40 W photovoltaics per inhabitant and yearThe scale of solar power development: what can a family of 4 in a somewhat sunnier country do with a given amount of photovoltaics?
320 GW of global production sounds like a huge amount. But divided by 8 billion people, it is only 40 W per year and inhabitant. When I started my first book, Rise to the Solar Age, a statistic naturally came in about the world production of photovoltaics. This was 50 MW in 1990, or 0.01 watts per capita. Less photovoltaic area than the nail from your pinky. Enough solar power that each person could have charged one of the simple cell phones common a few years later 2 times a year. Or it would have been enough for 2,200 GEMINI habitable solar power plants. In the meantime, humanity has multiplied and the photovoltaic industry has grown exponentially. This year it is already 40 W per inhabitant. With all the previous years, around 200 watts per person.
What can a family of 4 in a slightly sunnier country do with a certain amount of photovoltaics?
The first thing is communication and light. That starts with a 10 W panel to charge a smartphone. Some light in the evening. Thanks to LED lamps, the amount of electricity needed for lighting has dropped dramatically.
With 50 W of photovoltaics, a notebook can be used for many hours a day for education and online work. The power demand of notebooks has also decreased drastically.
With 250 W of photovoltaics, an additional refrigerator is possible. This dramatically improves the food situation because much less spoils.
Without electric cooking, you have to rely on firewood. If there are too many people for the need of firewood, then this leads to depletion of the forest. The electric scooter decreases food demand. Walking or biking long distances results in higher food demand. Cycling 30 km every day increases the nutritional requirement by 50%.
If people could work properly even at 35°, companies would certainly not air-condition their offices, as that would be an unnecessary expense. Optimal conditions for learning and working require air conditioning and comfortable and safe mobility. However, this consideration does not include the energy input for production and it refers to warm sunny countries, where the summer/winter balance is significantly easier. Nevertheless, here we are already at almost 8 times more photovoltaic than is currently available.
All the examples referred to a family of 4. So this is 7.500 W per inhabitant, would be 60.000 GW photovoltaic with about 75.000 TWh annual production. This would also cover the production of all goods, the summer/winter balance far away from the equator, e-fuels for airplanes, but there was something else, the too high CO2 content of the atmosphere. Here, there is already 37 times more photovoltaics than is currently available.
6 kWh of electricity to filter one kg of CO2 from the atmosphere and split it into carbon and oxygen. Multiplying this by enormous quantities requires gigantic amounts of energy. The shutdown of the last 6 nuclear power plants in 2022 and 2023 alone will increase emissions by 1,000,000,000,000 kg over the next 20 years. To clean up this insanity will cost 6,000 TWh of electricity. That is 10 times Germany's current annual demand. Only a stable economy can make the necessary expansion of photovoltaic and battery production possible.
Anyone who makes demands and calls himself scientific must also apply scientific criteria to his demands. These include an objective appropriate to the situation, acceptance and feasibility with all its consequences. So-called "climate protectors" answer the question of how we are to get back to 350 ppm CO2 with prayer mill-like repetitions of their creed, the claim to be the all-valid doctrine of salvation. In it, there is a 1.5° target unattainable by the vehemently demanded methods, but absolutely nothing for a 350 ppm CO2 target. That qualifies as religion, but not as science. That is why Greta Thunberg gets an honorary doctorate in theology.
As a shareholder, employee or homebuyer, you also become part of the countermovement against many negative developments in our society that are detrimental to our survival. A new shareholder said "I with my very modest investment", but 4,000 times 1,000 € is also 4 million for all investments until the opening of the settlement in Unken as a starting point for worldwide expansion. Only the Annual General Meeting can resolve the major capital increases, but here is what the Executive Board and Supervisory Board can resolve. The new capital stock is used to perfect the documents for the larger planned capital increases. Here are the details. |
