Graphene solar panels will be the future. Watch.

And I'm a die hard oil and gas guy.

There's not stopping it. Just matter of time.

Tx95Ag said:

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And he's wrong. See math on page 2 of this old thread.

https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/3311707/replies/62810546#62810546

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I think your math was wrong.

For 2022, electricity usage was ~4.07 trillion kWh. But the 1.5 kWh for a solar panel is per day...not per year. So to calculate total need, you need to multiply 1.5 * 365 to get kWh for the full year...which is the 4.07 trillion number.

• 4.07 trillion kWh / (1.5 kWh day * 365 days) = ~7.4 billion panels (7,433,789,954.337)
• 7.4 billion panels * 17.55 sq ft = 130 billion sq ft (130,463,013,698.61)
• 130 billon sq/ft * 0.00000003587 (1 sq ft / sq mile) = 4,679.71 sq miles
• 4700 sq miles -> 68 x 68 mile square (sqrt of 4700)

So if you factor in overhead, reduced output at certain time, 100 x 100 sq miles of solar would get it done.

You do not need math to determine 100miles x 100mi of solar panels is stupid.

Tech needs to evolve.

F you from me from Lubbock
And
F you from my wife from Baton Rouge

boboguitar said:

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A US with nuclear as the fallback option and solar/windmill farms would be ideal.

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ttu_85 said:

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That area just west of Lubbock to west of Midland Odessa would be perfect. Nothing there but pump jacks. Let Texas power the nation.

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Huge solar farms currently going in around the Clayonville area. Belongs to Amazon, I think

Southern Swisher County for the non-Panhandle folks


https://maps.app.goo.gl/e5AG1LGETJ92kBMg7

https://www.hecateenergy.com/projects/

Cromagnum said:

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PCC_80 said:

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Still does not address the problems of rain, snow and clouds.

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Or a good hailstorm to demolish all that *****

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As I said in a post above, huge solar farm going in now in the Panhandle....which is known for hail storms.

Tx95Ag said:

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You wouldn't want a massive plot that size because you need to spread out to reduce transmission losses, average out the weather, and to eliminate risk of a catastrophic event taking it all out. That said, a grid based on a single power source is a really bad idea no matter the source. For a robust system you need a number of fuel sources.

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Esteban du Plantier said:

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Transmitting that electricity thousands of miles is the biggest challenge. Maybe if they used millions of volts instead of the 500kv that is typical to reduce losses over greater distance.

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This is the challenge no one is talking about. See Colorado in 4 years when all coal is turned off. Lots of people will suffer.

Hoyt Ag said:

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Esteban du Plantier said:

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Transmitting that electricity thousands of miles is the biggest challenge. Maybe if they used millions of volts instead of the 500kv that is typical to reduce losses over greater distance.

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This is the challenge no one is talking about. See Colorado in 4 years when all coal is turned off. Lots of people will suffer.

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That and a lot of other reasons are why you would always spread it out and not do it in one location.

PCC_80 said:

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Still does not address the problems of rain, snow and clouds.

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And unpredictable and wide spread hail storms.

Musk advising going Project Hail Mary.

Don't know your posting history but but to cover that much area you're not getting consensus so how would you get it?

ttu_85 said:

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That area just west of Lubbock to west of Midland Odessa would be perfect. Nothing there but pump jacks. Let Texas power the nation.

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Let Texas power Texas, screw the rest of of the country.

Teslag said:

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PCC_80 said:

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Still does not address the problems of rain, snow and clouds.

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And in the area mentioned, dust.

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solution!

PCC_80 said:

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Still does not address the problems of rain, snow and clouds.

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Arizona, California High Desert, Las Vegas, Utah, West Texas, etc.

Let's just make sure we can disrupt the grid Enron style for the North and East. Vote for Brandon in 2024, No Soup for You!

boboguitar said:

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A US with nuclear as the fallback option and solar/windmill farms would be ideal.

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No. Not really

PCC_80 said:

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Still does not address the problems of rain, snow and clouds.

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Rogue winds tore up a field in Southern AZ a few years back

Solar as a supplement might work. Too many issues with it being a primary energy source.

Burdizzo said:

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ttu_85 said:

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That area just west of Lubbock to west of Midland Odessa would be perfect. Nothing there but pump jacks. Let Texas power the nation.

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Covering Lubbock would be a good start.

Can we cover Baton Rouge too?

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Austin, SF, Chicago, and Manhattan. Oh and LA. Level it and do solar panels

Tx95Ag said:

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And he's wrong. See math on page 2 of this old thread.

https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/3311707/replies/62810546#62810546

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Yeah, 100x100 miles doesn't even come close. I came to post the same thing.

Even to convert current vehicles all to EVs, assuming similar miles traveled you would need a solar farm larger than Rhode Island, and it would need to be in Arizona, the most optimal spot in the US at 5.5-6 hours per day generation eq. This doesn't even consider the grid storage required to smooth out the consumption over 24 hours.

Pumpkinhead said:

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ttu_85 said:

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That area just west of Lubbock to west of Midland Odessa would be perfect. Nothing there but pump jacks. Let Texas power the nation.

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As someone from a family with a notable amount of land in West Texas, some family members looked into a solar farming possibility and my impression as least currently is the business model is hard to make work.

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Very true.

Check out Tonopah Solar Energy's "Crescent Dunes Project".

ttu_85 said:

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jja79 said:

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ttu_85 said:

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That area just west of Lubbock to west of Midland Odessa would be perfect. Nothing there but pump jacks. Let Texas power the nation.

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Do you propose seizing private property to do it?

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Wow. Does my posting history suggest that? Why not let some landowner make bank by hosting the panels. Uh, we do the same with panels as we have done with windmills and pump jacks for decades. They are called leases.

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As one farmer with wind generators on his land said, it doesn't pay nearly as much as what the promise you.

I think that he now wishes they would just remove them from his land.

Arranging them in one big square leaves it wide open to a single catastrophe causing massive outage.

The US has about 95,000 miles of coastline.

How about if we just build a swath along every coast of the us to a width of one/8 of a mile? That would give us over 10,000 square miles of solar panels and they wouldn't be located in just one region.

Those beach houses are going to be underwater one of these years, anyway. Right?

Ya just gotta learn to think outside the box.

It's actually around exactly that much. That calculation is just wrong by a factor of 365. It also underestimates energy production from a solar panel. It's a non-realistic scenario where you could just lay solar panel by solar panel in a grid and get peak efficiency, but the reality is they'd be separated and angled to maximize sun exposure.

Land area is nowhere near the limiter for solar power production.

Looks like a big solar farm going in just north of Rogers. Also looks like one is going in north of Cameron too. Just from what I can tell while watching 18 wheelers coming at me and a couple trying to run over me.

And when the batteries run out, we'll need another 100 mile x 100 mile solar farm AND a huge hole to bury the old stuff.

A Lubbock solar farm would look like this very quickly

Solar farms are the scourge of the earth.

Small modular Thorium reactors. Take up less space and more energy.

Artimus Gordon said:

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Looks like a big solar farm going in just north of Rogers. Also looks like one is going in north of Cameron too. Just from what I can tell while watching 18 wheelers coming at me and a couple trying to run over me.

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Green Energy Blight

PCC_80 said:

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Still does not address the problems of rain, snow and clouds.

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Hail, don't forget about those softball size pieces of ice falling from the sky.

Artimus Gordon said:

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Looks like a big solar farm going in just north of Rogers. Also looks like one is going in north of Cameron too. Just from what I can tell while watching 18 wheelers coming at me and a couple trying to run over me.

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Olivia, Danevang, and Hungerford say hello.