Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner

Re:Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner by pedrocr on Thursday January 14, 2021 @01:37PM (#25780256)

Back of the envelope tells me you can power the whole world's current energy needs, not just electricity, with an area that's 3/4 of Texas:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B3Vtm-bk8NIntYc8mZRw...

Getting 10x our total energy would only require half the Sahara. We have plenty of deserted place for this if that's what we wanted to do. Transporting and storing that energy is more the issue, which is why hydro/wind/solar mixes aided by batteries/nuclear are probably what we'll be focusing on for the next few decades.

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Re:Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner by azinman2 on Thursday January 14, 2021 @02:12PM (#25780787)

You’re missing the fact that that area you’re trying to put panels on is not perfectly flat, and existing animals/plants/rivers live there.

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Re:Bill and Melinda Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner by vagrantJin on Thursday January 14, 2021 @02:36PM (#25781243)

Please, feel free to use the deserts in Africa. I can assure you, there are hardly any animals and rivers there. Plenty of man power to do maintenance work too and the sun shines bright like a diamond.

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