Friday, September 12, 2008

"we can solve our energy problems with existing technologies today"

"...There is enough baseload solar potential in one 90-mile-by-90-mile grid in the American Southwest to power the whole country. A similar grid in North Africa could power all of Europe. India and China have equally large solar resources, more than enough to replace new coal.

And CSP is a decades old technology, that uses mostly commodity materials--steel, concrete and glass. The central component, a standard power system routinely used by the natural gas industry today, would create steam to turn a standard electric generator. Plants can be built rapidly, in two to three years. It would be straightforward to build CSP systems at whatever rate industry and governments needed, ultimately 50 to 100 gigawatts a year growth or more–if we got serious about global warming and technology deployment.

Once again, it is crystal clear “we can solve our energy problems with existing technologies today, without the need for breakthrough innovations."

Full details and debate, here -
http://ergobalance.blogspot.com/2008/09/economist-debater-series-final-round-up.html

1 comment:

mike adams said...

so 90 miles by 90 miles of pv will supply our energy needs- 8100 sq miles- for just north america. then one for europe and asia as well

the world to date has only produced 18 sq miles. it took 40 years to do that. only 8082 sq miles to go.

imagine needing $810 for rent and it is now the 25th, just 5 days till rent is due, and you only have $18. good luck paying rent. scale, we need to remember scale issues.

for the world scale rent is about $2500 and we have $18.