Kerry, You can't do it that way. Your numbers are about 50 percent too=20 high. You have to allow for cloudy days. Calm days. The short days and=20 long days up north. Remember the massive storage plant to offset this.=20 Well you are going to have high losses in these storage plants that have=20 to be accounted for. And where are you going to put the storage plants=20 since the solar power plants are using up all of the available land.=20 Take your numbers and cut them in half. In fact you may find that that=20 is even too high by a factor of two. You will be a lot closer to the=20 real amount of power that is available from geothermal, wind, and solar. Also remember that at best you are only going to recover ten=20 percent of the solar energy that actually reaches the surface. Wind only=20 recovers 2-3 percent of the available energy and wind farms have huge=20 maintenance requirements. Where are you going to put the shops.=20 Geothermal is 70 to 80 percent efficient but the maintenance issue is=20 even larger. This is the trap that the solar and wind people fall in to.=20 The do their calculations at 100 percent efficiency. It just isn't so.=20 The true efficiency is only about 8 percent of the total available=20 energy if you can get the best balance of geo, wind, and solar. Getting=20 this balance is extremely difficult and in our political climate it is=20 impossible. What are your numbers at 8 percent? Remember if you use the land for one type of power generation it is=20 no longer available for another type of power generation or for a=20 storage plant. You have to have fission and coal. It is the only way to=20 get the power densities necessary to generate the huge amounts of energy=20 necessary to run a country the size of the US. This is true for any=20 advanced civilization. Sorry for the wake up call. Thanks, rich! P.S. Did you read the complete posting about how to handle the fuel that=20 comes out of fission power plants? My method would be doable. Much safer=20 than burying it in the ground. Much more efficient than throwing all of=20 that unused fuel away. Cheaper in the long run because you don't have to=20 maintain nor guard the storage facility. Even though of course you would=20 have to guard the reprocessing plant but it is paying for itself. Thanks, rich! BTW: you aren't a sheep. If you were you would keep insisting without=20 doing any research at all. rich! On 6/27/2014 11:31 AM, Kerry wrote: > Excuse me? Did you look past the first line? > > I supplied total US energy use, solar energy per unit area, and area > required to generate said energy. If you dispute my data or my math, > feel free to supply your own. > > If that makes me sheep, I say "Baa"! > > > > On 6/27/2014 9:59 AM, Richard R. Pope wrote: >> Kerry, >> I don't have the paper any more. Besides you would have to do the >> research all over again. The numbers from 2001 no longer apply as the >> energy demands and the generation sources in this country have changed >> dramatically over the last thirteen years. >> The department of energy will have most of the numbers that you >> --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .