Re:The New Atomic Age We Need
by pilom on Saturday November 28, 2015 @01:58PM
(#10641966)
Later on on page 44 he changes the assumptions based on 50% efficient farms growing plant matter for biomass. Even if you had 50% efficient panels and you covered 200m^2 per person with them (there are only about 900 m^2 per person that are not covered with farm land or roads), you'd only get about 32KW/person/day which is less than what the energy used for transportation alone (40kw/person/day).
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| on HN ]
200m^2 at 500w/m2 * 8 hours a day x 20% efficency = 160kwh. Which you could get in the UK using mid range solar cells right now. 50% would get you 400kwh.
Further you can mix solar and wind farms as the wind farm does not take up much space.
Also, he uses mixed units when not realistic. A Tesila roadster for example gets 390 km from a 52kwh battery pack. Doing a direct petroleum has X energy so you need that much electricity is dum as cars have terrable efficency.
But, most importantly the UK already imports a lot of food and energy, making this a really silly comparison. Solar cells in Africa can more cheaply provide energy so that's a better place to put them.