Do you like math?

Do you like making climate activists cry?

If so, this post is for you. 🫵

They advertise utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind as being “eco-friendly” energy technologies because they emit less CO₂ over their total lifecycle. Emissions is all the “greens” like to jack their sausage holsters about. But, when you point out to them just how land intensive their “green” energy technologies are, they squirm trying to justify being vehemently opposed to nuclear fission — a near-infinite, carbon-free, energy-dense electricity source — and working to destroying the landscape with massive amounts of solar cells and wind farms to save the planet.

Let's run the numbers, shall we?

𝐍𝐔𝐂𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍 ⚛️

The standard nuclear reactor has a 1,000-megawatt (MW) rating. This means that each plant is, on average, installed with 1,000 MW of power capacity. A 1,000-MW nuclear facility occupies, on average, just over 1 square mile (640 acres) of land.

To figure out just how many homes a single 1,000 MW plant could power, we can start by using the following equation,

𝑬 = 𝑷 × 𝒕, where,

• 𝑬 = energy (megawatt hours, MWh)
• 𝑷 = power (MW)
• 𝒕 = time (hours, hr)

If we assume a 1,000 MW nuclear reactor operates at FULL power during an entire calendar year, it will produce ~8.76 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year.

𝑬 = 1,000 MW × 24 hr (1-day) × 365 [days] (1 yr) = 8.76 million MWh / yr (8.76 TWh / yr)

However, reactors do 𝒏𝒐𝒕 operate at full power 100% of the time because they come offline for refueling or to undergo maintenance. Therefore, we must take the capacity factor into consideration in our calculation.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), nuclear power has the highest capacity factor of any electricity generation source in the U.S. at 0.93 in 2023.

🔗eia.gov/electricity/an…

What this value means is that nuclear reactors in the U.S. operated at full installed power for about 93% of the calendar year in 2023.

So, to figure out how much electricity that each plant produces in a year, we must multiply the previously calculated value of 8.76 TWh by the capacity factor of
0.93. If we do that, we get,

𝑬 = (8.76 TWh / year) × 0.93 ≈ 8.15 TWh / yr

Now, to determine just how many homes this powers, we must divide 𝑬 by the average amount of electricity U.S. homeowners purchase in a year. According to the EIA, that number is ~10,500 kilowatt-hours (KWh) or 1.05 × 10⁻⁵ TWh.

🔗eia.gov/energyexplaine…

Thus, dividing 8.15 TWh / yr by 1.05 × 10⁻⁵ TWh / yr gives us about 776,190 homes.

Therefore, a 1,000 MW nuclear electricity generation station occupying one square mile of land, operating with a capacity factor of 0.93, can power more than 775,000 homes throughout the course of a year based on U.S. data.

Now that is pretty energy-dense, eh? Why would any climate activist be opposed to that?

Let's now compare nuclear to the greens' preferred solar and wind technologies.

𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐀𝐑 𝐏𝐕 ☀️

A utility-scale solar PV array requires at least 1 MW of installed power.

🔗cleanpower.org/facts/solar-po…

A1 MW solar PV array requires about 5-7 acres of land according to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

🔗seia.org/initiatives/la…

And, according to the EIA, solar had a capacity factor of 0.232 last year in the U.S., by far the 𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒔𝒕 of any energy source. What this means is that solar PV arrays only operated at full power 23.2% of the year in 2023 due to variable weather conditions and sky cover.

By using the same calculations as above, a 1,000 MW solar PV array would occupy some 5,000-7,000 acres of land (mean of ~6,000 acres), all the while powering 193,523 homes, some 582,667 fewer homes than if it were nuclear power.

Yikes, that doesn't sound very efficient. 😬

𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐃

A single utility-scale wind turbine occupies ~80 acres of land, which each turbine given a 2.5 MW rating.

A 1,000 MW onshore wind farm would require about 400 2.5-MW turbines occupying some 32,000 acres of land area.

And, according to the EIA, wind had a capacity factor of 0.332 in 2023, meaning that U.S. utility-scale wind farms operated at full power capacity for 33.2% of the year last year.

If we employ the same methods as before, we'll find that a 1,000 MW wind farm could power about 277,143 homes for one year. Therefore, a 1,000 MW wind farm would power 499,047 fewer homes than a 1,000 MW nuclear facility while occupying over 50 times as much land area.

That's not exactly efficient either, now, is it?

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐙𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐔𝐏

In order to power the same number of homes that a 1,000 MW nuclear power plant can, it would require either:

• For 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐏𝐕: Approximately 4,000 MW of installed power (equivalent to four nuclear facilities) and 24,000 acres of land (some 37.5 × as much land area than a nuclear plant).

• For 𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐝: Approximately 2,800 MW of installed power (equivalent to 2.8 nuclear facilities) and 89,600 acres of land (some 140 × as much land area than a nuclear power generation station).

But, I should caution you that these estimates are in fact conservative. Why? Because they do 𝒏𝒐𝒕 take into consideration land area required for battery storage due to their intermittency in overcast sky conditions, low wind speed and/or overnight.

Based on land requirements alone, if climate activists were serious environmentalists, they would support deployment of more nuclear power. Some of them do, but most I have interacted with don't and find terrible excuses to support massive amounts of solar PV and onshore wind farm construction.

Nuclear power represents both continued economic growth and a clean energy future.

But, many climate activists don't want continued economic growth. They want to abolish capitalism and overturn western culture.