The units of measure for electricity: Watts, Kilowatts (1000), Megawatts (1 million), Gigawatts (1 billion), Terawatts (1 trillion).
2005 total generating capacity, United States: 1,067,019 megawatts (1.06 terawatts) (MW)
This plant: 280 megawatts.
Number of these plants needed for entire united states: 1,067,019/280 = 3810
Simple match check: This plant is supposed to serve 70,000 homes. There are 126,000,000 housing units as of 2006. That translates to 1,804 of these plants, leaving about 2000 plants to handle business needs.
I will note that I found web pages claiming residential use was itself over 1 trillion watts, but I also found pages claiming Nuclear was 100 gigawatts and that this was 20% of our enerfy, which means 500 gigawatts total. I'm trusting the government figures over other sources, and assuming the "residential" use of 1 trillion was actually TOTAL use of energy.
Total number of acres needed: 3810*1900 Acres = 7,240,000 acres.
Now, acres are already a squared distance. 640 acres is about one square mile. So total square miles needed: 7,240,000/640 = 11,312 square miles.
Total square miles for Arizona: 113,642 square miles of LAND
So we need to cover just about 10% of Arizona to completely meet the needs of the country, at an operating cost just a bit on the low end of the current average cost of electricity.
Downside -- we can't transmit power efficiently over long distances.
I think it will amaze people to realise that we can meet the entire needs of the country with 10% of Arizona. That is better than wind power.
Just a little interesting etymology in correcting your choice of words. 640 acres is about a ‘section’, while one square mile is precisely 640 acres.
The history of the mile went back to the Roman legions, where a mile was 5000 ped later became the English foot. This continued till the time of Queen Elizabeth, when farmland was measured in furoughs. A furough-length being 660 ft or ten chains was a typical unit of agricultural measure, later referenced as a furough-long or furlong.
The English, having a penchant for measuring systems divisible by prime numbers, appealed to the Queen to change the definition of a mile from the Roman mile or 5000 ped (feet) to 5280 ft or 8 furlongs, so that common law and property records could be more easily normalized with actual living conditions. The Queen then changed the definition of the English mile to 8 furlongs.
Now a furlong is equal to a measurement of 10 chains, and a chain is equal to four rod lengths, and a surveyor’s rod is 16.5 ft long. A chain was the width of a plowed field in one day of work or 66 feet.
This takes us back to the mile and the furlong.
A furlong square then provides an area of land which was made divisible by 10, so that unit of measure is the acre. So a square furlong is equal to 10 acres.
A mile is equal to 8 furlongs, so a square mile is equal to 8 square furlongs, squared or 8x8x10 = 640 acres.
In agricultural terms, the a square mile or 64 square furlongs, might be interrupted by various terrain features, so originally, that area wa referred to as a ‘section’.
Meanwhile, townships were defined as about 6 miles square areas, so today in land surveying, we refer to Townships north and south, and range in east and west when partitioning county areas, with each township having 36 sections.
Since the Earth is egg shaped, these square areas are projected onto a curved surface, so each section is “about” one square mile, but the etymology of the square mile is actually and exactly 640 acres, while a ‘section’ is about one square mile.
33/2 feet per rod, 4 rods per chain, and 80 chains per mile.
Your figures concur with data generated by the Union of Concerned Scientists about 25 years ago for very similar project proposals. Their leftward politics notwithstanding, the UCS relied on real data and hard science. This has been the preferred solution they advanced and it appears now the market is catching up to them.
The bitch is, there is nothing in the technology or engineering of this kind of generation that could not have been begun after the first oil shocks of the seventies, and if it had, the desired conversion could be completed by now.
You can thank corruption on both sides of the aisle for the fact we still live unnecessarily high on the energy food chain.
Ah, but how much land is required to hold the batteries needed to store energy for night time and cloudy-day use?
The trouble with wind and solar is the fact that they're not always on/always reliable. There will have to be some energy storage or these types of energy sources can't be counted on for the base supply. A more sensible proposal for energy storage is to use excess wind/solar to pump water uphill into a reservoir and then use hydro to supply power when the solar/wind isn't producing. But try getting the watermelons to allow the creation of sufficient reservoirs; the b@stards are never happy.
Assuming that power can actually be sent that far anyway: transmission losses limit electric power to 500 miles (best) to no more than 900 miles. Doesn’t rule out southern plants in “clearer” states to feed the northern cloudy states, but you need to then multiply by another 4 to 8 factor because of cloud cover and rain and snow outside of the benign deserts.
Good thing is the desert location here, and the stored production. But, for every hour used from stored energy at night/early evening each day, you lose 1 hour gaining that energy the next morning. Cycling the “boiler” as it cools each evening kills steel and piping: we may be lucky for this to run 10-12 years without fatigue failure, rather than 25-40 years for a constantly on thermal plant not undergoing 365 heatup cycles a year.