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So it’s completely unreasonable. We’re not going to be building 100km2 solar plants let alone a 1000km2 one. Even if we do, something like that is enough for the energy requirement of a few countries so the CO2 problem would probably fix itself



The largest solar plant seems to be ~100 square km: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhadla_Solar_Park


It says it covers an area of 56 square kilometers. But, it's not laid out as a square, large amounts of that area are empty.

Also: "The Bhadla Solar Park has faced some challenges due to its location and scale. One of the main challenges has been dust accumulation on the solar panels, which reduces their efficiency and output. The park is also located in an arid region that experiences frequent dust storms and sandstorms."


Whether it's unreasonable or not, I don't think we have much of a choice.

Obviously the goal is to move as much stuff off of GHG emissions, but we've done a lot of damage to the atmosphere. If you look at a CO2 graph in the atmosphere over 40,000 years our GHG emissions are basically a vertical line:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CO2_40k.png


I would think that if we stop putting it out there and let the trees take care of the rest we might make it. But this is an uninformed opinion.


Nature would eventually take care of it, but that would take centuries. On top of that, it's unlikely that we will be able to cut all GHG emissions. Having some amount of carbon capture seems important.




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