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How Much Land To Power Entire USofA on Solar?

The transport of power is not an issue. The USofA has and uses power lines for electricity. The infrastructure is already there.

As for the "wrinkles" - yes, there is still quite a few of those.

Uhh, transport of that amount of electricity from such concentrated locations across the entire country is absolutely a major issue.
 
Solar FREAKIN roadways are a ludicrous proposition, fundamentally flawed in every conceivable way.
Please elaborate.
 
Please elaborate.

Well, the first problem is the cost. I've tried to come up with a word for it. "Insane." "Ridiculous." "Comical." But really, the only one that fits is "impossible." Using their own calculations, about 68 billion panels would be required to cover America's roads, parking lots, driveways, bike paths, etc. (why do all of them? Hey, it's their idea, not mine) Even at a very lowballed $200/panel, we're kicking off at ~13.6 trillion dollars. Now, we need ~900 billion square feet of textured, tempered glass. Basic tempered glass panels can be in the $25/ft^2 range, but this will require texturing. Even if we go with $25/square foot, that's another ten trillion easy. And we haven't started wiring the stuff up into a grid, getting the bajillion LEDs, storage for this vast quantity of power, the heating elements to melt snow with, pressure sensors to detect animals, control circuitry because this whole system is supposed to be "smart." If you told me this would cost $50 trillion, I'd think you were being optimistic.

Now, a reasonable man would stop there. Fortunately, I am not a reasonable man.

Next we analyze its basic functions: being a road, and being a solar panel.

1) Is it a good road?
Tempered glass is a terrible surface to drive on. They texture it because flat glass would never have the friction we need to drive safely. They claim this textured surface has a high friction level... and they demonstrate it on video by driving a small tractor on it at minimal speeds. Tractors have giant tires with huge treads so they can claw their way across a soft field. Show me the test with an actual car slamming on the brakes at 60mph. Over time, this surface will be worn smooth. Tempered glass just isn't that durable. This criticism was raised early, and so often that it ended up in a "rebuttal" to common criticisms of the solar roadways. They point out that tempered glass is very hard, much harder than the asphalt roads we drive on now. They compare numbers on a hardness scale whose name I can't remember.

Problem: they used the numbers for the goey tar stuff, not the actual asphalt. Asphalt also has gravel in it. Rocks are hard. Also... being very hard is not the same thing as being very strong. The ultimate test is easy: your car has tempered glass windows, most likely. Grab any broken-off piece of concrete or asphalt from any road you like. Put it on your car window and scrape it around. Gonna scratch the hell out of it, aren't you? Now, multiply that by five years of driving cars over this glass.

I'm also skeptical that a half-inch thick piece of tempered glass can stand up to the weight of a semi truck.

2) Is it a good solar panel?

No.

Right off the bat, we've thrown away ~31% of the annual solar generation ability, because we took the panel and placed it flat on the ground. We live in the northern hemisphere, optimal power is found by tilting your panels to the south because that's where the sun is. We've then thrown a glass cover over the panel which the solar roadway guy claims reduces solar capture by another 11%. I'll take his word for it. Then we're going to make it worse by scraping the hell out of the glass, as previously mentioned. Plus, every bit of dirt, grime, grease, garbage, skid marks, dumped coffee, and bird crap is going to make the panel worse. Solar roadway guy has a genius solution: use "self-cleaning" glass, like they have on some smartphones. I guess nobody told him that oleophobic/hydrophobic surfaces are that way due to greatly reduced surface friction. If you try to drive on a hydrophobic surface in the rain, you will die. Oh, and a full parking lot... is covered in cars. We did want to do the parking lots, after all.

Even pessimistically, we can double the efficiency of this setup by moving the panels 50 feet to one side, tilting them, and not driving on top of our solar panels.

The secondary features of the road get worse. Like, laws of thermodynamics worse. Melting snow by using solar power happens... in the spring. Not sooner.
 
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Crazy if this is true. :shock:
I am a reader.

I don't do videos. They rot your brain.

Would it really be too much goddam trouble to just TELL us how much land it would take?

Hopefully the units are square miles but i guess I can plug km or acres into some conversion machine.
 
I am a reader.

I don't do videos. They rot your brain.

Would it really be too much goddam trouble to just TELL us how much land it would take?

Hopefully the units are square miles but i guess I can plug km or acres into some conversion machine.

375 sq meters but I would stay away from conversion machines as they rot your brain.




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Crazy if this is true. :shock:


Having the sufficient area to install all of the needed solar panels to power up all of the US is and was never the challenge.

Energy storage is. Deep cycle wet lead acid batteries are expensive, NOT green and they have to be changed out typically every 5 years

The server farms I used to work for had massive UPE racks filled with these things. Cost per battery was about 1500 bucks and every 5 years they were swapped out

A huge expense. The data centers electrical load was around 2 to 3 megawatts. Thats absolutely nothing in comparison

This idea that we have to switch over to some highly inefficient, unpredictable and inferior technology needs to be abandoned ASAP.

Germany let a bunch of ideologues craft their energy policy a few years ago and it turned into a disaster. Its what happens when you allow people who's knowledge of power generation stops and starts at their kitchen outlet to craft your energy policy

What they did was criminal in my opinion. Germans pay 300% more per KW than the average American thanks to renewable energy surcharges.
 
375 sq meters but I would stay away from conversion machines as they rot your brain.

375 sq meters ???????

Hahahaha

Your brain rot is irreversible and terminal- go ahead and watch all the video you want.

375 sq meters would be a rectangle of dimensions... (pardon me while I find a square root calculator)...
19x19 meters. That might provide enough energy for a good-sized house or two.

Maybe I should assume you garbled the units- understandable for someone with advanced brain rot-
and that this solar energy miracle worker supposedly needs about 12x12 KILOmeters to juice us all.
 
375 sq meters ???????

Hahahaha

Your brain rot is irreversible and terminal- go ahead and watch all the video you want.

375 sq meters would be a rectangle of dimensions... (pardon me while I find a square root calculator)...
19x19 meters. That might provide enough energy for a good-sized house or two.

Maybe I should assume you garbled the units- understandable for someone with advanced brain rot-
and that this solar energy miracle worker supposedly needs about 12x12 KILOmeters to juice us all.

Wow, you watched the video after all. Good for you!
 
Oh, I'm not suggesting there isn't huge issues with solar still.

Just dumb-founded at how little space relative to the entire country we'd need.
And the needed space gets smallER every year: and/or the areas of use less sunny.
I remember a 'Four Corners' proposal of perhaps one or two Decades ago of Twice the space. (app 1%)

The idea IS Viable and get's more viable EVERY year, as solar panel efficiency grows.
We could start Right NOW, especially in Southern Cal (they HAVE), Arizona, and rest of the Southwest, and work East, at least, across the rest of the southern tier.
Then many more carefully chosen satellite plants moving North. Efficiency growing every year as this two decade project progresses.
Storage and transmission problems have also progressed with advances in superconducting wire/terminals/batteries, etc, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_efficiency#/media/File:PVeff(rev161202).jpg

PVeff%28rev161202%29.jpg
And the idea does NOT have to be [strawman] 100% to be a great improvement/useful.
50% would be a very doable Triumph.


EDIT:
More one-line/2c/small potatoes in the immediate TWO partisan posts below, which Necessarily Ignore this one.
 
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The transport of power is not an issue. The USofA has and uses power lines for electricity. The infrastructure is already there.

As for the "wrinkles" - yes, there is still quite a few of those.

But as now we don't have storage capacity to carry us over the unpredictability of solar or wind.
 
And the needed space gets smallER every year: and/or the areas of use less sunny.
I remember a 'Four Corners' proposal of perhaps one or two Decades ago of Twice the space. (app 1%)

The idea IS Viable and get's more viable EVERY year, as solar panel efficiency grows.
We could start Right NOW, especially in Southern Cal (they HAVE), Arizona, and rest of the Southwest, and work East, at least, across the rest of the southern tier.
Then many more carefully chosen satellite plants moving North. Efficiency growing every year as this two decade project progresses.
Storage and transmission problems have also progressed with advances in superconducting wire/terminals/batteries, etc, etc.


And the idea does NOT have to be [strawman] 100% to be a great improvement/useful.
50% would be a very doable Triumph.


EDIT:
More one-line/2c/small potatoes in the immediate TWO partisan posts below, which Necessarily Ignore this one.

Photo voltaic solar power is great, except the laws put in place to encourage early adopters have worked a bit too well.
Tax credits to home owners is fine, but the net metering and fixed rate buy back plans, have caused
considerable pushback from the electrical utilities.
The resistance is not groundless, simple accounting shows anything approaching the solar customer getting
the retail rate or better for their surplus power is untenable.
Electrical power is a commodity. The Utility buys power (or makes their own) at roughly the wholesale rate.
They mark up the wholesale rate to the retail rate, to cover their cost of maintaining the grid, and profits.
If they are forced to buy surplus power at the retail rate or higher, they loose money with every Kwh produced.
If only a few tenths of a percent of customers are home producers, it is not a big deal.
As the number approaches a few percent, the balance sheet would turn ugly quickly.
The rates of the non solar customers would have to increase to cover the additional costs.
As fewer and fewer non solar customers are left, the normal rates would spike, until there were not
enough non solar customers to cover the cost, and the utility would go bankrupt.
Needless to say, most utilities, are not happy with that path!
Utility Companies Have a Solar Power Problem
If solar is to grow as it needs to, the laws need to change to something that is agreeable to both the homeowner,
and the utility. This means the sweet deal many homeowners have, will likely need to sour a bit.
The good news is the price of solar power is way down, within reach of most homeowners.
 
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