Here's Elon Musk's Plan to Power the U.S. on Solar Energy

inverse.com ^ | 7/16/2017 | Nick Lucchesi

[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.”

[ctdonath2]

You seem to think it is very important to FreeRepublic to know what you think of him - even though you can’t back up your seething-hatred opinion with any objective facts.

And you still haven’t answered the question: do you take zero tax deductions/credits/etc?

[DH]

“We’re talking complete electricity supply replacement here, not austerity living.”

Oh! Yes you are! With your stupid system you get electricity while the sun shines...(and that is not at night or on cloudy days), until your batteries run out, or your hot water supply can’t heat up until summer. All the while living like someone back in 1801.

Now the idiocy of the whole thing.....AN ELECTRICAL GENERATING PLANT (Coal, Natural gas or nuclear) has to be in place to save the idiots who depend solely upon Gia to live comfortably) capable of generating 100% of the total line usage when solar and wind energy stall or cease. That is...THE WHOLE SYSTEM HAS TO BE BACKED BY ONE OF THOSE HORRIBLE MACHINES that run on steam to generate electricity.

Dream on.....

[ctdonath2]

Having dealt with many failures of “the grid”, I’d rather live in a sunny climate and rely on my own power system (backed up by propane-driven generator).