A lot of quite easy sums are not being done about "renewables". People are getting away with electric vehicles at the moment because there are not many of them. If we go entirely electric then we will need about twice the amount of electricity we are using now.
One interesting sum you can do is to pick a form of "renewable" energy, find a site where it is being generated and find out the total energy they produced in a year. Then see how much land that facility used. Now divide the energy produced into the total energy for your country to calculate how many of those facilities you would need. You can then work out the area required.
I completely covered about six counties in England with solar panels for the UK. Where the people, farms, industry and wildlife were moved to would be an interesting question.
I also looked at wind farms in the USA. An area equal to eight times that of Texas should do it.
A lot of quite easy sums are not being done about "renewables". People are getting away with electric vehicles at the moment because there are not many of them. If we go entirely electric then we will need about twice the amount of electricity we are using now.
One interesting sum you can do is to pick a form of "renewable" energy, find a site where it is being generated and find out the total energy they produced in a year. Then see how much land that facility used. Now divide the energy produced into the total energy for your country to calculate how many of those facilities you would need. You can then work out the area required.
I completely covered about six counties in England with solar panels for the UK. Where the people, farms, industry and wildlife were moved to would be an interesting question.
I also looked at wind farms in the USA. An area equal to eight times that of Texas should do it.
No need to believe me, do your own sums.
We have a solar farm just about 2-3 miles from us. It's certainly a good discussion on this.