Only 100 square miles of solar panels are required to power the entire United States

Side effect if they did this is it makes it easy to knock out the power.

Interesting thought though.

could put Nellis range to use with hmm

And when a hailstorm destroys a vast number of them, what then? Or a tornado? Earthquake? Other natural occurrence of nature? Why not reveal the Tesla files, give everyone free energy, and be done with electrical power all together, by tapping into the same conductive force that induces gravity? Because money, profit, and the control of vast swathes of resources, in order to cage the mind, and harvest the soul.

Rules/Regulations already force businesses to buy green energy for solar/wind. It's one of a billion reasons, the United States isn't competitive in the global economy except being the largest debtors.

Everyone has an opinion. I don't want your ideas forced on me nor would I want to pay for your idea.

I have solar power at my own home. One solar panel is about enough power to power a light bulb.

Only an idiot like AOC thinks you move from one thing totally to another.

It Trump would be wise to start taking an all of the above approach bc solar DEFINITELY has vast untapped potential. As does wind which a Trump also derided.

And tidal. Which I would think *might* appeal to Trump, bc it essentially a feat of engineering and construction to build these huge rotors underwater to catch the kinetic energy of huge masses of water moving back and forth.

100X100=100 square miles. Lets do it!

That’s amazing. I think the point of the story is to put it into perspective, how little we would really need, obviously you don’t put all your eggs in one basket, you would disperse the panels across the USA , not one central location, nor would you be 100% solar for the obvious reasons

Good post OP

And when those solar panels and batteries wear out in 10 years, and need to be replaced with another 100 sq miles of panels where are we going to dump the 100 sq miles of toxic materials?

Solar energy is is inefficient..

not quite

Anyone know what happens when clouds block the sun and reduce the output of the solar panels, thus not keeping up with the demand of the grid?

the numbers does not look right
battery 1x1 miles to power usa during the night
no way

100 sq miles
10x10
no fooken way

Put them on top of the wall!

Make that wall work for us, in more ways then one.

My older brother met with Sally Ride in the early 90s for dinner. They were on the same board of directors.

She told him this back then.

A friend and the guy who brought me to GLP has been pushing this idea for a long time.

Look what Elon musk is doing with this. He's already doing this with little fanfare.

With other peoples money right?!

this is from elon musk
ok
so once he makes one thing that works I'll take him seriously

wheres hiper loop ?
those big trucks electrical powered?
top of the car solar ?
cars dont work up north, too cold
oh, and good luck with across country road trip
recharge takes hours

wonderboy is shuffling too many things at same time

how often would the 1 mile square of toxic, corrosive, heavy metal laden batteries need to be replaced? and how would they be disposed of? how would more materials to make batteries be obtained and what environmental impacts would that have?

there's a lot of holes in these stories. more than the number of holes in a solar panel after a few hail storms.

it is absolutely horrifying that not a single one of you can multiply 100 times 100

we've all been funvaxed, and you are all living proof

how could 'we' built a fucking 10,000 square mile solar panel field when the US is full of people who can't multiply 100 times 100? or even understand what a square mile it?

Even if we covered the entire US with solar panels, you need other forms of generation because the sun is not out 24x7x365 and the solar panels are not producing 24x7x365. To keep up with the demand of the grid, we will ALWAYS need nuclear, fossil, hydro generation to keep up with the grid demand. Solar can never stand on its own. Add the cost to recycle solar panels (toxic silicon) after its aprox 10 year life has been exhausted and add in the amount of electricity needed to recycle. I want the cheapest energy I can get. Nuclear, Natural Gas, hydro and clean coal gasification. Wind and solar are scams to make ypu feel good and not good economics and not 100% environmentally clean. Do your research instead of being sheep.

An area 100x100 is TEN THOUSAND square miles.

Drones will fly in mini robots that land and fix or replace the solar panels, they then self destruct and leave no trace behind.

After reading the original post I was hoping someone mentioned this. It took a little bit longer scrolling down than I was hoping it would to find it.

10 x 10 is a hundred.

Oh ? Our current system is harder to knock out , then?

This is the stupidest ideas I have heard in a long time. Go for it, just dont expect me to pay for it.

there are no hail storms or tornados in the desert

deserts do not get much precipitation. or clouds. thus they are deserts