• Question: Could the world have enough power using just solar panels

    Asked by Johndon1 to Nicholas on 9 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Nicholas Pearce

      Nicholas Pearce answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      Hi Bigjohn,

      The answer is yes. which might be surprising, but even more surprising is that the area of Earth you would need to cover to get enough energy is fairly small:

      If the biggest red square was covered in solar panels, that would be enough.

      A guy called Olaf Stapledon even came up with the idea of forming a shell of solar panels in orbit around the sun, so no light ever gets wasted. This is called a Dyson Sphere, but it’s beyond our abilities at the moment.

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