The Enormity of the Solar
Resource
or
Eliminating the Need for All Fossil
Fuels
1
Total Available Solar Energy
• Energy falling on the entire land area of Earth (that’s just the
land not the oceans)per year is:
201,480 X 1012 kilowatt hours per year
201 quadrillion, 480 trillion kilowatt
hours per year.
201,480,000,000,000,000
2
The sun’s energy is free. It is
everywhere at some point in the day.
It doesn’t care what color you are or
your political views, or who you love or
don’t love, it comes out every day and
warms you up no matter what.
…and best part is, you can’t make
weapons out of it.
3
Natural Gas Supply
•The energy content of the entire world’s supply of natural gas
converting cubic feet to kilowatt hours is:
•215 X 1012 kWh or 215 trillion kWh that is converting the entire
world’s supply of natural gas into corresponding kilowatt hours
of energy.
215,000,000,000,000
937
•In one year the Sun provides
times the energy of the
entire Earth’s finite supply of natural gas energy.
4
Marcellus Shale Formation Natural Gas
•The total amount of recoverable natural gas trapped in the
Marcellus Shale formation is :
•15 X 1012 kWh or 15 trillion kilowatt hours.
15,000,000,000,000
5
United States Consumption of Natural Gas in One
Year
•The entire United States consumes:
•6 X 1012 kilowatt hours per year or 6 trillion kilowatt
hours per year.
6,000,000,000,000
VS
15,000,000,000,000
•Little more than two years.
6
World Energy Consumption
•The world energy consumption from all sources is:
•140 X 1012 kilowatt hours or 140 trillion kilowatt hours per year.
140,000,000,000,000
VS
201,480,000,000,000,000
•If you measure that against the total solar energy per year,
201,480 X 1012 or 201 quadrillion, 480 trillion, the Sun can provide
the entire world energy consumption
1439 times over
every year for 5 billion years for free.
7
8
The total land area of Earth is
148,940,000
square kilometers
or 57,506,056 square miles
9
. Putting solar panels on
.07%
that’s less than
1% or 700ths of 1%, that area could power the entire world.
57,506,056
402,542 square
miles.
.07% of
is
10
To put this in perspective, if you reduced the land area of the
Earth to a football field with end zones
57,600 sq. ft.
maintaining the ratio, the needed area would be roughly a little
more than
13.43 feet
of one end zone moving
from the one sideline into the end zone. The width of the end
zone is 160 feet from sideline to sideline. It is 30 feet long from
the goal line to the absolute end of the field.
11
•
Solar
Land
Area
in
the
US
The continental United States consumption of electricity per
year is:
• 4 X 1012 kilowatt hours or 4 trillion kWh.
4,000,000,000,000
• If you were to power the whole 4 trillion kWh with solar
modules you would need:
12
In kilometers, about
25,000 square
kilometers
or
9653 square miles.
13
To put this in perspective the test site and range in Nevada is
12,140 square
kilometers
or
4687 square miles
About half of what is needed.
14
The total land area of the United States including its territories is
3,803,290 square miles
.
9653 square miles
represents less than 1% of the land area at .025%
15
• Going back to our football field analogy, to power the 4 trillion
•
4,000,000,000,000
4
kilowatt hours per year, you would need less than
feet of
one end zone starting at one sideline.
16
Solar Land Area New York State
• Installing distributed generation on less than
1/3
of all
existing buildings and parking lots in the state of New York
would provide enough electricity to power the entire state.
17
18
Silicon
• Silicon is the second most abundant element in the Earth’s
th
crust and the 8
most common element in the entire
universe. It makes up
27.7%
of the Earth’s crust by
mass.
19
20
•
o
When the silica is heated to 1700
C
in the
presence of carbon, the carbon bonds with the oxygen and
the silicon is left.
21
The Solar Cell
22
23
• OK so now the stage is set to start generating electricity.
However, something needs to get the electrons excited and
moving and that “something”, as you might have guessed, is
sunlight.
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•
Color
•
Approximate
Wavelength (nm)
White
390 - 780
Violet
390 - 455
Blue
455 - 495
Green
495 - 575
Yellow
575 - 600
Orange
600 - 625
Red
625 - 780
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
FYI: A nanometer is one billionth of a
meter.
25
• If the wavelength is very short as in the violet band at 390
nanometers (or 390 X 10 -9)
.000000390 of a meter
the output of the solar cell will be somewhere around
150
2
watts/m
26
If the wavelength is very long as in the infrared band, 2,200
nanometers (or 2,200 X 10-9) or
.000002200 of a meter
the production is about the same as the violet band at
100 watts per meter
squared.
27
• The red band at
600
nanometers is the most effective in
producing watts per square meter. Solar cells will put out
2000 watts per square
meter
about
exposed to wavelengths from the red band.
28
The Solar Cell
29