I think the area question is "overlooked" on purpose by the proponents of renewable energy. The UK's largest power station would need a couple of hundred square miles of solar panels to replace it - probably even more if you take into account UK weather and latitude.

In the US, the Ivanpah solar plant hd to be scaled back because it was impinging too much on the habitat of the desert tortoise. The site covers approaching six square miles and it produces less energy than a single coal-fired generator - and even then it has to be warmed up each day with gas!

I did the calculation I suggested for the USA and an area of eight times that of Texas would need to be covered in wind farms to power the entire USA. OK, that will be a high estimate because efficiency of current methods was not taken into account but total energy, not just electricity, was considered.

I think that if people started from the land-use end rather than the "who likes pollution" end we might have some more realistic discussions.