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'Limitless' energy: how floating solar panels near the equator could power future population hotspots
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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Technology
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Current power demand worldwide could be satisfied with around 115k sq miles of conventional panels. That’s around the size of Arizona or Bulgaria - which is a lot, but also a minuscule amount compared to the earths surface. There’s little need to put panels on the ocean, and it also puts the generation remote from most of the energy usage.
Room temperature superconductor (if it’s real) changes the game. We could pave the southwest in panels and send the power where it needs to go.
It's such a weird nerdy thing. And, yeah, if it's true and manufacturable, the rest of this century is going to be fucking wild.