Subject: Solar Radiation - United States

Hello All --

The URL listed below displays a map of the US containing
color coded insolation data.  My reading is that the "reds",
centered on the Southwest, would be the feature photovoltaic
region, yellows are marginal and green (as you would expect)
best for biomass.  Only the deeper red regions would appear
to be of interest to the "photovoltaicers".

Best, Dick

http://stores.us.ohio-state.edu/~steen/sustain/solar_radiation_map.gif




thanks for the solar input map URL, Dick

http://stores.us.ohio-state.edu/~steen/sustain/solar_radiation_map.gif

there's a fairly large area (at least half the area of Texas, or ca. 7E+7
ha) along the US-Mexico border that gets ca. 7,000 Whr m^-2 day^-1

... which = 9.1E+13 J ha^-1 yr^-1

... which is almost twice the global average

area to capture 1 EJ (10E+18 J ~ 0.948 Quad) yr^-1 =  1.1E+4 ha

10% conversion efficiency => 1.1E+5 ha to generate 1 EJ yr^-1

so ca. 1E+7 ha of PV cells could generate ca. 100 EJ

... which is more energy than we use today in the USA

OTOH, do we want to turn 10% of the Southwest into PV farms ???

perhaps that desert biodiversity will be useful some day ???

... and of course I'm sure that it feels quite useful now [;-)

also, it's interesting that the 4,000 Whr m^-2 day^-1 boundary seems to
follow fairly closely the prairie-forest tension zone ... which I suppose
makes some sort of ecological sense ... although I'm sure that annual
rainfall also plays a role


Jim Cook 
Consulting in the Public Interest 
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