[defrost]

    Given the U.S. consumes about 4 petawatts hours of electricity per year, It would take about 13,600,000 acres or 21,250 square miles of solar panels to meet the total electricity requirements of the United States for a year.

That's roughly the size of Lake Michigan.

[pfdietz]

> 4 petawatts of electricity per year

You mean 4 petawatt HOURS per year, right?

[defrost]

Google misquoted https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56290.pdf via Quora.

Does that increase the required land area to half the United States?

As aristofun claimed?

[pfdietz]

No, of course not. But confusion of power and energy pushes my buttons. :)

[aristofun]

> That's roughly the size of Lake Michigan.

You realize that this is ridiculously large, un feasible area, right?

Which proves my point of this shitty energy sources being not scalable.

[pfdietz]

It's completely feasible. It's about the same as US acreage currently used to grow corn for ethanol.

[aristofun]

Do you see any difference between corn and solar panels?

You sound like a politician - i hope you never get any power.

[pfdietz]

I see you didn't even try to justify your bullshit there.

Of course corn and solar panels are different. For one thing, an acre of solar panels produces vastly more economic value per year than an acre of corn. What the corn observation does is show that the idea that this is too much area is insipid nonsense.

I could have easily compared the area to other things, like golf courses, parking lots, roads, or areas given over to fossil fuel production.

[aristofun]

I am sorry you are ignorant enough to not see how Michigan lake size solar panels field is fundamentally different from a parking lot of same size.

I don’t argue with stupid people, sorry.

[pfdietz]

You would be surprised at how similar parking lots and PV fields are in cost per unit area. The PV field might even be cheaper!