That would be larger than the three states of Alabama, Georgia and
Mississippi combined. Of course it would actually be a lot more than that
because you have to leave service areas in between the panels. They have
to be cleaned periodically because of dust and bird droppings. So it would
probably take about twice that much. Around 300,000 square miles or about
200 million acres. That is a lot of solar panels.

When people talk about the coming “hydrogen economy”, with hydrogen being
generated by solar panels, they never give any figures. Has anyone noticed
that? They never say how many solar panels, how much they will cost, how
much farmland they will cover or any of the thousand and one other details
that must be attended to before such a thing could become a reality.

Those who fail to do their arithmetic are doomed to talk nonsense.

Ron Patterson

Peter hill wrote:
>>>If the US population is about 285 million, then the nominal area
required for solar collection would be 427,500 square kilometres or
163,000 square miles, or a big part of Texas. Solar Prosperity Corridors
( but rather wider than their architects' expectations) and national debt,
here we come!<<<

----- Original Message -----
From: Dale & Elizabeth Pfeiffer
To: energyresources@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 16, 2002 1:02 PM
Subject: Re: [energyresources] Hydrogen and Solar Energy Question
I've been looking into some of this, though I haven't tied any of it
together yet. Here is a quote:
http://www.dieoff.com/page84.htm

Renewable Energy:
Economic and Environmental Issues
by David Pimentel, G. Rodrigues, T. Wane, R. Abrams, K. Goldberg, H.
Staecker, E. Ma, L. Brueckner, L. Trovato, C. Chow, U. Govindarajulu, and
S. Boerke

(Originally published in BioScience -- Vol. 44, No. 8, September 1994)
The material inputs for a hydrogen production facility are primarily those
needed to build a solar electric production facility. The energy required
to produce 1 billion kWh of hydrogen is 1.3 billion kWh of electricity
(Voigt 1984). If current photovoltaics (Table 2) require 2700 ha/1 billion
kWh, then a total area of 3510 ha would be needed to supply the equivalent
of 1 billion kWh of hydrogen fuel. Based on US per capita liquid fuel
needs, a facility covering approximately 0.15 ha (16,300 ft2) would be
needed to produce a year's requirement of liquid hydrogen. In such a
facility, the water requirement for electrolytic production of 1 billion
kWh/yr equivalent of hydrogen is approximately 300 million liters/yr
(Voigt 1984).



=====
- Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but
never without belief in a devil..... Every difficulty and failure within
the movement is the work of the devil, and every success is a
triumph over his evil plotting.
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

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