Welcome to Dystopia

You need two walls.   Really!!!

COming to a bank near you.  

It can cause a stroke if you try to understand how "progessives" think. A sanctuary city of 9 million people can't absorb a few busloads of illegal aliens without being "destroyed", yet all those little border towns in Texas are supposed to absorb a hundred thousand aliens a month. No matter how hard I try, I can't make sense of that math.

If Nancy Pelosi really wanted to express her "gratitude" for what she's done for San Francisco and California during her tenure, she'd stick her head in her $20,000 Wolf kitchen range and turn on the gas.

I don't know why I read all of this stuff.   They want to produce enough energy to replace all of the planes flying.   So I was wondering how much energy - how many square miles of solar panels would be needed to meet our energy needs, including planes, cars, and households.  The plan is to use renewable sources.  I like the idea of renewable sources.   It is a complicated problem.   The goal is to replace fossil fuels with hydrogen.  Most of our hydrogen today comes from fossil fuels.  That could change.  

Here is an article from the University of Bristol:


www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2023/september/net-zero-aviation.html

AI did the research and calculations.  Here is what it came up with:

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This is a very complex calculation that depends on many assumptions, but here is an approximate estimate:



There are around 21,000 commercial jet aircraft globally.

Around 1.4 billion passenger vehicles worldwide.

About 500 million households globally.

If all were powered by hydrogen from renewable electrolysis, the total energy demand could be on the order of 100,000 TWh per year.

Average solar panel efficiency is around 20%.

Assuming 5 hours of equivalent full sunlight per day.

So 1 square mile of solar panels could generate about 28 GWh per year.

To generate 100,000 TWh would take around 3.6 million square miles of solar panels.

For reference, the Sahara desert is around 3.5 million square miles.



So in summary, powering the entire global fleet of planes, cars, and households on renewable hydrogen could require solar collecting areas about the size of the Sahara desert.



However, this doesn't consider other renewable sources like wind, hydro and geothermal that could contribute. Nor does it account for continued use of liquid fuels, nuclear, biofuels, batteries etc. So the actual area needed would likely be less with a diversified energy mix. But it gives a sense of the enormous scales involved in total renewable hydrogen production.

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So then I asked how much it would cost, how long to build the infrastructure, and can we use ocean water.   Plus, figure in the cost of replacing the solar panels.   Don't include wind turbines which break down frequently.  These hydrogen plants would need to be near the ocean, right?   

Here is the answer from an AI:

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You raise a number of good points. Here's an attempt to estimate the overall cost and infrastructure buildout for producing renewable hydrogen to power planes, cars and households globally using desalination and solar power:



Cost of 3.6 million square miles of solar panels at $1 per watt capacity could be around $20 trillion upfront.

Large scale desalination plants to provide water for hydrogen production could cost around $1 trillion.

Infrastructure to distribute, store and transport hydrogen globally could be upwards of $10 trillion.

Total upfront cost could be in the range of $30-40 trillion.

At 20 year lifetime, replacement cost for solar panels could be ~$1 trillion per year.

Buildout at massive scale within 10 years seems extremely unlikely. More realistic timeframe would be 30-50 years.

Siting hydrogen production facilities near coastal areas for desalination makes sense. Inland transmission costs would need consideration.

Using seawater helps ensure adequate water supply for hydrogen production.

Other renewable sources like offshore wind and geothermal could complement solar to optimize capacity.



The monetary costs, engineering challenges and timescales for building such an enormous renewable hydrogen system to completely replace existing energy infrastructure globally are simply enormous. A diversified, transitional approach leveraging various energy sources seems more viable. But it provides a sense of the magnitudes and limits involved. Please let me know if I can clarify or expand on any part of this analysis!

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The AI timed out.  It took a lot of computing power and research.  My next question would be, how long would it take investors to receive a return on their investment, and calculate in the increased cost of energy at the current rate of inflation.   But i'll have to wait to get that answer.  

Hydrogen makes more sense than lithium ion batteries.  Getting from here to there could be expensive.  It needs to be profitable, right?

Buddy, the notion that progressives think there could ever be a negative consequence to their ideas is where you became ambitious. Our time might be better spent looking for a unicorn.