An interesting article stated that since the year 2000 about 7.4 million acres of land have gone to oil and gas production. That's 11 states and three Canadian provinces. It includes pad sites, roads and other infrastructure. To get an idea of the total size of this industrial intrusion, it's larger than the state of Massachusetts. The article is mostly on the environmental side but it did not go nearly far enough.
Now we know that most of this has been gas and oil fracking and that is quite expensive, as well as has many factors that are not environmentally favorable aside from the carbon footprint. So I did some calculating using conservative numbers concerning what kind of electrical power we would get if only 80 percent of that was covered with PV panels. It turns out that it would produce about 27% more power annually than is used currently by the US.
Now consider that a typical gas or oil site is about 4 acres (not including roads and infrastructure), the PV could cover that site for about 2 million dollars. Compare that to the 8 to 10 million dollars per well being spent on something that last a few years and 4 or more wells can be sunk on a site if feasible.
Also consider that much of the area for PV could be placed on rooftops and waste areas, not across beautiful forested regions. Electric spills are notoriously a non-event to the environment.
If we invested in PV, wind and electric vehicles the way we invest in oil and gas, there would be 30 to 40 years of clean energy without most of the environmental impacts. The replacement panels would be twice as efficient and might be cheaper by then. The cars, PV , heat pumps will only get better. Oil and gas will only get more expensive.
We get the world we pay for. Problem is that fossil fuels are like loan sharks, you and all the following generations just keep paying and paying and still get the broken legs and cement overshoes in the end.
North America's Oil And Gas Industry Has Taken Over 7 Million Acres Of Land Since 2000
Now we know that most of this has been gas and oil fracking and that is quite expensive, as well as has many factors that are not environmentally favorable aside from the carbon footprint. So I did some calculating using conservative numbers concerning what kind of electrical power we would get if only 80 percent of that was covered with PV panels. It turns out that it would produce about 27% more power annually than is used currently by the US.
Now consider that a typical gas or oil site is about 4 acres (not including roads and infrastructure), the PV could cover that site for about 2 million dollars. Compare that to the 8 to 10 million dollars per well being spent on something that last a few years and 4 or more wells can be sunk on a site if feasible.
Also consider that much of the area for PV could be placed on rooftops and waste areas, not across beautiful forested regions. Electric spills are notoriously a non-event to the environment.
If we invested in PV, wind and electric vehicles the way we invest in oil and gas, there would be 30 to 40 years of clean energy without most of the environmental impacts. The replacement panels would be twice as efficient and might be cheaper by then. The cars, PV , heat pumps will only get better. Oil and gas will only get more expensive.
We get the world we pay for. Problem is that fossil fuels are like loan sharks, you and all the following generations just keep paying and paying and still get the broken legs and cement overshoes in the end.
North America's Oil And Gas Industry Has Taken Over 7 Million Acres Of Land Since 2000
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