[towaway15463]

Even so, when people say that we’ll just spread out this energy generation infrastructure everywhere I still want to know the actual numbers. Are there enough rooftops and vacant lots in LA to provide all the necessary power? What about lower density areas? What about northern climates with lots of snow and rain? There is still maintenance involved, installation costs are likely increased by doing this piecemeal rather than at a single site. Are we assuming all of this will be undertaken by individual homeowners or is it a commercial operation? Leaving it up to individuals seems like it would drastically slow roll out due to a lot of people not being able to afford it or simply being unwilling to have panels. If commercial then the available locations become very limited. These things can’t just be hand waved away.

[ncmncm]

There is absolutely no need to use any land exclusively for solar or wind.

Both coexist synergetically with reservoirs, canal, pasture, even crop land. So, zero acres of land needed.

[labcomputer]

So, like, why don't you try to calculate this for yourself? As a pedagogical exercise, I think you'll get much more out of it if you compute the numbers for yourself and play through a bunch of "what if" scenarios.

Just to get you started with some ballpark numbers: The solar irradiance at ground level on a sunny day is greater than 1kW/m^2 for about 6 hours per day (google for "AM1.5"). Typical commercial panels have a conversion efficiency of 21-22%.

You seem very confident that solar is impossible, so why don't you make some reasonable assumptions and prove it to all of us?

[towaway15463]

I didn’t say that I think it’s impossible. I’m asking for the reasoning behind the belief that it would be the optimal solution. In this context a lot of details are being talked about to argue for or against the viability of nuclear but I don’t see the same critical process being applied to the assertions that we can run everything on solar and batteries. I’ve put forward many of the same questions that have been answered for nuclear, it is up to the solar proponents to answer them.

[epistasis]

It's safe to assume that most nuclear propositions are based upon unrealistic best case scenarios that won't stand up to the scrutiny of reality, and that all solar propositions have been treated incredibly harshly and conservatively and the solar solution will be completely underestimated.

There is a massive bias in the field in favor of nuclear and against solar, and this shows in every single prediction made over the past 15-20 years. The EIA would uncritically put out numbers for "advanced nuclear" that were unbeliever rosy for a tech that had never been built. And at the same time, use out of date costs for solar, and the assumption that solar would stay at the old prices and never improve in price.

Or you will see peer reviewed papers in nuclear that assume ridiculous rosy solutions, that make it all the way through to publication without those rosy assumptions being challenged. For example, using nuclear in remote areas, but it using the actual capacity factor of that sort of system, 40-50%, and instead assuming that the price is coming from using every last bit of electricity at all time. In contrast all the modeling around solar always picks the most conservative estimates, because of the unrealistic hyper criticism of solar, which leads to even the most rosy of solar predictions being underestimated of solar.

Similarly, "concerns" about land or energy density are not realistic concerns, but mere political talk used to delay delay delay as long as possible the obvious solution that solar will be a cornerstone of our energy future, from 40%-70% of most countries' energy.

But if you actually are interested in the land usage, it's a question that has been studied to death. NREL is usually a good source, but one caution is to look at the date of any publication, and realize that if it's more than a year old, a lot of the data will be out of date. Here's a 2013 report on land use:

https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56290.pdf