Solar Energy Could Power U.S. Many Times Over
If the U.S. moved aggressively to start harnessing the solar power it receives daily, it could generate enough clean energy to meet the country’s needs many times over, according to a new report from Environment Florida.
The report, “On the Rise; Solar Thermal Power and the Fight Against Global Warming,” touts the multiple benefits of solar thermal power that the U.S. has barely begun to tap. One, it’s a clean source of energy that could replace other power sources that generate greenhouse gases and worsen climate change. Two, by storing thermal energy, it can generate electricity even when the sun isn’t shining. And ,three, it’s wildly abundant in the U.S., offering way more clean energy than we currently use on a daily basis.
The report notes that a 100-mile-by-100-mile solar thermal installation in the American Southwest could meet the entire country’s energy needs. That area, it further adds, is just a little larger than the amount of land in the U.S. that has been strip-mined for coal.
“If we are going to get serious about fighting global warming and addressing our energy challenges, solar energy must be part of the solution,” said Holly Binns, Environment Florida’s field director.
While the Southwest alone could generate more than 7,000 gigawatts of energy, other parts of the U.S. — including Florida — promise a large potential for solar energy development. The Sunshine State has some catching-up to do, but recently improved its clean-energy performance with the opening of the Sunshine Energy Solar Array near Sarasota. The 28,000-square-foot array, Florida’s largest to date, can generate 250 kilowatts of energy, enough to power about 45 typical homes per month.
Clearly, the state will need quite a few more like these to make a serious dent in its fossil-fuel consumption and carbon emissions. Florida officials hope recently approved green-energy legislation will encourage those kinds of developments. The bill includes, among other things, authorization for a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a renewable fuel standard and renewable portfolio standard that promotes wind and solar energy, and new building standards that call for higher energy efficiency in new homes and businesses.
At the national level, the Environment Florida report is also encouraging. With the right policies, it says, the U.S. could easily generate 80 gigawatts of concentrating solar power by 2030. That would be enough to power 25 million homes, reduce carbon emissions by 6.6 percent and create between 75,000 and 140,000 new jobs.
Good news — for a change — isn’t it? Let’s just hope the right people are listening.
Wait, so drilling for oil isn’t ok. Nuclear isn’t ok. But covering 10000 square miles of land with mirrors is ok? Why is that better?
You can always find a downside to any proposal, and in this case, I’m sure you could argue that a 100-mile-by-100-mile area covered with solar panels would disrupt wildlife in the area. But I don’t see how that is comparable to, say, drilling for oil in ANWR, where a spill could kill thousands of birds, whales and other creatures, devastate indigenous communities that rely on subsistence hunting, poison large stretches of ocean and coastal areas, contribute to rising greenhouse gas emissions … and provide just a small portion of the energy that a Mojave solar installment could.
Now, nuclear power is a bit different, in my opinion. I’ve come around closer to James Lovelock’s position that nuclear power might be the only way in which we can generate adequate, continuous energy while cutting our dependence on oil, gas and coal to avert catastrophic climate change. I still have nagging concerns, but I addressed “10 Green Arguments for Nuclear Power” in an earlier post here.
As a resident of said southwest, I plan on devoting my rooftop to generating electricity once the prices reach the point where I’ll break-even in 5 or maybe 10 years (instead of just over 15 where prices are now). And we could definitely put some of that unused desert to good use. There are many places out there that are practically dead.
The report only stated that a 100×100 mile area of the southwest was needed. I know a few hundred miles of desert where it won’t bother anyone/thing. Hell, the collectors themselves don’t even need to be flat. You can build up and reduce the footprint by a decent factor if done properly.
Well Fred, I don’t see the harm in covering 10.000 square miles of desert with solar panels. Plenty of desert there in the US isn’t there? When placed strategiclly these panels could actually contribute to the growth of widlife, providing much needed shade (and possible water through condensation of water on the bottom of the solar panels at night).
Happy now?
If anyone has ever been to Blythe, CA. or Quartzite, AZ or Yuma, AZ, they will understand how this can be done. I say lay the panels right over the top of those pits. As for drilling in Alaska, why not? We know how to do it; can do it safely and we have already demonstrated with old technology (the pipeline) that we can do it and not appreciably alter the environment. Come on; get real; ANWR is an option. I am buying a Prius; there is a wait list; but now is the time. What we should do is develop an electric car that goes 200 miles on a charge; 55 MPH. Then we plug into solar generated electricity. Perfect.
Just for comparison, 10,000 square miles is 4 times the size of the entire state of Delaware. While being an unprecedented engineering challenge, this is all technically feasible. It will undoubtedly cause global supply shortages in the raw materials needed for the solar thermal installations, however.
Building new nuclear reactors will provide more energy with a smaller geographic and resource footprint than this solar thermal design.
How about a compromise? How about we build nuclear reactors in the middle of the desert? It won’t hurt anything and I don’t see any real problem with it.
Besides needing to pump in lots of water, I suppose.
I support nuke, geothermal and solar. But I do not
think you can take one chunk of desert land to generate
our nation’s power.
To do so would be a serious security problem. There has to be some physical dispersal. Additionally, to distribute this power to the east coast I suspect would
be prohibitive from a cost/efficiency standpoint.
10,000 sq miles more than the total land area of LA County, Orange County and San Diego county combined. Covering that large of an area in the desert with solar panels just isn’t plausible. You’d have to cover almost half the Mojave Desert. That can’t be done without significantly affecting the ecosystem out there.