It is a closed system. Energy in -> Energy out. No magic.

What this means is that we don't get to claim "and then a miracle occurs" when proposing a solutions. This is exactly what all so-called solutions boil down to. Including what you are talking about.

You are citing the total energy landing on a hemisphere and completely ignoring that we can't harvest even a small fraction of that. Solar energy is very, very far from free. I built a 13 kW array on my property, I can assure you it was not free. I can also assure likely produced far more CO2 than it will ever save us. This is where you need to understand manufacturing and construction. I won't even go into the shit I had to go through with the County of Los Angeles. I have 64,000 POUNDS of concrete anchoring this array to the ground --which LA County forced upon me. How much CO2 do you think it cost to produce, transport and install that? How about the non-trivial structure it is mounted on? I could go on.

This idea that solar energy is free is just plain silly.

You are refusing to read one of the most scientifically honest papers ever done on the question of whether or not solar energy (actually, all renewables combined) can stop atmospheric CO2 build-up and reverse it and you actually want to school me on having a valid argument.

And, speaking of energy vs. power. Lots of sunlight falls above and below latitudes where converting it into other usable forms of energy is just pointless. If you want to be honest about solar energy, well, you have to do the math. It isn't what you think it is. Do you even have solar?

Here's the output of my 13 kW array on an average day:

https://i.imgur.com/LTMNDO1.png

Do you see what happens? No, it isn't magical juju beans. You can't quote some theoretical number and actually believe this stuff is usable.

Besides, you could convert the entire planet to the most optimal forms of solar and wind power and you would still do nothing to stop atmospheric CO2 accumulation. Not sure why you are even arguing about solar. It's pointless.

> I really get the feeling that you don’t understand how power relates to energy. What are you trying to say about peak power capacity and charging of cars? You do know that not all cars are driven at exactly the same time or are charged at exactly the same time?

That's very funny. I have a nasty habit. I do not open my mouth unless I know what I am talking about. Which means I go way --ridiculously so-- out of my way to research things as far as necessary in order to understand and verify my claims. In the case of cars charging in the US, I actually developed a mathematical model that included behavioral elements and charging cars across our various time zones.

This, for example, is one of the outputs of the analysis:

https://i.imgur.com/wTwm82a.png

This includes considering such things as a portion of the fleet fast-charging while others slow charge. I considers the effect of people going to work and coming home at different times across our six time zones, etc. I am not typing stuff I pull out of my ass my friend. You can either make the effort to understand and attempt to do your own math or just ignore it and believe whatever you might wish.

The only thing that would be better than this model would be to write more complex behavioral simulation code and take into account far more variables than I did. I'll do that one day when I have the time. I don't think the end-result will be radically different from the simpler model.

Like I said, unlike most people, I go very far towards actually understanding things before I open my mouth.

Hey. Live long and prosper.