Fact Check Jesse Peltan
The sun is a giant fusion reactor containing ~99.9% of the mass of the entire solar system.
Jesse Peltan
@JessePeltan
It's not going to be solar because of climate. It's going to be solar because the Sun is a giant fusion reactor containing ~99.9% of the mass of the entire solar system that provides >99.9% of Earth's energy budget. In terms of abundance, nothing compares to sunlight.
Secondary Source: The Sun contains 99.85% of all the matter in the Solar System.
The sun provides >99.9% of Earth's energy budget.
The sun radiates 122 PW of solar energy on the surface of the earth. Over 1 billion years that's 1.07×10¹⁵ PWh.
The Earth's heat content is about 2.8x10^12 PWh.
There is estimated to be 65 trillion tonnes of uranium on earth is at 900 MWd/kg that's 5.85x10^10 PWh. Thorium? Hydrogen?
There are 5.15×1018 kg 23.14% = 1.19x10^18 kg of 02 in the atmosphere. 4 kg of O2 burns per 1 kg of CH4 to release 55.50 MJ of energy. Or 0.277778 kWh/MJ * 55.5 MJ / 4 kg 02 = 3.85 kWh/kg O2. If all of the O2 in the atmosphere is used to oxidize CH4 that is 4.59x10^6 PWh of energy released.
The Earth has Joules or PWh of rotational kinetic energy.
Therefore the sun provides 99.7% of Earth's energy budget. Where this probably differs from Jesse's estimate is geothermal, but I think he said in DERTF podcast that it wasn't practical to capture a significant portion of it (if i remember correctly).
Among the primary energy sources, solar energy constitutes about 97% and nuclear energy about 3%. Thus, the Earth’s rotation is negligible in comparison.
If we had an unlimited supply of carbon, and we used up all the oxygen in our entire atmosphere, the energy released would be less than 3 years of Earth's sunlight.
Jesse Peltan
@JessePeltan
All of the fossil fuels used in the history of our species are not even 2 days of Earth's sunlight. If we had an unlimited supply of carbon, and we used up all the oxygen in our entire atmosphere, the energy released would be less than 3 years of Earth's sunlight.
- https://x.com/JessePeltan/status/1922827627712197011
4590000 PWh from oxidizing CH4 with O2 / (122 PW x 24 hours x 365 days) = ~4.3 years
Jesse might have used a different hydrocarbon, or average of a basket of hydrocarbons, so this checks out.
About a centimeter of dirt is enough to cover that area in PV panel.
The earth is made out of solar panel materials
DER Task Force
@DER_Task_Force
The materials for solar panels are insanely more abundant than they want you to think.
- https://x.com/DER_Task_Force/status/1921634967102087369
True for Glass, Aluminium, and silicon.
This doesn't hold for the less abundant electrical conductor materials. Assuming even more scarce silver is substituted for copper and also copper is substituted for lead in the solder. Copper and Tin are not abundant to the extent that the material needed to build it can be extracted from 1 cm of dirt under it. Spreadsheet with references to be attached.
Copper: Between 0.55 m to ~3.5 m. 3.5 m probably includes wiring a solar field with copper and inverters.
Tin ~2.2 m
So what are more abundant copper substitutions? Aluminium, graphene? Could spot welding like nickel strips on battery banks substitute for solder? Surely there has been some research, but probably nothing in mass production.
A solar panel costs less per square foot than a plastic fence panel
Jesse Peltan
@JessePeltan
People have no idea how cheap solar panels have gotten.
A solar panel costs less per square foot than a plastic fence panel.
Everything we touch will harvest the sun.
- https://x.com/JessePeltan/status/1921582094066585697
Ashland 6 ft. x 6 ft. Dark/Walnut Brown Composite Privacy Fence Panel
$239.99 / 6 ft / 6 ft = $6.67 / square foot
Hyperion By Runergy Pallet of 405W Bifacial Solar Panels | 36 Panels
$5,248.80 / 36 panels / 5.65 ft / 3.72 ft = $6.93 / square foot
China's 2030 targets for solar and battery manufacturing capacity (2 TW solar, 8 TWh storage) is enough to build all of the United States power grid every year.
Jesse Peltan
@JessePeltan
China is winning the race to Type 1 Civilization and we're not even aware it's happening.
By 2030, China will have the manufacturing capacity to build an entire U.S. worth of generation from solar and storage alone - every single year.
The flow of energy is what drives physical change in the world. Control over that flow is power. Sunlight on Earth is 10,000x as powerful as all human energy sources combined.
This is the Space Race of the 21st century, and it has the potential to lift humanity into an unprecedented era of abundance, but it will dramatically shift the balance of power globally.
The West needs to wake up and realize that the construction of TW scale solar manufacturing and TWh scale battery manufacturing is not about climate change.
Sunlight is >99.9% of Earth's energy budget. The tools that harness the power of the Sun are the tools that unlock power at planetary scale.
This is not a race that we can afford to ignore.
Haven't found anything to support this one yet.
PV is not Low Energy Density
New York City can power itself with "Low Energy Density" PV on only "buildings and [parking] lots."
Jesse Peltan
@JessePeltan
How much of NYC would you need to cover in solar panels to turn it into a net exporter of electricity?
NYC uses about 50 TWh of electricity per year.
NYC has ~780 square kilometers of land area, and a GHI of 4 kWh/m^2/day, giving a primary solar resource of ~1,100 TWh/year - more than 20x electricity demand.
Let's assume we only place panels over existing impervious surfaces on buildings and parking lots.
(the impervious part of the first 45.5%)
That brings our area to 261 sq km and our solar resource to 380 TWh/year.
With 23% efficient panels and 14% system losses (for dust, inverter losses, etc.) we get 75 TWh/year.
We would need to cover ~2/3 of the impervious surfaces in the "buildings & lots" category to generate as much electricity as NYC consumes.
This leaves open all existing sidewalks, streets, parks, vacant land, airports, etc. and doesn't include any vertical surfaces which could allow for capture of a larger fraction of NYC's primary solar resource.
The power density of solar PV is high enough to turn the densest city in the U.S. into an exporter of electricity.
Probably enough to go on here. Just need to walk though it and build a quick spreadsheet.