If one square mile of solar cells equals one nuclear power plant, why haven't we blanketed Nevada with them?

Solar cells do not make electricity at night. How do you plan to address this issue?

But 1 Square mile (640 acres) of solar voltaic does not equal any steam power plant - nuclear or not. A California 7000 acre (11 square mile) Solar power plant will generate 1gw when finished. An average Nuclear plant does 12gw on a few hundred acres. So a 1 Square mile installation will do about 0.1gw - 1/100th the output of a nuclear plant.

No to mention that it only runs in the daytime

A 1000 kW ground array, that's just 1000 kw, runs about 2.77 million dollars and covers an area roughly 116,000 square feet in size. 116,000 square feet runs to about .00416 square miles. So with a little quick and dirty math here, covering one square mile of ground based solar cells requires a hair over 240 of those arrays. That works out to about $664,800,000 just in materials.

That doesn't include maintenance, the price of land, and administration costs.

While this is MUCH cheaper than a nuclear power plant, you have to take into account that Solar power isn't a steady flow of power. It only works, under optimal conditions, for the 10 hours per day or so that it gets enough sunlight to work. And unfortunately that isn't during times of peak usage.

With a solar system you also have to deal with power storage. So then you get to develop a capacitance or battery system to handle your power supply when it's dark, overcast, etc.... This results in a HUGE environmental strain due to the minerals needed to build and maintain the system. Take a moment to look up with the nickel mining in Canada for hybrid car batteries as done to the surrounding environment.

Currently, solar power hasn't progressed to the point where it can supplant Nuclear, Hydroelectric, and Coal plants. It's best use, just like wind power, is to supplement our existing power grid during peak times to reduce our reliance on less environmentally friendly methodology.

or, we could put up one satellite with solar panels and replace 33 coal fired plants for about 1/2 the cost of one nuclear plant. this is real, already been designed. funny how Washington ignores it. by the way it would work all the time since there is no night in space.

Practically every day there's some new breakthru in solar technology.. I wouldn't be surprised that in the coming decade they come out with a nano material the size of sand grains that they just spread like sand dunes in the desert. the "grain" would use a fraction of it's solar energy it receives to microwave the all that energy in one big wave back to a central repository. It would be bio neutral so it wouldn't harm the ecosystem. either... I never heard of such an invention.. I just made that up.. so I hearby do copyright the idea of solar sand grains. You are all my witnesses dudes.

A couple points here on misinformation. The subsidies going to renewables are tiny in comparison to fossil fuels. Why we fund mature industries is amazing. Solar it self lends to distributed power not utility scale. If you put 5kW of panels on your home (25ish panels) you'll see your monthly electric bill drop to almost nothing. If the utilities install the plants under the current regulated system, the savings to consumers become lost in regulated rates.

Yes, they don't produce power at night, but wind turbines do. We may not eliminate fossil fuels, but we can minimize them and their impact.

Solar is expensive up front which is why we don't have a high demand for them even in places like AZ. It's a shame too because they yield unlimited, clean, and free energy, are low maintenance, and much more energy efficient than most people realize.

VVV How about some rechargeable solar batteries? VVV

At a 10% housing density, the roofs of San Francisco would give you 4 nuclear reactors. And it would certainly come in handy in the case of an earthquake.

They would probably cost no more than a nuclear plant would and would be 100% safer. As for why, they also probably would not generate as much money for big business.

a nuc plant covers much less than a square mile. it is on 24/7/365. contrary to the popular press image of a nuc plant; we are not turning into three eyed fishes because of nuc radiation. there is more contamination from a large open air pile of coal than you will ever get from a nuc plant.

Where do you get this information?

What size nuke plant are you comparing it to?

We could cover the entire united states with solar panels and the fact is with current technology we would barely get 20% of our energy needs.

and BTW the oil subsidies are nothing compared to subsidies going to Solar research and development.