Yes, renewables can power all human energy requirements

Posted Feb 27, 2025 14:24 UTC (Thu) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
In reply to: Yes, renewables can power all human energy requirements by PeeWee
Parent article: Building an open-source battery

We only need to cover all roofs in the world with current solar panels to meet global energy needs, and build up electricity grids to move energy from where it's being produced to where it's being demanded; we benefit from solar panels over farmland because they protect from weather (although you inherently have to reduce the areal efficiency of the solar farm by spreading the panes out since you need to ensure that enough light gets past the panels to the ground below).

We also need to fix the political and social mess created by the idea that energy supply needs to be under the control of big businesses, and not diffuse; one of the reasons we have such a huge problem is that fossil fuels are inherently not evenly distributed and accessible, and the entities that extract them have gained political power from doing so. Desertec is a typical example of not trying to fix this - because a big entity that makes money from Africa is more politically palatable than every home generating some power, and paying to share resources with each other.

Yes, renewables can power all human energy requirements

Posted Feb 27, 2025 14:35 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (2 responses)

Solar and arable farming are surely mutually exclusive. Crops do not grow well under large panels. And what you can grow is then harder to efficiently harvest.

Yes, renewables can power all human energy requirements

Posted Feb 27, 2025 14:41 UTC (Thu) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

Depends on the crop; solar panels over farmland should be implemented as a "farmland first" sort of deal, where you place the panels to shade areas that get too much sunlight, and to direct rainfall to where the plants can make most use of it.

Maximally efficient use of land for solar power is incompatible with farmland, since that needs large panels; fortunately, we can get all the energy we need by only using rooftops for power, so for farmland, you're using the panels where you would otherwise have put up structures anyway.

Yes, renewables can power all human energy requirements

Posted Feb 27, 2025 14:45 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

There is a growing "solar garden" movement here trying to prove that assertion wrong.

But all of this is getting pretty far off the original topic. There are plenty of places to discuss these issues, but I don't think this is what most folks come to LWN for, so maybe we can wind it down, please?