Nature's Solar Concentrator
Estimate of Solar Energy Used to Power the Railroad Valley Solar Concentrator:
Solar Energy = Area x Time x Solar Energy/area/day x Sunny Days
Area
Time
Energy
Sunny Days
250 mile
circle 3.5 million
years 5 kw/m^2 /
day 0.75
E =
km^2
years
kw/km^2
305,290
3,500,000
50,000
0.75
Gigawatts
14,625,299,032,798 14.6
Trillion Gigawatts
(giga 10^9)
Quadriwatts
14,625,299
(quad 10^15)
Quads of Energy
49,915,696
(1 btu = 0.293 watts)
USA - 79 Quads/yr energy produced
World - 446 Quads/yr energy
produced
111,919 World years of energy