Where are you getting your figure for total incident solar energy? Using 174*10^... | Hacker News

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Pinckney on May 4, 2011 | parent | context | favorite | on: Bill Gates On Nuclear Energy: Compared To Coal, It...

Where are you getting your figure for total incident solar energy? Using 17410^15 W total solar flux from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#Incomin...

I'm getting 5.510^24 J/yr ~= 5,500,000 EJ/yr (all wavelenghts).

kwantam on May 4, 2011 [–]

You're absolutely right. The source for my original number was quoting a narrow band of wavelengths and making some additional assumptions about usability of energy flux. Thanks for the correction; I'm a bit less of a pessimist now :)

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