How will YOU survive global warming?

[Motown_Johnny]

10. I won't

I'm pushing 50 now. If I have another 30 years in me that is probably about it. Global warming will survive me but I won't live long enough to survive it.



My only idea isn't my idea at all (except maybe the global power grid thing).


Produce enough solar panels to supply the world's energy needs 2 or 3 times over and station them around the globe so that enough are always facing the sun to supply the entire world with energy. Then you need to connect them to a global power grid. The article I am linking to takes a slightly different approach but it has the same general idea and some good solid numbers.



http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127

^snip^

According to the US Department of Energy (Energy Information Administration), the world consumption of energy in all of its forms (barrels of petroleum, cubic meters of natural gas, watts of hydro power, etc.) is projected to reach 678 quadrillion Btu (or 7.15 exajoules) by 2030 – a 44% increase over 2008 levels (levels for 1980 were 283 quadrillion Btu and we stand at around 500 quadrillion Btu today).

I wonder what surface area would be required and what type of infrastructural investment would be required to supply that amount of power by using only solar panels. To create fuel that can be used in vehicles and equipment I am assuming that some of the electricity generated would be used to create hydrogen. We should all start wondering about these things since we will have really no other choice* by the turn of the next century.

So to find this out we start with the big number 678,000,000,000,000,000 Btu.

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If divided into 5,000 super-site installations around the world (average of 25 per country), it would measure less than 10km a side for each. The UAE has plans to construct 1,500MW of capacity by 2020 which will require a space of 3 km per side. If the UAE constructed the other 7 km per side of that area, it would be able to power itself as a nation completely with solar energy. The USA would require a much larger area and approximately 1,000 of these super-sites.