I find this pretty fascinating. See the biggest red box on the pic? That's all the land we'd need to dedicate to solar arrays to power the entire world for a year.
Keep this in perspective though.... It would necessitate a great deal of infrastructure that currently doesn't exist. Energy storage and conversion issues would be tremendous.
But still.... We have a giant star nearby that's constantly throwing energy our direction. Tremendous amounts, more than we'd ever need. All we have to do is dedicate the resources to harness it. Right now, energy corporations are doing everything they can to continue our dependence on fossil fuels. But this is possible. I don't think most people realize how possible it really is...
How Much Room Do We Need To Supply The Entire World With Solar Electricity?
In 2009, the total global electricity consumption was 20,279,640 GWh. The sun creates more energy than that in one hour. The tricky part is collecting that energy and converting it into useful electricity with solar panels. How much area would need to be covered with solar panels in order to capture enough energy to meet global demand? Actually, it’s not as much as you’d think.
The image above has three red boxes showing what area would need to be covered for Germany (De), Europe (EU-25), and the entire world.
So what the hell are we waiting for? Let’s start getting more solar panels on some rooftops and start chipping away at those boxes!