Lemon/penny batteries could power the entire world, too. Here's the math:
One lemon/penny battery generates 0.0001 W. Thus, one kilowatt requires 10 megalemons. 10 megalemons produces 365 * 24 = 8760 kilowatt hours per year, or 876 KWH per megalemon per year.
The US consumes roughly 4 trillion KWH per year, which would require about 4.5 petalemon to power. Worldwide production last year was on the order of 6.5 gigalemons (13 megatonnes according to Wiki, 200g for the average lemon), so we have a bit to go, but this proves that a significant fraction of the US's electrical needs can be provided by lemon batteries currently. Minor implementation details such as maintenance of the lemon batteries, storage of them, operating lifetime, cost, and trivialities such as "Where do we find 4.5 petapennies?" can be hammered out at a later date.
(P.S. Less sarcastically, if you want to generate the world's electricity needs without being primarily reliant on fossil fuels, you have two options. The first is nuclear power. The second is dividing the world into permanent camps: those that have sufficient access to electricity to enjoy a standard of living comparable to America in the early 1900s, and those who do not. Group #2 will have to vastly outnumber Group #1.)
I agree that the best option availlable at the moment is nuclear energy.
But what about the thermic solar plants that are currently being built in the deserts of the US and Africa? Those with parabolic mirrors heating the pipes set at their focal point?
I'm having a hard time figuring out why /could/ hasn't been replaced with /am/. Apparently you can make the linked to wind generators for $100 so you're only looking at $200 total investment.
"if we covered
the windiest 10% of the country [the UK] with windmills (delivering 2 W/m2), we
would be able to generate 20 kWh/d per person, which is half of the power
used by driving an average fossil-fuel car 50 km per day".
"I should emphasize how generous an assumption I’m making. Let’s
compare this estimate of British wind potential with current installed wind
power worldwide. The windmills that would be required to provide the
UK with 20 kWh/d per person amount to 50 times the entire wind hardware
of Denmark; 7 times all the wind farms of Germany; and double the
entire fleet of all wind turbines in the world."
In theory, yes. And in theory, all we would have to do is pave over a few square kilometers of New Mexico and we can power the entire world with solar.
But these studies completely ignore all of the practical issues with wind power at its current scale, let alone scaling it to power the whole world.
Start now. Continue R&D and funding. In 10 years, the technology will be dramatically advanced and scaling will be far easier.
Just because it's hard doesn't mean it isn't worth doing anyway. When the Manhattan project started, they had no clue how they would come up with the theoretical quantity of nuclear material they needed. It was impossible. They went forward anyway and in the process invented the methods they needed to make it happen. Now we have nuclear weapons coming out of our ears.
If you wait because something better might come along which disrupts your present efforts, you will wait forever.
Eventually, you must commit to something while recognizing that you may have to be adaptable and change your course later. Success depends less on what you choose to do and more on the fact that you are doing it.
It's difficult to take articles like this seriously. This type of "if we covered the entire earth's surface with (wind|solar|biomass|exercise bikes), we could power the entire world" argument is already reduced to absurdity. There's nothing there even to poke fun at.
It's cool that some of these technologies are making progress and all, but really, is there anybody who actually thinks it's a good idea to scale them up to this level? In the name of the environment???
One of the potential upsides of global warming that gets little attention is the opportunity for great waves over the formerly-urban reefs along the edges of the risen oceans.
Wind power is only available in certain parts of the world. Distribution would be a massive problem. Thousands of miles of cables and transformers are not easy to maintain.
Yes I am aware of this and far from being uninformed I am speaking of things I learned from the owners of a successful Wind Power Utility. see Lingan under projects http://www.confedpower.com
They are in Nova Scotia, not Chad so I can't comment on the situation there.
Extra bonus points. This was a startup by people with no prior experience in the industry that has done extremely well from the getgo.
One lemon/penny battery generates 0.0001 W. Thus, one kilowatt requires 10 megalemons. 10 megalemons produces 365 * 24 = 8760 kilowatt hours per year, or 876 KWH per megalemon per year.
The US consumes roughly 4 trillion KWH per year, which would require about 4.5 petalemon to power. Worldwide production last year was on the order of 6.5 gigalemons (13 megatonnes according to Wiki, 200g for the average lemon), so we have a bit to go, but this proves that a significant fraction of the US's electrical needs can be provided by lemon batteries currently. Minor implementation details such as maintenance of the lemon batteries, storage of them, operating lifetime, cost, and trivialities such as "Where do we find 4.5 petapennies?" can be hammered out at a later date.
(P.S. Less sarcastically, if you want to generate the world's electricity needs without being primarily reliant on fossil fuels, you have two options. The first is nuclear power. The second is dividing the world into permanent camps: those that have sufficient access to electricity to enjoy a standard of living comparable to America in the early 1900s, and those who do not. Group #2 will have to vastly outnumber Group #1.)