Any country which can't defend solar farms won't be allowed to run a nuclear industry. The results of failure to properly defend a nuclear industry or the purposes it can be put to (especially if they have reprocessing capability, ie. plutonium) are somewhat more severe than PV.
How Many Solar Panels Would Be Needed to Power Earth?
- Thread starter John Keefer
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Yes. the error is as i have already claimed in the post you are quoting. it is the sun power availability in various areas of the world. see, this assumes ideal atmosphere resistance and a minimum of 70% sun days. this may be true for some areas but it is not for most. In fact, this is only true for very small part of earth. Most of earth has over 50% cloud coverage (though solar panels do work under clouds too nowadays, just produce less power) and atmospheric resistance increased the further to the poles you go. I guess i exagarated a bit with the more than the entire surface in there too, because i did the same mistake and used my location solar power production without accounting that some parts like the mentioned sachara desert will likely create more. though also worth noting that others would produce less (for example in sweden solar panel is night useless)Pinky said:
I'm totally with you on that. Build it in my backyard. Totally cool with that. We don't get earthquakes, we're nowhere near a volcano or shoreline, and the mountains tend to limit the frequency and effects of tornadoes. We really just have the odd flash flood (and all the flood control dams really limit that).Ishigami said:
Honestly it seems like a great use for one of those mountaintops they keep flattening to get at the coal. Especially since the area would need something to replace the coal industry that drives the economy.
You miss the differences in defending the two. One of them is basically a big fortress made of concrete, steel, and lead, the other is massive fields covered in comparatively delicate and fairly expensive things. Defending a large outdoor area exposed to open sky is an entirely different beast that defending a comparatively small reinforced structure.Pinky said:
No I got that. I'm just looking at a different metric, (difficulty to protect)*(cost of failure to protect).
Nuclear energy will never be more than a supplement to coal/gas in the U.S. It's fun to say nuclear power is the way to go, but it simply will never happen. On paper paper everything looks fine, but like Yogi said, in theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.