A Solar Grand Plan - Scientific American Magazine

By 2050 solar power could end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions

High prices for gasoline and home heating oil are here to stay. The U.S. is at war in the Middle East at least in part to protect its foreign oil interests. And as China, India and other nations rapidly increase their demand for fossil fuels, future fighting over energy looms large. In the meantime, power plants that burn coal, oil and natural gas, as well as vehicles everywhere, continue to pour millions of tons of pollutants and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere annually, threatening the planet.

Well-meaning scientists, engineers, economists and politicians have proposed various steps that could slightly reduce fossil-fuel use and emissions. These steps are not enough. The U.S. needs a bold plan to free itself from fossil fuels. Our analysis convinces us that a massive switch to solar power is the logical answer.

Solar energy's potential is off the chart. The energy in sunlight striking the earth for 40 minutes is equivalent to global energy consumption for a year. The U.S. is lucky to be endowed with a vast resource; at least 250,000 square miles of land in the Southwest alone are suitable for constructing solar power plants, and that land receives more than 4,500 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) of solar radiation a year. Converting only 2.5 percent of that radiation into electricity would match the nation's total energy consumption in 2006.

By Ken Zweibel, James Mason and Vasilis Fthenakis
Full text in English and German:

http://solarplan.blogspot.com/

Category:

Science & Technology

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• greenhouse
• gas
• emissions
• USA
• solar
• power
• installations
• global
• warming
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• American
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• energy

[christiangeo]

By 2050 solar power could end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions

High prices for gasoline and home heating oil are here to stay. The U.S. is at war in the Middle East at least in part to protect its foreign oil interests. And as China, India and other nations rapidly increase their demand for fossil fuels, future fighting over energy looms large.

Scientific American Magazine 2007

solarplan - blogspot - com

[aztecsolarpwr]

The future is indeed 'green'. Being in the business of solar panel installations, we can say that solar power is going to make the US self-dependent in matters of resources.

[mudassirul]

yh but thats just a capital cost, you won't need more oil to keep getting energy from it and also it's mostly silicone then plastic

[shrunkensimon]

a useful invention no doubt, but probably the least efficient method of extracting electromagnetic energy when one could be utilizing cosmic rays or other more potent wavelengths!

[jandarian]

I agree...mostly. The science behind is good, but can you imagine the amount of plastic that would be needed to create all the cells needed to power everything? And what is plastic made from...yep...oil...so in the end, we as civilians need the actual math behind this to make an informed decision. But ya, it would be great to use something like this instead of all the oil, IF we could find a suitable replacement base for building it, otherwise, its the same problem all over again.