Can the world feasibly switch to all-nuclear power generation? Or can we hope for more solutions from solar energy? Which is more effective to counter to global warming?
The total world energy usage (coal+ oil+ hydroelectric+ nuclear+ renewable) in 2015 was 17.3 Terawatts of continuous power.
According to Professor Mehran Moalem, PhD, UC Berkeley, solar panels covering an area of 335 kilometers by 335 kilometers could provide more than 17.4 Terawatts of power - enough to cover the world's energy needs for a year. If such a solar park is installed in the Saharan desert, its surface would represent only 1.2% of the area. Its cost is estimated at around five trillion dollars. This is equivalent to 1/4 of US national debt and 10% of world one year GDP. The African Sahara is the ideal place because it is sunny and mostly unused. Saharan ecosystems may benefit from shade provided by solar panels and a solar farm like this can help stabilize the sand, reducing air pollution caused by desert erosion in Africa and the Middle East.
It is true, making so many solar panels isn’t environmentally benign, as it generates pollution through their production process that uses semiconductor manufacturing technology and it requires large amounts of energy.
But nuclear energy is not a perfect solution, either.
The cost of producing 17.3 TW of nuclear power would be 52 trillion dollars, ten times the cost of solar power. Moreover, for every Watt of electricity produced by nuclear reactors, two Watts must be rejected into the environment. Power plant condensers reject warm water into the ecosystem of oceans and rivers causing their destruction. We cannot have 17.5 TW of nuclear power production, since that would require 35 TW of heat to be rejected into the environment.
Source: Forbes