To put that in perspective: Current global oil use, 75e6 barrels per day, at current price of $75/barrel = 2 trillion US dollars per year.
It's the same cost as 25 years of oil production, at current prices. Even if you think oil price won't go up and solar panel price won't come down, that doesn't seem economically crazy. 25 years is probably about the lifetime of the solar installations.
Infrastructure is a big cost, but the only difference is that the infrastructure cost for oil has already been sunk. It's a one-time changeover cost and eventually there will be no oil.
While that is a huge number it is not out of the realm of possibility. According to Wikipedia the world's GDP was $57 trillion last year. So we devote 8% of our output to this project and in 10 years the whole planet is energy independent
8 percent? Good luck getting the world to just 'divert' 8% of their GDP to build this stuff. That much vaunted US military spending? The one that outspends the entire rest of the world? That's 4% of your GDP.
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The infographic claims it will take about 500000 square kilometers of solar panels.
1 square kilometer is one million square meters (1000x1000).
At a cost of $100 per square meter, that's $100,000,000 (one hundred million dollars) to complete 1/500000th of the project.
Did I make any mistakes?
Google says: (500 000 (km^2)) * 100 (U.S. dollars / (m^2)) = 50 trillion U.S. dollars
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=500000+km^2+*+100+U...
To put that in perspective: Current global oil use, 75e6 barrels per day, at current price of $75/barrel = 2 trillion US dollars per year.
It's the same cost as 25 years of oil production, at current prices. Even if you think oil price won't go up and solar panel price won't come down, that doesn't seem economically crazy. 25 years is probably about the lifetime of the solar installations.
Infrastructure is a big cost, but the only difference is that the infrastructure cost for oil has already been sunk. It's a one-time changeover cost and eventually there will be no oil.
While that is a huge number it is not out of the realm of possibility. According to Wikipedia the world's GDP was $57 trillion last year. So we devote 8% of our output to this project and in 10 years the whole planet is energy independent
8 percent? Good luck getting the world to just 'divert' 8% of their GDP to build this stuff. That much vaunted US military spending? The one that outspends the entire rest of the world? That's 4% of your GDP.