While a great idea, we don't necessarily need this. 40 million acres are used to grow corn for ethanol subsidies (out of 93m total).
From ChatGPT:
<chatGPT>
Annual Energy Production (in watt-hours): 52,272 terawatt-hours (TWh)
Real-World Context (I didn't ask ChatGPT this question, it provided without asking!):
(1) The total electricity consumption of the U.S. is about 4,000 TWh/year.
(2) The energy generated from 40 million acres of solar panels could theoretically meet U.S. electricity demand more than 13 times over.
</chatGPT>
But, we'll need a lot less energy when we use solar/wind. We only need a third of the energy we use today, > 65% of the energy is wasted. So, solar panels on the same land used for ethanol production (and subsidized -- which is a lose-lose-lose idea) can produce 39x times US electricity demand (assuming ChatGPT calculation is correct).
From ChatGPT:
<chatGPT>
Annual Energy Production (in watt-hours): 52,272 terawatt-hours (TWh)
Real-World Context (I didn't ask ChatGPT this question, it provided without asking!): (1) The total electricity consumption of the U.S. is about 4,000 TWh/year. (2) The energy generated from 40 million acres of solar panels could theoretically meet U.S. electricity demand more than 13 times over.
</chatGPT>
But, we'll need a lot less energy when we use solar/wind. We only need a third of the energy we use today, > 65% of the energy is wasted. So, solar panels on the same land used for ethanol production (and subsidized -- which is a lose-lose-lose idea) can produce 39x times US electricity demand (assuming ChatGPT calculation is correct).