When Your Roof Generates All The Solar Power You Need And More. Elon Musk In A New Tesla Initiative
The Oasis Reporters
September 28, 2024
Owner and CEO of Tesla Cars, SpaceX, X , billionaire Elon Musk watchers and followers on X (formerly called Twitter) were intrigued by a post he suddenly made on September 27, 2024 about the Kardashev Scale. Many people were excited and they waited with bated breath.
He had posted:
“Once you understand the Kardashev Scale, it becomes utterly obvious that essentially all energy generation will be solar.
Also, just do the math on solar on Earth and you soon figure out that a relatively small corner of Texas or New Mexico can easily serve all US electricity”.
He explained further:
One square mile on the surface receives ~2.5 Gigawatts of solar energy. That’s Gigawatts with a “G”. It’s ~30% higher in space. The Starlink global satellite network is entirely solar/battery powered.
Factoring in solar panel efficiency (25%), packing density (80%) and usable daylight hours (~6), a reasonable rule of thumb is 3GWh of energy per square mile per day. Easy math, but almost no one does these basic calculations.
Then Andrew McCarthy @AJamesMcCarthy further added:
I am a big fan of solar on roofs. It’s just a no brainer, and the land is already used so it’s serving a dual purpose. I just hate the idea of these huge solar farms covering beautiful natural landscapes when nuclear power would significantly outperform it with a far smaller footprint.
In yet another post, Elon Musk added that
Solar roofs that generate energy and look good too!
Then everyone looked beyond his comment. Lo and behold, Tesla roofing sheets have arrived.
The implications are that roofing sheets manufacturers may move aside if the solar roofs come at an affordable level.
Hitherto, those who wanted to go Off-grid on electricity would first roof their buildings the traditional way.
Then buy solar panels to fix on top of the roof. Perhaps just a few panels as desired.
But what Elon Musk’s Tesla roofs have done is to make the roofing sheets a combination of both. That is, they have the advantage of being solar panels as well.
Elon Musk has the added advantage of being a mass capacity producer of Batteries. Thus someone’s roof generates electric current to store in batteries. The home owner can have the added advantage of selling his excess electricity generation to a national grid.
That’s a good return on investment. Its a win-win situation and countries like Nigeria and South Africa that have had to cope with comatose power companies would heave a sigh of relief and shout, free at last.
The world waits to see how pricey the roofing sheets would be. Speculations are rife. Some say $150,000. Hopefully, that figure could be far from the truth.
The Roofing sheets are welcome. Innovators rule the world.
Greg Abolo
gregabolo@gmail.com
Credits : X
