How Many Solar Panels Are Needed To Power Entire World

Ran across this vid and found it informative and entertaining. Created by a charismatic visual fx artist, the 20 minute vid went by relatively fast, tackling questions like can clean energy match the appetite of today's world, how does solar compare to other energy sources, the difference/relation between power and energy, how powerful the sun is, how complex the term "energy" is, and a plethora of interesting stats. I tried to find the transcripts to no avail, but hope many can view this and learn as I did. Don't stop before 2 minutes, it is not, imo a promotional bit , but rather a visual dive into the subject including benefits as well as challenges and shortcomings. I really dug it and it made me think of ATS.
source

a reply to: waftist
Our focus is in the wrong place, so naturally things will continue to worsen. I’m gonna finish watching the video anyway, for kicks. Maybe I’ll learn something. Thanks

a reply to: waftist

I think the government elites figured out years ago that it will be impossible to convert the world to green energy.
That leaves only one viable option.
Reduce energy consumption.
What's the easiest way to do that?
Destroy the world economy and send everyone into poverty.

Nice fantasy propaganda there.

This video entirely fails to consider the replacement of old solar panels and batteries every 5 to 10 years. The amount of mining to provide the solar panels and batteries will make coal mining look small. Also, what do you do with the old solar panels and batteries. They are both toxic and not very recycalable.

The real answer to the question in the video title is it will take an infinite number of solar panels and batteries to just keep up with the growing demand for electricity much less replace all other sources.

Until fusion is perfected, we will still need all sources of electricity.

How Many Solar Panels Are Needed To Power Entire World

For anybody that can't or won't watch the video the answer is 23 Billion.

23 Billion Solar Panels.

Renewable energy development relies upon sufficient quantities of rare earth minerals, specifically neodymium, terbium, indium, dysprosium, and praseodymium. These are used in the production of solar panels and wind turbines.

So to save Planet Earth by using renewable energy, we need to rip it up with heavy machinery to extract the Rare Earth Minerals required.

Well at least there will be plenty of jobs and you can escape "House Lockdown" by working in the mines.

Pretty sure the entire earth lived with solar energy...up until we discovered and exploited "electricity"...it's why we aren't in the dark anymore. And to make electricity takes other energies.....period the end. All these electric cars....where do you think that electricity comes from?..... Most from coal fired power plants. So when we as a nation are "Mandated" to have electric cars.....where is all that electricity coming from...if it's solar....there's gonna be a lot of pissed of people standing next to their dead cars on the highway.

a reply to: Fatboy527

California already has power shortages so I'm sure millions of new electric cars will be no problem at all.

A much more important question is how many batteries are needed to store and distribute the power needed to fulfill the worlds needs by utilizing solar power ? Probably way more than we could possibly produce at our currently available technology. And when they are no longer viable, where do we discard the left over hazardous waste ?

Perhaps if we can put solar panels in low earth orbit, engineer a way to efficiently return the collected power to earth, store and safely distribute it, we might be able to contemplate a total dependence on solar energy. It seems there will always be some trade off, like all those solar panels in orbit. They would eventually need to come down and where would be the next question.

Reduction of our dependence on any one form of energy is our most practical approach at this point, each has its own pitfalls. Fossil fuels each has a detrimental effect, solar itself is hazardous as the panels utilize a number of known hazardous products to produce including requiring fossil products, and as of now they have a relatively short life and pose a hazard of their own in regards to disposal.

The best effort will be in reduction of our energy consumption, a combination using the resources and technologies available to provide our needs. Balance seems to be the answer to life in a wide variety of ways. Perhaps one day our technical knowledge will advance enough where answers to the above described issues will come, but I believe their will always be a trade off but balance will be the key

I have a related story that fits right in with this topic.
My wife is in the banking business.

She had a man in her office a few weeks ago applying for a car loan. He was surprised when she mentioned a $60k unsecured loan on his credit report.

A what now?!?!

He bought solar panels for his house and gas a 20 year loan on them.
But he's off the grid now so no electric bills....lol

a reply to: waftist
Most residences consume on average below 2,000 watt hours....per day.

20 ---100 watt solar panels with a battery bank is considered off grid with more than enough to thrive.

originally posted by: loveguy
a reply to: waftist
Most residences consume on average below 2,000 watt hours....per day.

20 ---100 watt solar panels with a battery bank is considered off grid with more than enough to thrive.

Don't solar panels average about 15% efficiency?
2000 watts times 15% = 300 watts

Even central air will use 3000 watts an hour.

a reply to: loveguy

Does that figure take into consideration the power to make all goods, services, transportation and shipping they have ever consumed in their entire life?

Off grid is one thing, getting the average consumer to that level is a wire of an entirely different color.

How Many Solar Panels Are Needed To Power Entire World

More than land area.
And solar panels do not work underwater.

a reply to: waftist

Don't forget the batteries, solar panels are not a direct power source.

originally posted by: Bluntone22

originally posted by: loveguy
a reply to: waftist
Most residences consume on average below 2,000 watt hours....per day.

20 ---100 watt solar panels with a battery bank is considered off grid with more than enough to thrive.

Don't solar panels average about 15% efficiency?
2000 watts times 15% = 300 watts

Even central air will use 3000 watts an hour.

I think they're a lot more efficient than that nowadays, more like 25 -30% - a mate is offgrid and powers electric for 10 - 20 families and 2 - 5kw of sound rigs off a couple of m^2 arrays and a few dozen old fork lift truck batteries to store it in.

The parabolic-thorium arrays are 70 - 80% efficient and can power the earth with around 10 square miles of arrays but power grids would need to be converted to DC to transport the electricity efficiently over distance.

a reply to: bastion

From what I can find the most efficient panels are under 25%.

news.energysage.com...

www.cleanenergyreviews.info...

Solar panels have the place but they are not going to be the solution. Solar fields would probably be better than per house but even then someone needs to clean them often which never happens

originally posted by: bastion

originally posted by: Bluntone22

originally posted by: loveguy
a reply to: waftist
Most residences consume on average below 2,000 watt hours....per day.

20 ---100 watt solar panels with a battery bank is considered off grid with more than enough to thrive.

Don't solar panels average about 15% efficiency?
2000 watts times 15% = 300 watts

Even central air will use 3000 watts an hour.

I think they're a lot more efficient than that nowadays, more like 25 -30% - a mate is offgrid and powers electric for 10 - 20 families and 2 - 5kw of sound rigs off a couple of m^2 arrays and a few dozen old fork lift truck batteries to store it in.

The parabolic-thorium arrays are 70 - 80% efficient and can power the earth with around 10 square miles of arrays but power grids would need to be converted to DC to transport the electricity efficiently over distance.

DC does not work over any great distance for power. The wires would have to be too big.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: Fatboy527

California already has power shortages so I'm sure millions of new electric cars will be no problem at all.

As a long time California resident, I keep seeing this false statement come up again and again. California does not have power shortages; we have plenty of power availability, and can get much more from our wind and solar resources if needed for electric cars. California has unacceptably frequent power outages because we have an antiquated and unsafe power distribution system. During the fire season, which now lasts from May through October, we have scheduled so-called Public Safety Power Shutoffs which means that PG&E just shuts off the power in high fire risk areas until the wind stops blowing so they don’t get sued for burning entire towns to the ground. In addition to that, they have set the circuit breakers to the most sensitive level possible such that a squirrel walking on a power line the wrong way can trip the breaker. The combination results in more than one power outage day per week during the peak fire season where I live in the Santa Cruz mountains.

The solution for this is to bury power lines in the high risk areas instead of running bare wires on wooden poles through the forest canopy. After resisting this obvious solution for years, PG&E has now claimed that they will start doing this.

originally posted by: 1947boomer
The solution for this is to bury power lines in the high risk areas instead of running bare wires on wooden poles through the forest canopy. After resisting this obvious solution for years, PG&E has now claimed that they will start doing this.

If PG&E finds this post they may feed you some hexavalent chromium.

And why are people fixated with solar when nuclear is the much better option? Even the friggin French figured this out.

a reply to: waftist
at least 80 billion panels at 250 watt. 24 volt.