Comment by mushufasa
3 days ago
> * The Global Technical Potential (in TWh/year) is 1/10th of offshore wind
To put this in perspective, less than 1% of the world's land area would be needed for wind turbines to power the current energy needs of the globe (according to NREL). So this is not a limiting factor.
1% of the world's land surface is massive! That's about 1.5 million square kilometers. That's more than 4 times the land area of Germany or apparently about as much as the entirety of the built up area on Earth.
But that's non-exclusive use of 1% of the surface. Land under wind turbines can and is actively used for farming et al. The actual area that's prevented from other use is much less than 1%.
For reference the Sahara desert is 9.2 million square kilometers (obviously covering the entire desert in turbines is impractical, but we might be able to come up with 1% “useless” land if needed)
So we would need to cover 4% (1% * 10 GTP * 30% land / 70% water) of the ocean to power the world? Seems like a lot