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The US government opens 22 million acres of federal lands to solar (electrek.co)

submitted 9 months ago by LilNaib@slrpnk.net to c/energy@slrpnk.net

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22M acres is 34375 square miles or 89031 square kilometers. The goal is to pick the best 700,000 acres (1094 sq miles / 2833 km2) for solar development spread over 11 western states.

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[–] gandalf_der_12te@feddit.de 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

According to my calculations, 22M acres is about 20 000 TWh/year of solar power, or about 12% of the world's energy consumption.

700 000 acres is about 0.4% of the world's energy consumption.

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Nice. One move that powers half a percent of the earth. Thats a huge boon.

If each country did the same, that would be roughly 50% of all earths power demands for the cost of 700,000 acres each. Many countries can't spare 700k acres, but a concerted effort would likely yield at least 30% of all power demands. Im glad the US is making this move.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

But it will be used locally so what % of the US energy usage is it?

[–] YerbaYerba@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

US total production is roughly 4000TWh per year. 20% is already renewables and another 18% is nuclear.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

So an extra ~630TWh of solar which is about 15% of the current total.