What if BP had spilled Solar Panels instead of Oil? [InfoGraphic]
The BP oil spill is the largest accidental marine spill in the history of drilling for oil, and although the remaining slick poses ‘little additional risk,’ it will take years to fully evaluate the damage.
We decided to look at this disaster from a completely different angle: What if the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf had been solar panels instead of crude oil? Exactly how much power could you create on the surface area of the oil spill?
Granted, it might not be possible to blanket a contiguous area the size of Kansas with silicon (or not? See A Solar Grand Plan).
So we also tried this: what if we compared the total (estimated) cost of BP’s cleanup efforts with the same amount of money invested in solar energy? How many solar panels could we buy and how much energy could we produce over the next 30 years?
Seems like money better spent elsewhere.
The figures above come from some intense number-crunching sessions in our office. Feel free to agree, argue, contradict, or correct anything you see here — and we can provide more numbers as needed. Visit the rest of our website for group discounts on home solar.
By Dave Llorens
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That’s a unique way of looking at the oil spill. I like originality.
I certainly can appreciate the visual nature of this. In the last year, I have just really gotten into thinking about solar power. I will get the word out on this. :)
[...] sound wrong? Feel like challenging these numbers? Head on over to the post on the 1BlOG, where they say “bring it on”: Feel free to agree, argue, contradict, or correct [...]
This is awesome. Looking at the cost / downside of business as usual is totally under-utilized.
Great math!
Similar info was published last year in the magazine “photon”, it seems that the few “up there” are still getting off the hook so easily, while the rest and many are just “trynig” to react.=, thanks for the comparisons!!!
Gran informacion matematica!
informacion parecida fue publicada el anio pasado en la recista “photon”, parece que los pocos “de arriba” se siguen saliendo con la suya, mientras que la masa del resto del mundo solo “intentamos” reaccionar. Gracias por las comparaciones!!!
Forgive my ignorance, but what is meant by ’25 years of clean energy for the entire US?’ Since solar panels aren’t like oil – they collect, rather than dispense, energy – how is the hypothetical quantity of generated energy determined? (Theoretically, and given a laundry list of assumptions, solar panels provide electricity indefinitely and can, therefore, power a determinable geography interminably.)
Hi David! I’m Aaron, I work on the website here at 1BOG and helped put these infographics together. I’d be happy to shed some light on what these figures mean.
At the spills largest, the slick and affected coastal areas were roughly equal to (in terms of square miles) the area of the state of Kansas.
The math is pretty much this:
[Area of the spill] / [the area of a single panel] = [the number of panels]
Annual output of this number of panels (based on annual output of a single, unshaded, consumer-grade panel) would be around 26% of global energy consumption.
Granted, panels can’t produce electricity at night and a single array of this size would be fairly impractical (distributed, mixed renewable production is much more efficient).
The comparison to the oil spilled is merely to show that the amount of fuel wasted by the catastrophic spill devastated a huge area and the fuel itself, being non-renewable, would provide very little energy compared to using that same space to produce renewable energy.
I guess I also don’t get it. Are you saying that this solar panel would be able to meet all of the US’s (plus Central and South America’s) energy needs for 25 years (assuming we had a storage mechanism to deal with night, the transmission infrastructure to distribute, etc.), but that after that point energy needs would be greater than the solar output? Or are you saying that in some period of time, a solar panel that big could produce all of the energy that would be needed for the next 25 years (assuming that we had some way to store this energy)? If the latter, what is the period of time necessary to generate the energy – a day, week, month, year…?
Hi Walter-
Basically we’re saying that this massive solar array would provide enough power (during the day and assuming it could be stored and distributed) to cover the level of consumption in the US/CA/SA in 24 hours, every day, for at least 25-30 years (at which point the panels degrade slightly – http://howsolarworks.1bog.org/how-long-do-solar-panels-last/).
[...] has a new blog at which they posited the question with stunning infographics. While you should visit the original post to see their beautiful work, consider these key [...]
Excuse me, but really now, was the gulf spill really that big of a disaster? I believe mother nature took care of 90% of the spill on her own. All the hyperbole was for not!
Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s gone.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/oil-plumes-may-be-more-toxic-than-thought-scientists-warn/?ref=earth
[...] What if BP had spilled Solar Panels instead of Oil? [...]
[...] is the first. 1bog is using the oil spill in Gulf of Mexico to promote solar [...]
1BOG gets two thumbs up for creative marketing!
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