Comment by hebrox | Hacker News Reader

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Comment by hebrox | Hacker News Reader

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Doing a quick sanity check, I think you're off by about 10x.

93% capacity factor nuclear [0]

1 GW

8700000000 kWh/year [1]

440 Wp @ 1960x1308x40 mm [2]

1.96 m

1.308 m

2.56368 m2

440 Wp

0.85 kWh factor for the Netherlands [3]

374 kWh per year

145.8840417 kWh/m2

59636406.42 m2 for to match nuclear

59.63640642 km2

[0] https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-power-most-reliab...

[1] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+GW+to+kwh+per+year

[2] https://www.enfsolar.com/pv/panel-datasheet/crystalline/1049...

[3] https://www.tentensolar.nl/semi-overheid/dossiers/item/zonne...

Excellent sanity check, and I'll add another calculation for comparison.

449 nuclear reactors in the world [0]

2 disasters leading to large exclusion zones

average area of those exclusion zones 1300 square miles [1]

average exclusion zone per reactor (very roughly) 5.8 square miles

15.0 square kilometres

So solar panels use up about 4 times as much space as "average" nuclear reactors (not including the relatively small area used by the plant itself[2]), but of course the value of land with solar panels on is much higher than radioactively contaminated land.

[0] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/11/countries-that-have-t...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29152930

[2] https://www.nei.org/news/2015/land-needs-for-wind-solar-dwar...

To some extent, for a fair comparison, you should also use old sole panel efficiency here. Nuclear power plants have progressed tremendously in terms of safety.

There’s also widespread reporting that the evacuations and exclusion zones, in Fukushima at least, were excessive.

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