What Are the Twin Planks of Sustainable Energy?

What are the twin planks of sustainable energy?

What I find interesting about sustainable energy is that t could literally provide thousands of times more energy than fossil fuels. Not that the biosphere could handle all that extra waste heat, but just saying. To be more precise, we will probably have to limit solar coverage (on land) to about 1 to 3%. Interestingly, I just wrote an article titled. The confines of solar - Plentiful solar energy is coming, and with plenty of backup. It is estimated that the battery of an EV requires 91 MJ/kg of li-ion battery. Titled. Energy-Consumption and Carbon-Emission Analysis of Vehicle and Component Manufacturing - Argonne National Laboratory. (on written page 22 and computer page 30 of pdf). Assuming Tesla has not already radically increased energy efficiency in making batteries, the 91 MJ/kg converts to about 25 kWh or 25,000 watt hours to make 1 kg of battery. The energy density of Tesla batteries are currently about 250 Wh/kg. Thus, according to this ANL study, Li-ion batteries require 100 watt hours to make a watt hour of battery capacity. However, I will double that assumption (because I'm a conservative and believe that not all the energy related inputs were accounted for in that study), for a modest 200 Wh/Wh battery capacity required. How much solar energy is needed to build itself and 20 hours of battery storage? Solar panels last slightly longer than 25 years (to 80% rated generation) How Long Do Solar Panels Last in 2020? | EnergySage T have about 22% capacity factor (t don't work when cloudy and at night). Slightly more than 25 x 8,760 hours in a year x 0.22 = about 50,000 watt hours produced by a watt of solar. Solar has an EROI of "9". That's an Energy Returned On Investment that's 9x greater than the amount needed to make it. Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation. A comprehensive response (results listed under "conclusions"). This means that 1/9th of any solar installation will be needed to generate the energy needed to make itself. 11.11% of 50,000 watt hours is 5,555 watt hours needed to make a watt of solar (yes, very energy intensive). I will assume that we will need an average of almost 20 hours of battery backup for all the solar needed to power the world. This is because I'm assuming that humanity will never build a global grid (which would otherwise drastically reduce battery storage needs). 20 hours of battery storage x 200 watt hours needed to make 1 watt hour of battery capacity = 4,000 watt hours needed to make a per watt unit of sufficient battery backup (equal to 20 Wh in this example). However, we will need two sets of batteries because t should last about half as long as the solar. 5,550 watt hours for a watt of solar and 8,000 watt hours for 20 watt hours of battery capacity (x2) adds up to 13,550 watts needed for "almost total clean energy solution". Slightly less storage will be needed as there's nothing wrong with using small amounts of natural gas (like only 2-5% of what we use today) to help prevent blackouts when large regional areas are simultaneously covered with clouds. Wind energy will, at times, compliment solar. We also have existing hydro and nuclear. Humanity tends to use less energy during the middle of the night, too. Thus, I conclude that we will need about 12,000 watt hours to make a single watt hour of (plentiful) battery backed solar. 50,000 watt hours (generated by a watt of solar in its useful lifetime) minus 12,000 (needed to make itself) equals 38,000 watt hours available to power humanity with. That is an overall EROI of 4.16. This is what I find interesting. How much solar will be required to power a world that requires 4x today's global energy demands? Currently, the world consumes the equivalent of 160,000 TWh/year. Energy Divided by the 8,760 hours in a year, we would need 18.26 TW of generating capacity at 100% capacity factor. This would seem to equate to 83 TW of solar at 22% capacity factor, much of which would be stored for up to 20 hours in batteries. However, we only need 35% of that! Since most sources are thermal, about 65% is wasted in the conversion from heat into electricity or mobility. Thus, only 29 TW of solar (alone) would be needed to power today's global energy requirement. Let's call it 30 TW. The world shall need about 4x this, in order to simultaneously rid poverty and continue growth to space faring race status (yes really, and we also need or want the energy intensive free market goodies available in our non space faring society, too)! 120 TW of solar (and wind) shall power 4x today's global consumption needs. 24% EXTRA will be needed to make all this happen (the inverse of overall EROI), assuming the overall energy investment for 50,000 Wh from 12,000 Wh input. Thus, a total of 150 TW of solar (alone) would power 4x today's needs AND provide the energy to make itself AND almost 20 hours of storage. In the real world, wind and hydro (and molten salt nuclear?) will also be used to power large fractions thereof. We even have existing and some new nuclear to help during the transition to almost 100% clean energy. How much land is required? In India, a 1 gigawatt solar farm sits on about 10 sq miles, 26 sq km. The World’s Largest Solar Park - Kurnool, India. Thus, almost 3.9 million square km, or 1.5 million square miles, will be needed to power futureworld, and to provide the energy to build all the solar and build all the batteries - IF there were no alternatives like wind, hydro, etc. Note that wind capacity requires an actual footprint much smaller than solar, allowing the land below to be used as farmland. Perhaps regenerative farming which helps to literally remove excess CO2? 150 TW of solar would require just under 1/38th, or 2.6% of the land area. Want more energy to boost the economies of the global fleet of nations even further? Humanity might be able to figure out how to put these vast amounts of solar on the open ocean away from coral reefs and coastal areas. This amount of solar would cover only about 1% of the oceans. Account for reflection. Both the ocean and solar panels absorb about the same amount of light. In fact, 5% of the ocean covered with solar would transfer some of the heat away from the oceans, which would offset some or all the extra heat it has absorbed via extra infrared forcing caused by the extra CO2 in the air, from an adolescent humanity's requirement to burn literally mountains of fossil fuels in the recent past. Granted, we are still doing that. I assume that many millions of square kilometers of solar on the ocean would only be needed for about a century, until fusion or other nuclear energy could be built for cheaper than the automated solar/battery manufacture that will undoubtedly precede it. This will probably be about the same timeline that we would want to remove the solar panels, for fear of causing a global cooling overshoot, by their continued redirecting of some of the sunlight energy that would otherwise be absorbed by the ocean. Picture Of The Day – NASA ISS007 Sunrise Pacific Ocean (I found it here, and can’t find it at the NASA site). From a planetary perspective, it seems we are too small to cause any extra heating. However, look at the thin atmosphere and consider that 50% more CO2 could actually cause warming (as per the laws of physics)! We only have one planet and large scale structures like mile high 3D mega cities and all that solar should be far less damaging than the continued altering of the very atmosphere required to sustain them and everything.