The US can provide for far more than its total electricity usage, with just the land area we currently use to grow corn for ethanol. You can put solar panels on parking lots, over roads, on train tracks, on rooftops, etc. You can even use the same land for both solar panels and growing certain crops. It’s called agrivoltaics. And that’s before you even get into panels in deserts, floating on water, etc.
There simply isn’t a shortage of land for solar. Unless you’re talking about tiny city-states, there just is no shortage of land needed for electric purposes. Land usage just isn’t a significant factor. Yes, land footprint is an advantage nuclear has, but it’s an advantage that really doesn’t matter much in the real world.
There are a multitude of possible downsides with nuclear and with the greater number of reactors around the world comes the greater risk of something going catastrophically wrong for large amounts of people.
Solar has none of that downside, unless you include the sun devouring us in 6 billion years time…
The key difference on the materials is that you can use the materials endlessly with solar. With fossil fuels or even with fission, you have to constantly burn fuel. Sure, the actual fuel rods used in a reactor has a small volume. But those are made from enriched uranium, made from uranium oxide, made from uranium ore. The volume of waste generated is far larger than just the volume of the reactor core itself. But with solar? You only ever have to extract the materials once. Sure, the panels degrade over time. But after they degrade beyond usefulness, the material is still there. It’s like a lead-acid battery. They wear out after awhile, but they can be recycled. You eventually reach a point where you no longer have to mine any new materials to make new panels, or you only mine new materials as you want your electricity supply to grow. With any fuel-based power source, including fission, you have to keep extracting those fuels forever.
And don’t ignore the huge material requirement to build a reactor. You have to build a giant concrete dome around the damn things. Those domes are one of the few structures on Earth actually designed to survive a 9/11-style terrorist attack. They’re built to resist the impact of large jet aircraft. Plus the vast labyrinth of piping, heat exchangers, turbines, etc. All of this is of immense material cost. All-in, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the mass of a GW of nuclear power plant is a lot more than the mass of a GW of solar plant. Nuclear power plants are hulking leviathans.
The US can provide for far more than its total electricity usage, with just the land area we currently use to grow corn for ethanol. You can put solar panels on parking lots, over roads, on train tracks, on rooftops, etc. You can even use the same land for both solar panels and growing certain crops. It’s called agrivoltaics. And that’s before you even get into panels in deserts, floating on water, etc.
There simply isn’t a shortage of land for solar. Unless you’re talking about tiny city-states, there just is no shortage of land needed for electric purposes. Land usage just isn’t a significant factor. Yes, land footprint is an advantage nuclear has, but it’s an advantage that really doesn’t matter much in the real world.
Huh, I didn’t realize the numbers worked out that well.
I think there’s still a raw-materials issue, though. Extraction and transport for that much solar is doable but still a big disadvantage.
You really need to watch this video. It explains it all. It’s long, but it’s incredibly well researched and presented.
https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM
Raw materials are not an issue.
There are a multitude of possible downsides with nuclear and with the greater number of reactors around the world comes the greater risk of something going catastrophically wrong for large amounts of people.
Solar has none of that downside, unless you include the sun devouring us in 6 billion years time…
The key difference on the materials is that you can use the materials endlessly with solar. With fossil fuels or even with fission, you have to constantly burn fuel. Sure, the actual fuel rods used in a reactor has a small volume. But those are made from enriched uranium, made from uranium oxide, made from uranium ore. The volume of waste generated is far larger than just the volume of the reactor core itself. But with solar? You only ever have to extract the materials once. Sure, the panels degrade over time. But after they degrade beyond usefulness, the material is still there. It’s like a lead-acid battery. They wear out after awhile, but they can be recycled. You eventually reach a point where you no longer have to mine any new materials to make new panels, or you only mine new materials as you want your electricity supply to grow. With any fuel-based power source, including fission, you have to keep extracting those fuels forever.
And don’t ignore the huge material requirement to build a reactor. You have to build a giant concrete dome around the damn things. Those domes are one of the few structures on Earth actually designed to survive a 9/11-style terrorist attack. They’re built to resist the impact of large jet aircraft. Plus the vast labyrinth of piping, heat exchangers, turbines, etc. All of this is of immense material cost. All-in, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the mass of a GW of nuclear power plant is a lot more than the mass of a GW of solar plant. Nuclear power plants are hulking leviathans.