- #106
nikkkom
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mheslep said:So then your figure with three hours is ~22 thousand sq km to produce the same average annual power demand, or about 150 km on a side. That sounds like a lot of land until it is compared to some other, current uses.
I advise anyone to go to google maps and take a good hard look at satellite image of US southwest: Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico. A *huge* chunk of land, sparsely populated, not very usable for agriculture.
Germany's big solar push reflects these facts and shows that, at those latitudes, the difference between winter and summer collection can be 20 or 25 to 1.
I see Germany's solar push as mostly a way to speed up R&D in PV. For Europe and Africa, it will make a lot of sense to eventually use Sahara, not Northern or Central Europe, as its primary solar power generation area.
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