Rahul Saxena
1 min readApr 20, 2021

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This post sets the goal of sustainability along with prosperity for an increased population of humans on Earth.

Human population is slated to increase from 7.8 billion in 2020 to 10.9 billion in 2100 (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division 2019). That's a 40% increase. If all of those 11 billion reach a level of prosperity that requires the level of average energy consumption currently enjoyed by the USA, the energy requirement goes up 375%.

The only clean energy source that is currently available and can scale up to address the worldwide energy demand that's 4.75 times the current demand is nuclear fission. I expect solar, wind, geothermal, etc. would be used where it makes sense to use those sources.

To generate the 162,000 TWh of energy that we consumed in 2019 with solar PV panels we would need to more than double, maybe triple the land we zoned for urban area. Not counting the storage technology gap and transmission/grid requirements. To provide 4.75 times more, the land area required would increase proportionately. That's land taken away from wild, buffer, and agriculture zones.

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Rahul Saxena
Rahul Saxena

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