What area would it take to produce several GW that a few reactors would produce?
In clear weather, a surface perpendicular to the sunlight gets about 1 kW / m². So 1 GW would take a square kilometer. If our solar cells are top-notch 25% efficient cells, 1 GW will take 4 km² at best weather. And we need many multiples of that.
Verily, Sahara must be the best place for such an oil factory. Maybe some of the US Midwest and West, with many sunny days. And, unlike the cute pictures on the side, they will need to be massive, all the way to the horizon.
Maybe with a few nuclear plants thrown in if we learn to build them efficiently again.
> What area would it take to produce several GW that a few reactors would produce?
Out of curiosity, I tried some napkin math on this. If Nevada went whole hog, used say, 1% of their total land for solar, they could produce almost half the electrical needs of the US, if I haven't mucked up the math too much.
Sounds plausible, but 1% of Nevada's land for solar would indeed be 'all the way to the horizon' in many places.
I looked at a 2GW nuclear facility, and it's about 1 square Km. The reactors aren't too big, but there a lot of auxiliary buildings as well as parking for many employees. I know one building is a training facility that replicates much of the primary facilities, and there is a lot of space dedicated to security either with actual structures or buffer zones. There are also PR/education facilities on site, presumably so the local municipality doesn't eventually vote them out. Somewhere they store fissile material.
It's also on the coast for access to coolant water.
It seems very difficult to place huge facilities like this with all the staff and security requirements on waterfront property when you can stick a solar panel on or next to just about anything.
If we can continue producing them in a renewable or at least sustainable way, why not?
If the only way to keep that up is burning oil, then no.
Please also note that some of the most intense producers of CO2 are poor(er) countries which burn coal because it's cheap. Even natural gas can be too expensive for them, let alone solar or wind installations.
I wonder when the West would consider buying and converting such plants. It's likely feasible in Africa, hardly so in China.
In clear weather, a surface perpendicular to the sunlight gets about 1 kW / m². So 1 GW would take a square kilometer. If our solar cells are top-notch 25% efficient cells, 1 GW will take 4 km² at best weather. And we need many multiples of that.
Verily, Sahara must be the best place for such an oil factory. Maybe some of the US Midwest and West, with many sunny days. And, unlike the cute pictures on the side, they will need to be massive, all the way to the horizon.
Maybe with a few nuclear plants thrown in if we learn to build them efficiently again.