Originally posted by: Gibsons
Originally posted by: Jeff7
Originally posted by: kakarotxiv
if everyone had them we'd be free of utilities
Except at night, or if there's a week of rain. Batteries could get you through a night, but you'd need a LOT of batteries to last you through a week with no sun. And if you're in Maine or heck, Alaska, solar power on your roof will only do you good if you have trackers, and if you have one damn big roof.
Better build a few wind turbines too.
dunno how true this is, but I read somewhere that if you covered the state of New York in solar panels that you wouldn't be able to power New York City.
Of course, it's a hypothetical problem, but it seems to me that there would be plenty to power NYC.
Area of NY State is 49576 square miles
27,878,400 square feet in a square mile
= 1,382 trillion square feet. (1.38 * 10^12 square feet)
super-quick googling turns up watts per square foot ranging from 10 to 100+
Let's go with 10 Watts per square foot.
1.38 * 10^13 Watts is produced.
Even if half of it gets wasted in transmission, etc.,
it's still 6.91*10^12 Watts
or 6.91 * 10^9 kilowatts...
6.91 BILLION kilowatts while the sun is shining...
The total energy consumed in the New York City metropolitan region approaches 8 quadrillion BTU per year (down from almost 10 quadrillion in the early 1980s). This is about 8.5% of the total U.S. energy consumption (93.8 quadrillion BTU in 1994).
Needless to say, it is difficult to translate 8 quadrillion BTU to something we can understand. This is equivalent to about 2.34 x 10"14th" kilowatt/hours of power.
Hmm... 6.91*10^9 kilowatts
times by 365 days a year and an average of 5 hours of sunlight. and
HOLY COW! It's only 1.26 * 10^13 kwh
1/10th the needs!
That amazes me, although I'm wondering if I made a careless mistake somewhere.
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