Tech_AllBodies

Tech_AllBodies t1_jan6jam wrote

Reply to Electric world that kicks out fossil fuels will cost less than combustion economy. 30TW of wind and solar PV will take 0.2% of earth's surface. by DisasterousGiraffe

Headline is incorrect, it was 0.2% of the land surface required, not 0.2% of the total surface (i.e. including ocean).

Added context was also given, that currently 12.5% of the land surface is used for farming.

So, only ~1/60th the amount of land used for farming is needed to power 100% of the world on renewables plus storage.

On top of that, it was pointed out this is a pessimistic estimate, as it didn't account for offshore wind, or using the land of the wind/solar farm for any dual-use purpose (e.g. agrivoltaics).

EDIT: Thought I should also add that Tesla said they will be publishing a full white paper on this soon, and all the articles written right now are just based on the overview presentation, not the fine detail.

So, these articles may lack detail, speculate, and/or get things wrong.

35

Tech_AllBodies t1_j6m40z6 wrote

Reply to comment by oroechimaru in Study: Enough minerals to fuel green energy shift -"The analysis is robust and this study debunks those (running out of minerals) concerns" by Surur

> Also amysr, abml, sxoof etc each having prototypes that can recycle 99-99.9% of the materials helps long term as well

And these are above-and-beyond what's really needed, just shows how far we can go with efficiency with battery and EV tech.

People like Redwood Materials are already doing ~95% recovery at large scale.

> Along with lower end batteries with alluminum or graphene (or even high quality) can help save rare metal consumption

Also just "boring" ones that are already here, like Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) and Sodium Ion.

2