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

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