Ok, in an idle moment I began wondering how much space it would take to provide all of humanity’s energy needs via solar electricity.

So I started grabbing some stats:

Total global energy consumption as of 2005 = 15TeraWatts (15,000,000,000,000 Watts)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption

Solar electricity generated per Sq. Mile = 130MW (130,000,000)
http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2007/10/30/226/

Total US Surface area =
Surface Area: 3,537,441 square miles
http://open-site.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/

Total global surface area (land mass) = 57,491,000
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/8o.html

So, some napkin math yields:

Total energy needed 115,000,000,000,000) / Solar energy per sq. mile (130,000,000) = 115,385 square miles are needed to meet global energy needs via Solar electricity. Let’s round up and say 120,000 Sq Miles

120,000 sq miles works out to roughly 3 percent of the US landmass or
.2 percent of the global land mass. 2 tenths of one percent is all that is needed to generate the globe’s power needs. Sure, that figure will grow as our energy use grows, but still…

—–

R. James Woolsey’s speech on need to move away from fossil fuels:
http://www.law.uh.edu/eelpj/symposium/symposium2007.html

Ok, so I added some Google ads to my blog a little while ago, largely just to see how they work and if I can earn a few bucks over time, all the better. What I’m learning though, as a casual glance to the left side of your screen will show, is that the ads are more politically targeted than I expected.

I opted for the content-relative ad option, meaning that Google would parse my blog and choose ads that match the tenor and general themes of my topics. Well, that will require some fuzzy logic to be sure, and at first it seemed to be working. Now however, I’ve got big John McCain ads appearing on my site, much to my horror.

Soooo, you’ll have to excuse me while I post some in your face Obama support content for a bit…I want to see how long it takes Google to pull downt he McCain ads and either stick to content like environment, technology, energy and humor, or at least get my politcal orientation right.

Otherwise, I’m yanking the ads.