish something into commercial success.
Look at GM’s announcement it may kill the Volt. It was brought into being solely to please Emperor Obama and his effort to transform the U.S. into a socialist paradise. As soon as he is gone and government subsidies end, these ridiculous pie-in-the-Sky dreams come crashing down.
More proof? Look at Tessa sales in Hong Kong and Denmark after government subsidies ended — sales tanked by 90%. Governor Brown’s proposed $3 BILLION tax on Californians is a thinly disguised attempt to keep the Tesla boondoggle afloat a little bit longer.
Perhaps you should stop calling smart people “luddites” and spend that time studying the issue, systems, and economics.
Apparently as thick as you are to think that solar panels are any more then a “niche” solution.
You also need a place where the sun shines all the time and a storage solution for the power generated. Pipe Dream.
Also we could be pushing Compressed Natural Gas cars instead of electric. It is estimated we have 100’s years of natural gas supplies.
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