I say build one big solar array that covers all of New Mexico. Problem Solved.

Mr. Burns: Woah, slow down there maestro. There's a *New* Mexico?

This isn't a Starbucks locations map?

Even if you cover the entire state of New Mexico with the most advance photovoltaics it would generate 12.1TW in ideal conditions.

In 2007, the US used about 14TW. So, you would need all of New Mexico and a good chunk of Arizona.

If we really wanted to get rid of fossil fuels, we would be looking at GenIV nuclear reactors as a stopgap while we figure out more advanced renewable power or nuclear fusion. Or we could burn trillions of barrels of oil in various stages of producing Solar panels to cover the state of New Mexico.

@woogychuck: Sounds like that's just more time to sit around and do nothing, which we've gotten pretty good at.

I love that my home town is in the darkest spot of AZ.

How about covering all those dark shingled roofs in Texas with solar arrays to help augment power for a/c on the hottest days? Flying into Dallas in the summer time for trade shows, I couldn't believe the dark covered roofing that abounded. Someone mentioned that lighter or white roofing would show mold but I couldn't believe it.

@woogychuck: No... you fudged it. It's not 12.1 TW, it's 1.21 GW. Move your decimal and reduce by 1 order of magnitude.

Oh, nevermind. It's better when Doc Brown says it.

Happy Friday all!

@Xerloq: I forgot the obligatory YouTube clip.

Great maps. Thanks!

My sister, who lives in Texas, has a light red shingled roof. That roofing seems to work fine as far as heat goes.

Most energy consumption in the U.S. is spent on heating and cooling. Solar Electric Arrays work at an average 14-20% efficiency, but Solar Thermal (Hot water & Radiant Floor Heat) work at up to 100% efficiency of converting sunlight to hot water. If half the country put a solar thermal system on top of their roof (using the current modules we have today), we wouldn't need to import any oil from overseas!

@Xerloq: GREAT SCOTT!
@woogychuck: I never understand why nuclear is better than solar. The sun should last us around 6billion more years. The only thing we need to do is make less expensive solar equipment. I do not see a down side to solar vs nuclear is what I am saying.

I vote to take all of New Mexico and Texas and place the huge solar array there. Those states are pretty worthless. Even most parts of Arizona.

I live in Nevada, and there really isn't anything between Las Vegas and Reno. Perfect spot for fields of solar panels. See also, Death Valley.

I like on The Grid map how it is shaded in 3 parts: East, West, and Texas. That's exactly what Texas thinks of itself, too!

@Porcelina: It'd still be expensive beyond belief, producing less power than other sources. Not to mention getting that electricity to where it's needed from the middle of nowhere would require a lot of infrastructure.

@LegoMan322: The only thing we need to do is make less expensive solar equipment.

Well then get to it! We're all waiting for your cheap solar cells.

@Matthew Schechter: we wouldn't need to import any oil from overseas!

Except for the fact that oil isn't a straight substitution - not all that much of it is used to for heating purposes.

We'd be using less coal and natural gas, but I'd bet our oil usage would hardly notice.

Mind you, I've looked at putting solar thermal up with an absorption chiller to provide 'free' cooling in the summer.

@woogychuck: Google "Solar Grand Plan" from Scientific American. A couple of guys ran the numbers on building our solar infrastructure (including a DC transmission backbone) over the next 40 years that would cover 70% of total electricity usage and 35% of total power needs. It would require using about 46,000 square miles of land area. Any roof top solar or solar hot water setups count towards that total, though, and the rest would be distributed throughout the southwest. In return we get to take 600 power plants offline, save 300 billion/year on energy imports and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 60%. We would be in a much better position financially and strategically. It's worth it.

I LOVE nuclear power - assuming we can park the waste in Red States that don't have water tributaries leading to Blue ones. Since their denizens are the ones most loudly carping the Nuclear Energy Is Safe PR line, it shouldn't be a problem, right?
It's a shame that it's more expensive than the alternatives, once all the cost factors are included:

Nor is nuclear power likely to make up even 10 percent of the solution to the climate problem globally.
Why? In a word, cost. Many other technologies can deliver more low-carbon power at far less cost. As a 2003 MIT study, "The Future of Nuclear Energy," concluded: "The prospects for nuclear energy as an option are limited" by many "unresolved problems," of which "high relative cost" is only one. Others include environment, safety and health issues, nuclear proliferation concerns, and the challenge of long-term waste management.

The short answer: no magic bullet for this one. Unfortunately.
More conservation, a mini-Manhattan Project type investment into alternative renewables, a smart grid to take advantage of regional advantages and keeping a mindful watch of how we generate energy, especially to capture the externalities to make it a part of the accounting of the true costs.

@woogychuck: don't forget all of the lead, copper, silicon, and other fun things that go into solar cells (mercury, cadmium, and platinum come to mind, depending on manufacturer).

@econobiker: I can see the costs being high if it is done on residential homes but the idea seems right. I'm completely confused why there isn't a push to cover large roofs (e.g. retail and grocery stores) in solar panels in NM, So. CA, TX, AZ, etc. It's beneficial for both parties. Utility companies get free real estate while the store would reduce its AC bill by keeping the sun off of its roof. Win-win.

@Sean:
What's the half-life of lead, copper, silicon, etc?

great, by creating this map. YOU HAVE JUST TOLD TERRORISTS where to strike to harm the most people.

@Anthony Warburton: Yeah, because there's no way anyone could ever have figured it out on their own. Oh Consumerist/NPR, you've doomed us all!

/sarcasm

@Xerloq:

If we had the Delorean here, we could use it's handy Mr. Fusion to turn our banana peels into glorious garbage-based energy!

@bishophicks: Ah, so we would only need to cover half of New Mexico. And of course the battery/capcitor technology to store energy and replace most of our power grid to DC.

In the end, with good batteries, solar is an awesome source of power in some areas, especially for residential use. However, the fact that it doesn't work in most population centers due to space requirement and no-direct sunlight is a game killer with current technology. Close to 30% of all electricity is already lost to line resistance, moving all our power plant to equitorial regions would make this worse.

The reason why nuclear is a good compliment to solar and renewable energy is two fold. Nuclear is not location or time of day dependent, so it reduces the need for large scale power storage. Also, several new reactor designs operate at temperatures high enough to effciently produce hyrdogen. Create a electrical backbone that's contained in liquid hyrdogen pipes and you've got an infrastructure for fuel cells and super conducting lines that can transmit power from the desert to the city with minimal transmission waste. Superconducting lines would also allow you to place nuclear plants further from population centers and closer to waste storage areas.

I've got nothing against solar power, but when you look at the studies, even best-case scenario solar is expensive, requires vast amounts of petroleum products to produce photvoltaics and batteries, and would required taking over thousands of miles of space from local ecosystems.

@statgrad: Actually residential cost isn't too bad. My uncle lives in Phoenix and just put a solar array on his roof for under $10k. So far, he's actually been paid by the power company every month for feeding more energy into the grid than he consumes. He figures the cost will balance out in a bout 2-3 years, after which he'll be making money.

One thing to think about when you suggest covering all of NM, etc.: Most communities won't allow the placement of a dirt bicycle path without a whole set of environmental regulations staring them in the face. For point of reference examine the development of the Trans-Alaskan pipeline and the problems they faced, despite the fact that the pipeline has had little to no impact on wildlife in the area.

Just imagine the poor jackalope becoming extinct because there's no sunlight beneath the solar panels. Hmm, without sunlight nothing grows thereby loosening the desert soil; heavy winter snow and spring rain wash away surface dirt; solar panels fall over in domino fashion; therefore, nobody has power. Imagine the fossil fuels that will be spent trying to drive the truck that has to maintain the panel farms...

Air conditioners should be required to operate from directly connected solar power. The demand would be in proportion to the on-site generated capacity.

@Grover Cleveland:

I assume it's broken down by grids, Texas is on its own grid, separate from the rest of the US.

FYI, I think a tiny part of New Mexico and maybe the Oklahoma panhandle also are part of the Texas grid.

@LegoMan322:

Nuclear is better than solar because building a nuclear power plant doesn't poison the earth. Instead, a standard nuclear power plant produces fuel that can be burned again in other nuclear reactors. Eventually, the fully spent fuel can be carefully stored in an extremely safe and small facility that will not produce environmental toxins. That "fully" spent fuel can be removed when future nuclear reactors are developed that can further reduce it. The only output to the environment from a nuclear power plant, apart from these fuel rods, is heat and water. If anything else is being produced by the plant (eg: escaping radiation, heavy water, etc), it is not functioning properly and needs immediate repair.

That's why nuclear is better than solar. Wind power, actually, is probably the greenest option of them all, since it doesn't require any more "nasties" than what you'd put into building any other power generation system.

@Trai_Dep:

Interesting. Did you know that in the province of Ontario, more than 50% of our electricity is nuclear generated and we have some of the lowest electricity prices in the world? I personally pay 5 cents per kWh, which is the normal price here. Perhaps in the US the cost formula is skewed somehow? I'd be interested to find out, since my nuclear electricity costs less than half what most people in the US pay.

I can't imagine it's due to government subsidies, since our electricity system is privatized. I don't know of of a lot of electric companies that enjoy losing money hand over fist, and if that report is right, I'm getting my power at half the price it costs just to generate it!

Or, perhaps these MIT students need to come up to our Canadian wonderland and find out, you know, how to build a nuclear reactor the right and safe way? As my favourite joke goes: "Can do, reactor!"

As far as danger goes, I strongly recommend you read the Canadian Nuclear FAQ, as it seems you are grossly misinformed. In fact, more people die and are hurt just maintaining solar panels, coal/gas plants, wind generation equipment, or even hydro stations than die from any form of radiation accidents whatsoever each and every year throughout history (well, at least in Canada and the US this is true).

@shepd: Tell you what. Take a gander at the article I cited and get back to us. Rather than trading on supposition and conjecture, it's based on hard numbers from a variety of public sourced material, including those given by the US nuclear industry.

Perhaps a better map would be the areas of the United States which would be willing to accept nuclear power plants, which are far and away the best alternative for future power generation needs. Areas with a low NIMBY quotient, an informed and competent regulatory environment, and a relative scarcity of FUD-bombing anti-nuclear activist imbeciles, that sort of thing. When nuclear energy is off the table, we're not being serious about pursuing a cleaner, more independent, and more affordable energy future.

It's SO awesome that AtomicPlayboy is offering his neighborhood as the Federal repository for all nuclear waste. That's patriotism!
Uhh, there aren't any water sources within 500 square miles of your backyard, are there? There's 9,000 years of half-life leakage we've got to consider.

@henwy: At the same time, think of how many jobs building that infrastructure would provide...

We NEED to be building these infrastructures. No tjust for solar panels, but for a lot of different future technologies. High speed rail, wind power, etc.

Provides lot of jobs now, and gets us off of oil in the future. Win-win, I say.

Wouldn't it be nice to have solar panels covering some of the interstate highway as a shade. Imagine the gas we would all save if it would get those Suv drivers to cut down their AC's a few notches. Saves oil two ways.

Makes sense to me, rather than creating fields of solar panels.

Take the data with a grain of salt. The map does not include my companies 2 nuke reactors that have been in service since the 70's....