Does japan have 50 square miles of land for solar power?

Leland

To generate enough power to replace what the damaged 3 reactor site was outputting? And they still have to make up that output at night and cloudy days. http://www. usatoday. com/news/world/2011-…http://www. azcentral. com/arizonarepublic…



Colquitt

Japan is a crowded country. One place where they could put solar panels is on rooftops. However, it would be nice to have lights working when it is dark.



Wetonka

depending on the technology, it could take more than 50 square miles. All of the reactors at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi site put out around 29000 GWh/year, or an average of 3.4GW per hour. The new Solana molten salt solar plant in Arizona is supposed to provide 280MW of power. So, figure that you need 3 times more solar plants to make up for the fact that they don't provide full power all day, so you'd need 3400MW / 280MW * 3 = 36 of the Solana plants to generate an equivalent amount of power as the Fukushia Daiichi reactors. Each Solana plant would use 1900 acres, so you'd need 36 * 1900 = 68400 acres or 100 square miles. At a cost of around 72 billion USDOr, if you wanted to use solar panels to generate the power, you might be able to get around 175 watts per square meter, so to generate 3.4 GW (times 3 since the sun doesn't shine all day), you'd need 51M square meters of land, or 22 square miles for the panels alone, but you need space for maintenance, so it is probably closer to 50 square miles.. Cost is harder to estimate but probably around $30B USD including the cost of panels and installation. Getting enough solar panels may be problematic -- 3.4GW * 3 is about 10 years of panel production by Sunpower (one of the largest producers), though they keep adding capacity. One big advantage the molten salt plant has over the solar cell is that the molten salt provides built-in energy storage to allow power generation at night.



Hanahan

Japan is a lot larger than fifty square miles. Everybody that quotes these large areas needed for solar power seems to assume that you can't use the area for anything else - a patent untruth. Incorporating photovoltaics into the outer structure of buildings will not only generate power, properly done it will also decrease maintenance. The idea of areas dedicated to power production only comes from thinking in terms of large centralized power plants, the same dead-end that the nuclear industry finds itself in.



Middleburg

The entire US could be run by a thin-cell solar panel grid of 100 miles square...100 mi X 100 mi.. so Japan would probably need far less. You need to have a surplus capacity to create hydrogen from seawater by electrolysis which can be stored and burned to run steam turbines/generators at night or cloudy days. Japan could also use a variety of methods to convert the massive amounts of debris left from the quake /tsunami into oil or fuels...enough to run the country for quite some time. Methods like thermal conversion processes, microwaves, plasma gasification, etc.. can be used to convert any organic matter, waste products, garbage, crop wastes, etc... into oil and fuels. Garbage, plastics, debris, etc.. into oil.....http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=CWf9nYbm3…http://www. i-sis. org. uk/WPIO. php? printin…http://www. popsci. com/popsci/flat/bown/2…http://www. treehugger. com/files/2008/11/…Other forms of energy production...http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=ItsmM6ENH…http://www. newscientist. com/article/dn18…http://www. youtube. com/watch? v=DfjOIoPwo…



Cannonville

Japan would need to re-evaluate their energy options, it is not only the the 3 reactors that were damaged but also the other 52 that might be damaged. The solution space is much wider than solar, it could be wind, geothermal and harnessing waves. A transition from nuclear to safer generators might take a decade or two and a lot of creativity is needed. http://www. solar-energy-for-home. com/ind…



Leadville North

They can just build new nuclear power plants, or replace them with coal plants. Solar is a silly idea unless they just want to energize dinky little light bulbs.



Lindsey

Solar is a silly idea unless they just want to energize dinky little light bulbs.