Did you know that the Earth receives enough energy from the Sun in less than an hour (45 minutes) to supply the entire world population with energy for a year?

The total annual energy demand of the entire world population is currently about 18 TW (Tera Watts). The Earth receives approximately 170,000 TW of energy from the sun each year. Of this, around 120,000 TW passes through the atmosphere. A simple calculation shows that the Sun pumps enough energy through the atmosphere in just over an hour to provide the entire world population with energy for a year.

Problem solved, you might think. But if we want to use all this energy, we need to capture it, and we would have to cover our entire planet with solar panels. That won’t be feasible because then there would be no space left for us to live.

But how much space do we not use and therefore actually have available for solar panels? Deserts, for example. All the deserts on Earth together cover about 15% of the Earth’s surface. This means that the Sun would need between 6 and 8 hours to beam the world population’s annual energy needs to the deserts.

The image accompanying this article is from Freepik.com