Comparing fossil fuels to renewables

[LARED]

One square mile dedicated to Biomass production will generate 1 MW. It would roughly take half the land mass in New Jersey to produce the power that state requires. About 3,700 square miles.

The same square mile will produce 10 to 15 MW's from wind power or about 370 square miles;

or

100 to 150 MW's from solar power or about 37 square miles;

or

or 2000 to 4000 MW's using fossil fuels, this includes nukes.


I ran across this comparison in the Power edition of Mechanical Engineering magazine. I thought it made a very simple and powerful illustration of some of the complexities in providing power, and the fossil verse renewable debate.

[mhr]

1. Thanks LARED

for the comparison. Many people bandy about renewables as our salvation without considering the practicalities. The truth is that there is no one-for-one replacement for fossil fuels.

The implication is that despite what is done to find alternatives, society will need to make adjustments in its current energy habits. Said differently, our lives will be quite different once the oil is effectively gone.

This issue is debated daily at a yahoo news group called energyresources.

The link is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/ .

[LARED]

2. You're welcome

N/T

[treepig]

3. without giving it a lot of consideration, you appear

to actually be making renewables sound like they're quite feasible.

for example, the solar power could be met from 0.5% of the land mass of new jersey based on your information. that's about 3 acres out of every square mile - not entirely unreasonably i suspect - heck, cover the roofs of all the warehouse and commercial buildings and i bet you'd be halfway there. of course, the sun does not shine all the time . . .

furthermore, by using new jersey as an example, the prospects for alternate energy sources seem less feasible than using montana, for example, as the example. montana probably uses no more than 10% the energy of new jersey so that would mean 370 square miles of biomass production if that route was taken - or considerably less than 1% of the entire land mass of the state. there might even be some area left over to grow some energy for places like new jersey. and if the cows don't object to the asthetics too much, maybe a few windmills could be erected in the fields where the biomass is being produced, futher increasing the output.

but burning oil is easier, so let's just stick with that, ok!