I’m not gonna watch the full hour and a half, but I skimmed through to make sure his message was at least mostly consistent. This guy is talking about renewable energy for cars and vaguely extrapolates that to all energy requirements.
Doing a quick Google search came up with 2.2-5.2 trillion watt-hours as the amount of energy needed if all US vehicles were electric. Currently the US generates ~11 trillion watt-hours per day so this would increase that amount ~20-50%. In this video the guy mentioned a 27 megawatt solar farm (~130-150 MWh/day), but a large coal plant generates 15-24k MWh/day (500-1000 MW instantaneous).
The US currently has ~12.5k utility scale electric power plants, to replace those with solar and switch all cars to electric you would need ~2-2.5 million solar farms the size represented in the video.
The industry standard is that each megawatt a solar farm is rated takes 5-10 acres. For nuclear that value is ~0.8 acres/megawatt and for coal it’s ~0.64 acres/megawatt. While large power plants generate ~500-1000 MW they vary in size dramatically so the actual average is closer to 50 MW per plant. By that math, the current total land for existing plants should be ~400,000 acres but the equivalent if we switched to 100% solar power would be 270-675 million acres of land.
I’m not saying that renewables are bad or that we shouldn’t pursue them, I’m also not arguing that we should all hold on to gas burning cars, but there is not compelling enough evidence that switching to 100% renewable energy would be cheaper.
EDIT: The estimates here don’t include things like the coal mines included in them but it also doesn’t take into account the production of panels, batteries, or the component materials in either of them such as lithium mines. I think solar probably wins out when comparing just that side, but their land usage alone likely tips things.
Okay, so I’ve double-checked all the most important numbers you’ve used. One thing I’ve noticed is that Alec compared the land-use of ethanol and solar power, but our fuel is only 10% ethanol. Even then though that doesn’t explain the whole number you got to.
By that math, the current total land for existing plants should be ~400,000 acres but the equivalent if we switched to 100% solar power would be 270-675 million acres of land.
With 270 million acres, and 1mW for every 10 acres, that’s 27 million mW (648 trillion Wh a day). Far more than what you say is needed for all cars to be electric. At some point you must have swapped to the goal of meeting America’s entire electricity demand with solar. Even then though …
America consumes 25,000tWh of energy per year (about 7Twh per day, or 3Tw). 27 million mW is 27tW. Even with 10 acres per mW, we’d only require about 30 million acres to meet the entire country’s energy with solar (which happens to be exactly the same as the amount of land we spend on ethanol).
EDIT: I basically skipped over your 3rd and 4th paragraph, but what is that nonsense math your doing? I didn’t even bother trying to comprehend it because it was so nonsensical, but what in the actual hell were you trying to do there.
Okay, so I’ve double-checked all the most important numbers you’ve used. One thing I’ve noticed is that Alec compared the land-use of ethanol and solar power, but our fuel is only 10% ethanol. Even then though that doesn’t explain the whole number you got to.
As I said in my post, this guy is talking about fuel for cars, not the entire power usage
With 270 million acres, and 1mW for every 10 acres, that’s 27 million mW (648 trillion Wh a day). Far more than what you say is needed for all cars to be electric
I basically skipped over your 3rd and 4th paragraph
That is literally what I said in paragraph 3 “The US currently has ~12.5k utility scale electric power plants, to replace those with solar and switch all cars to electric you would need ~2-2.5 million solar farms the size represented in the video.”
America consumes 25,000tWh of energy per year (about 7Twh per day)
My research said the US produces 11 trillion Wh per day and said that if all US vehicles were electric it would require 2.2-5.5 trillion Wh more per day. Looking at consumption is important, but looking at production is more accurate. Some electricity is sold or wasted, but that’s to ensure demand is met when the grid sees a spike in usage.
27 million mW (648 trillion Wh a day)
You must have skipped paragraph 2 as well. A 27 MW solar plant is rated as such because that is the maximum instantaneous power outout, but most places only have ~16 hours of sunlight and won’t be running at 27 MW for all 16 hours. As such a 27 MW solar farm will only make ~130-150 MWh/day.
Average of 1/5 of maximum output (27MW * 24 = 648 MWh per day. 648 / 130 = factor of 5).
1 MW per 10 acres of solar power (It’s 27MW on 120 acres at the DePue site)
270-675 million acres.
Now lets get all the units into average MW
700,000MW needed (17TWh per day = 0.7 TW average)
0.02MW per acre. (1MW / 10 / 5 = 0.02MW average)
That means 35 million acres. Now I’m going to post this immediately before double-checking my math previous maths, because this number should be about 10 times higher than my previous answer based on the numbers you’ve given me. Did I overestimate the land required in my first reply?
EDIT: Found my problem.
America consumes 25,000tWh of energy per year (about 7TWh per day, or 3TW)
I worked the problem a different way, first of all I evaluated both ends of both spectrum (2.2-5.2 trillion for adding cars to get the number of solar farms needed and 5-10 acres per MW rating, this is how I built my range). I believe I have an error in the number of solar farms needed (2-2.5 million farms in my original post), but I have not been able to replicate my math that got me the error. I made this post in sections and at some point realized that 27 MW doesn’t make 648 MWh, but I might have missed switching it out somewhere to get the math I got.
Rerunning the math I took the amount produced and needed (~17 trillion Wh) and divided it by the production for one 27 MW site (150 MWh) to get the number of plants and then multiplied that by 27x10.
17x10^12 / 150x10^6 x 27 x 10 = 30,600,000 or 30.6 million acres.
All that aside we are still talking about 75x more land usage before we talk about time zones, day night cycles, distribution of the panels, etc. The big counterpoint that people seem to have is batteries, but we already use batteries and the amount more we would need to provide 24 hour coverage with just solar would be astonishing.
Market forces push business decisions, the only way solar power would be cheaper for the consumer is if it was also cheaper for the business. If solar was realistically cheaper then power production facilities then corporations would be switching to it and probably not drop our end costs because that would just be extra profit. Whether it’s a lack of battery capability, unattainable capital costs, lack of reliability, or something else at play, solar power would not be cheaper for the end user or else corporations would be switching to it.
As per the video, 30 million acres of land is used to grow ethanol that is mixed into petrol. We could replace every car in the country with electric, and power our entire electricity grid with solar power, with that land. Solar farms are less destructive to the land than corn farming so even if replacing all that farmland with solar panels only provided enough power for electric cars, it would still be a positive in terms of land use.
75x land use is as compared only to power-plants. If I go swimming tomorrow I’ve 999999x’d my shark attack risk. And as a share of America it’s only 1-2% of the total area of the United States (to power the entire country) and can replace all the corn ethanol crops to a net environmental benefit.
As for batteries, they are recyclable (as the video goes into). They do add to the cost of renewables but not so much that they cancel out having to constantly mine coal and set it on fire to never be used again. There are wind turbines which even out the duck curve, but in this thought experiment the entire country is going solar powered only.
As for why business leaders aren’t investing in renewables, I need to make an important distinction. Renewables aren’t the “cheapest form of power generation”, they are the “cheapest form of new power generation”. It is cheaper to keep running existing gas-fired and nuclear power stations until they reach EOL than it is to tear them down prematurely and replace them with solar. A large number of power stations are rapidly reaching EOL and it’s very important that we don’t build any more coal-fired power plants right now (due to an explicit government policy of burning more coal, perhaps). Each one we build will last 50-100 years and be cheaper to keep running than replace with renewables.
30 million acres of land is used to grow ethanol that is mixed into petrol
The majority of ethanol based crop production comes from growing corn in the Midwest, specifically Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana. Ranked by population density that’s:
Nebraska #43
Kansas #41
Iowa #36
Missouri #28
Indiana #17
Illinois # 12
By percentage of the US population that’s
Nebraska @ 0.5%
Kansas @ 0.8%
Iowa @ 0.9%
Missouri @ 1.8%
Indiana @ 2%
Illinois @ 3.7%
There are practical reasons why we typically try to generate power close to where it will be used. Yes, theoretically you can realistically supply power up to 3000 miles away, but most power plants only provide power to around 500 miles away. Yes we could cover the Corn Belt with solar panels and then wire it to the coasts, but doing so has it’s own risks and drawbacks. Ethanol agriculture makes sense where it is because the population density is so low and both corn and ethanol can be shipped with relatively low loss.
As for batteries, they are recyclable (as the video goes into). They do add to the cost of renewables but not so much that they cancel out having to constantly mine coal and set it on fire to never be used again
I’m not arguing that they aren’t recyclable but rather they aren’t accessible at the volume needed. A quick google search said that current utility scale battery storage exceeds 26 GW (10^9), but only represents 2% of total generating capacity. To provide power for approximately half the day, based on our previous math, we would need need ~7x10^11 W.
Just so my math is clear from the beginning, 17x10^12 W / 2 (half the day) / 12 (hours per half day) = 7x10^11 W of battery which is 27 times more than we currently have.
Renewables aren’t the “cheapest form of power generation”, they are the “cheapest form of new power generation”. It is cheaper to keep running existing gas-fired and nuclear power stations until they reach EOL than it is to tear them down prematurely and replace them with solar. A large number of power stations are rapidly reaching EOL and it’s very important that we don’t build any more coal-fired power plants right now
I think this is a fair and nuanced point. In my opinion the solution is not one singular option, such as 100% solar, but a mix of options which might include some percentage of non-renewable energy. I think reduction of non-renewable should be the goal, but switching 100% to renewable does not seem feasible to me.
The majority of ethanol based crop production comes from growing corn in the Midwest, specifically Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana.
My argument was never that we “should” replace all our ethanol corn crops with solar panels. Just that we could. And we could still theoretically make it work with enough money and gumption (and moving energy intensive industries inland to reduce the need for transmission).
I’m not arguing that they aren’t recyclable but rather they aren’t accessible at the volume needed.
Lithium supply is a concern. We don’t have enough in the world to support the green transition and there’s no clear solution. A few that come to mind are:
New battery technologies that have been in the pipeline for a while.
Overbuilding renewable electricity to account for a lack of batteries.
Building a diverse range of renewable power sources.
Peak pricing, and load shedding when there’s not enough supply.
Interstate power connections to share surplus and deficits.
I think this is a fair and nuanced point. In my opinion the solution is not one singular option, such as 100% solar, but a mix of options which might include some percentage of non-renewable energy. I think reduction of non-renewable should be the goal, but switching 100% to renewable does not seem feasible to me.
I think we should use a small amount of methane to supply power in the event of an emergency, instead of building enough batteries to supply us for an entire year of cloudy weather and stagnant air. In the first place the thought experiment was about 35 million acres of solar, not about a 100% renewable grid. That’s a separate discussion to be had among engineers.
Guys, Gals…hear me out: I can easily half all the numbers in your calculations: do something about the energy efficiency and get to the same per capita consumption as e.g. France and Germany.
The video literally goes over the numbers in worst case scenario for solar and still comes out ahead, while also going through a bunch of mistakes that people make and deconstructing the gotchas along the way.
Your comment:
Saying you weren’t going to watch the full video
Skimmed some of it and took some numbers and made mistakes
Someone else:
Links to the video you skipped that would have gone through your mistakes before you commented.
Your response:
This is the same video
YES! It already goes over the mistakes you were making.
On a side note, this was probably the best video I’ve seen in the last 12 months.
I thought it would be a nice and nerdy breakdown of solar panels, but the more I watched the better it got.
Yeah, the video is 1.5 hours long. I don’t care how good you found it to be, I’m just not going to watch that long of a video, you need to convey what is important in the video through written dialogue or else you may as well not use it. While I did make a mistake in my math my fundamental point is still true, the video’s point was entirely based on scaling renewable power usage for cars to all power usage and the math just doesn’t provide a sound basis for it.
Or …. The extra electricity needed for EVs is zero or maybe even negative. Except for batteries, power is not dispatchable. Power plants can’t react to the amount of power needed at any time and they get inefficient trying. If we had a way to charge when supply is greater than demand, we can not only make use of previously wasted power but even make power plants more efficient by giving them steadier demand
The extra electricity needed for EVs is zero or maybe even negative
That’s unlikely to be the case, the US already does use batteries in power production and the amount more we would need to switch all US power to solar would be astonishingly high.
Power plants can’t react to the amount of power needed at any time and they get inefficient trying
They can’t react in the minute by minute basis, but they do react to usage. Most coal fired plants only operate at about 50% capacity most of the time and bring on reactors to match the predicted power usage curve. When building a power curve profile the power company typically takes into account constant power as a baseline (solar and hydro being always on during the hours it is active and the power output of a given number of reactors is relatively set). Power is then supplemented with smaller generation sites which might use natural gas or even petroleum products. The smaller sites are far less efficient and make less power, but the name of the game when making power is making sure you always have enough for demand.
Let’s say it’s peak day, 25 solar farms are making 675 MW right now, each coal plant reactor can make 500 MW and the demand right now is 1250 MW. You start up your natural gas turbine plant to make up the difference during peak day, but as the sun goes down you start up reactor 2 and 3. As reactor 2 and 3 get going the power usage goes up to 1600 as people come home and the solar farms stop generating power so you continue using your turbine plant but also start drawing from your batteries. Once reactor 2 and 3 are up and running you might stop using your turbine and keep drawing from your batteries, but when people go to sleep the power usage drops to 700 MW. Now power usage has dropped but you keep the reactors going for a while or begin to shut them down (they will still make some power as they shutdown) to recharge the batteries.
All these numbers are hypothetical, but it’s a description of how the process works.
I’m not gonna watch the full hour and a half, but I skimmed through to make sure his message was at least mostly consistent. This guy is talking about renewable energy for cars and vaguely extrapolates that to all energy requirements.
Doing a quick Google search came up with 2.2-5.2 trillion watt-hours as the amount of energy needed if all US vehicles were electric. Currently the US generates ~11 trillion watt-hours per day so this would increase that amount ~20-50%. In this video the guy mentioned a 27 megawatt solar farm (~130-150 MWh/day), but a large coal plant generates 15-24k MWh/day (500-1000 MW instantaneous).
The US currently has ~12.5k utility scale electric power plants, to replace those with solar and switch all cars to electric you would need ~2-2.5 million solar farms the size represented in the video.
The industry standard is that each megawatt a solar farm is rated takes 5-10 acres. For nuclear that value is ~0.8 acres/megawatt and for coal it’s ~0.64 acres/megawatt. While large power plants generate ~500-1000 MW they vary in size dramatically so the actual average is closer to 50 MW per plant. By that math, the current total land for existing plants should be ~400,000 acres but the equivalent if we switched to 100% solar power would be 270-675 million acres of land.
I’m not saying that renewables are bad or that we shouldn’t pursue them, I’m also not arguing that we should all hold on to gas burning cars, but there is not compelling enough evidence that switching to 100% renewable energy would be cheaper.
EDIT: The estimates here don’t include things like the coal mines included in them but it also doesn’t take into account the production of panels, batteries, or the component materials in either of them such as lithium mines. I think solar probably wins out when comparing just that side, but their land usage alone likely tips things.
Okay, so I’ve double-checked all the most important numbers you’ve used. One thing I’ve noticed is that Alec compared the land-use of ethanol and solar power, but our fuel is only 10% ethanol. Even then though that doesn’t explain the whole number you got to.
With 270 million acres, and 1mW for every 10 acres, that’s 27 million mW (648 trillion Wh a day). Far more than what you say is needed for all cars to be electric. At some point you must have swapped to the goal of meeting America’s entire electricity demand with solar. Even then though …
America consumes 25,000tWh of energy per year (about 7Twh per day, or 3Tw). 27 million mW is 27tW.Even with 10 acres per mW, we’d only require about 30 million acres to meet the entire country’s energy with solar (which happens to be exactly the same as the amount of land we spend on ethanol).You should really double-check your math.
EDIT: 30-35 million acres is still correct, but my working is wrong. I made two mistakes that cancel each-other out. See https://aussie.zone/post/29798627/21519669
EDIT: I basically skipped over your 3rd and 4th paragraph, but what is that nonsense math your doing? I didn’t even bother trying to comprehend it because it was so nonsensical, but what in the actual hell were you trying to do there.
As I said in my post, this guy is talking about fuel for cars, not the entire power usage
That is literally what I said in paragraph 3 “The US currently has ~12.5k utility scale electric power plants, to replace those with solar and switch all cars to electric you would need ~2-2.5 million solar farms the size represented in the video.”
My research said the US produces 11 trillion Wh per day and said that if all US vehicles were electric it would require 2.2-5.5 trillion Wh more per day. Looking at consumption is important, but looking at production is more accurate. Some electricity is sold or wasted, but that’s to ensure demand is met when the grid sees a spike in usage.
You must have skipped paragraph 2 as well. A 27 MW solar plant is rated as such because that is the maximum instantaneous power outout, but most places only have ~16 hours of sunlight and won’t be running at 27 MW for all 16 hours. As such a 27 MW solar farm will only make ~130-150 MWh/day.
Okay, lets redo the math with your new numbers.
Now lets get all the units into average MW
That means 35 million acres. Now I’m going to post this immediately before double-checking my math previous maths, because this number should be about 10 times higher than my previous answer based on the numbers you’ve given me. Did I overestimate the land required in my first reply?
EDIT: Found my problem.
7TWh per day is not 3TW, it’s 0.3TW.
I worked the problem a different way, first of all I evaluated both ends of both spectrum (2.2-5.2 trillion for adding cars to get the number of solar farms needed and 5-10 acres per MW rating, this is how I built my range). I believe I have an error in the number of solar farms needed (2-2.5 million farms in my original post), but I have not been able to replicate my math that got me the error. I made this post in sections and at some point realized that 27 MW doesn’t make 648 MWh, but I might have missed switching it out somewhere to get the math I got.
Rerunning the math I took the amount produced and needed (~17 trillion Wh) and divided it by the production for one 27 MW site (150 MWh) to get the number of plants and then multiplied that by 27x10.
17x10^12 / 150x10^6 x 27 x 10 = 30,600,000 or 30.6 million acres.
All that aside we are still talking about 75x more land usage before we talk about time zones, day night cycles, distribution of the panels, etc. The big counterpoint that people seem to have is batteries, but we already use batteries and the amount more we would need to provide 24 hour coverage with just solar would be astonishing.
Market forces push business decisions, the only way solar power would be cheaper for the consumer is if it was also cheaper for the business. If solar was realistically cheaper then power production facilities then corporations would be switching to it and probably not drop our end costs because that would just be extra profit. Whether it’s a lack of battery capability, unattainable capital costs, lack of reliability, or something else at play, solar power would not be cheaper for the end user or else corporations would be switching to it.
EDIT: Good work on your math.
As per the video, 30 million acres of land is used to grow ethanol that is mixed into petrol. We could replace every car in the country with electric, and power our entire electricity grid with solar power, with that land. Solar farms are less destructive to the land than corn farming so even if replacing all that farmland with solar panels only provided enough power for electric cars, it would still be a positive in terms of land use.
75x land use is as compared only to power-plants. If I go swimming tomorrow I’ve 999999x’d my shark attack risk. And as a share of America it’s only 1-2% of the total area of the United States (to power the entire country) and can replace all the corn ethanol crops to a net environmental benefit.
As for batteries, they are recyclable (as the video goes into). They do add to the cost of renewables but not so much that they cancel out having to constantly mine coal and set it on fire to never be used again. There are wind turbines which even out the duck curve, but in this thought experiment the entire country is going solar powered only.
As for why business leaders aren’t investing in renewables, I need to make an important distinction. Renewables aren’t the “cheapest form of power generation”, they are the “cheapest form of new power generation”. It is cheaper to keep running existing gas-fired and nuclear power stations until they reach EOL than it is to tear them down prematurely and replace them with solar. A large number of power stations are rapidly reaching EOL and it’s very important that we don’t build any more coal-fired power plants right now (due to an explicit government policy of burning more coal, perhaps). Each one we build will last 50-100 years and be cheaper to keep running than replace with renewables.
The majority of ethanol based crop production comes from growing corn in the Midwest, specifically Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana. Ranked by population density that’s:
By percentage of the US population that’s
There are practical reasons why we typically try to generate power close to where it will be used. Yes, theoretically you can realistically supply power up to 3000 miles away, but most power plants only provide power to around 500 miles away. Yes we could cover the Corn Belt with solar panels and then wire it to the coasts, but doing so has it’s own risks and drawbacks. Ethanol agriculture makes sense where it is because the population density is so low and both corn and ethanol can be shipped with relatively low loss.
I’m not arguing that they aren’t recyclable but rather they aren’t accessible at the volume needed. A quick google search said that current utility scale battery storage exceeds 26 GW (10^9), but only represents 2% of total generating capacity. To provide power for approximately half the day, based on our previous math, we would need need ~7x10^11 W.
Just so my math is clear from the beginning, 17x10^12 W / 2 (half the day) / 12 (hours per half day) = 7x10^11 W of battery which is 27 times more than we currently have.
I think this is a fair and nuanced point. In my opinion the solution is not one singular option, such as 100% solar, but a mix of options which might include some percentage of non-renewable energy. I think reduction of non-renewable should be the goal, but switching 100% to renewable does not seem feasible to me.
My argument was never that we “should” replace all our ethanol corn crops with solar panels. Just that we could. And we could still theoretically make it work with enough money and gumption (and moving energy intensive industries inland to reduce the need for transmission).
Lithium supply is a concern. We don’t have enough in the world to support the green transition and there’s no clear solution. A few that come to mind are:
I think we should use a small amount of methane to supply power in the event of an emergency, instead of building enough batteries to supply us for an entire year of cloudy weather and stagnant air. In the first place the thought experiment was about 35 million acres of solar, not about a 100% renewable grid. That’s a separate discussion to be had among engineers.
Guys, Gals…hear me out: I can easily half all the numbers in your calculations: do something about the energy efficiency and get to the same per capita consumption as e.g. France and Germany.
Boom, instant less area consumption.
stop using chat gpt to argue
I’ve never used ChatGPT in my life, you can shove your accusations where the sun doesn’t shine.
Your maths is wrong.
Here is a video that corrects and explains why Solar is, even in the northern climate, far more economical then your incorrect calculations show
https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM
You literally just reshared the same video the guy I’m responding to shared in the post I am responding to. Obviously you didn’t read anything.
Ironic
YES! It already goes over the mistakes you were making.
On a side note, this was probably the best video I’ve seen in the last 12 months.
I thought it would be a nice and nerdy breakdown of solar panels, but the more I watched the better it got.
For those who did watch it: wow what a whiplash!
Yeah, the video is 1.5 hours long. I don’t care how good you found it to be, I’m just not going to watch that long of a video, you need to convey what is important in the video through written dialogue or else you may as well not use it. While I did make a mistake in my math my fundamental point is still true, the video’s point was entirely based on scaling renewable power usage for cars to all power usage and the math just doesn’t provide a sound basis for it.
Or …. The extra electricity needed for EVs is zero or maybe even negative. Except for batteries, power is not dispatchable. Power plants can’t react to the amount of power needed at any time and they get inefficient trying. If we had a way to charge when supply is greater than demand, we can not only make use of previously wasted power but even make power plants more efficient by giving them steadier demand
That’s unlikely to be the case, the US already does use batteries in power production and the amount more we would need to switch all US power to solar would be astonishingly high.
They can’t react in the minute by minute basis, but they do react to usage. Most coal fired plants only operate at about 50% capacity most of the time and bring on reactors to match the predicted power usage curve. When building a power curve profile the power company typically takes into account constant power as a baseline (solar and hydro being always on during the hours it is active and the power output of a given number of reactors is relatively set). Power is then supplemented with smaller generation sites which might use natural gas or even petroleum products. The smaller sites are far less efficient and make less power, but the name of the game when making power is making sure you always have enough for demand.
Let’s say it’s peak day, 25 solar farms are making 675 MW right now, each coal plant reactor can make 500 MW and the demand right now is 1250 MW. You start up your natural gas turbine plant to make up the difference during peak day, but as the sun goes down you start up reactor 2 and 3. As reactor 2 and 3 get going the power usage goes up to 1600 as people come home and the solar farms stop generating power so you continue using your turbine plant but also start drawing from your batteries. Once reactor 2 and 3 are up and running you might stop using your turbine and keep drawing from your batteries, but when people go to sleep the power usage drops to 700 MW. Now power usage has dropped but you keep the reactors going for a while or begin to shut them down (they will still make some power as they shutdown) to recharge the batteries.
All these numbers are hypothetical, but it’s a description of how the process works.