| I (and many others more qualified) have run the numbers. It's not pretty. A decade ago biofuels were my first thought. The maths simply don't add up. Our options are far less energy per person, far fewer people, other sources of energy, or, most likely, some combination of these. The highest claimed yields are for algae, at a rather improbable 1,000 gal/(acre * year): [Y]ou might consider floating the algae offshore, along the Pacific and Atlantic costs. It's roughly 1,300 miles from San Diego, CA to Port Angeles, WA, and 1,800 miles from Homestead, FL to Lubec, ME. Dividing our 443,000 square miles by those two added together, we find we'd have to extend our grow region some distance off-shore. That is, 143 miles off-shore. The full length of both coasts. Or perhaps you'd prefer to re-purpose the Gulf of Mexico. Its total area is about 600,000 mi2, we'd need about 3/4 of it dedicated to algae growth. https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2cvap7/the_int... Tom "Do the Math" Murphy: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/11/the-biofuel-grind/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/08/garbage-in-garbage-out/ The late David MacCay's Alternative Energy Without the Hot Air gives a comprehensive breakdown for the UK of alternative energy options. Again, the picture is bleak. https://withouthotair.com The takeaways are we use a lot of energy and there are a lot of us. |