The claim that solar panels plus a few mega-batteries can power the entire world represents one of the ‘green’ energy cult’s sillier moments. And there are plenty to choose from, to be sure.

Powering a domestic house with solar panels and batteries is possible, but costly. Especially if the batteries are lithium-ion numbers, the kind peddled by California’s Elon Musk.

Most serious and truly off-grid systems use lead-acid batteries and have a diesel generator as backup; a very common configuration in Australia’s vast outback – on remote sheep and cattle stations, for example.

But, the idea put forward by Musk that “to power the whole Earth” we need just solar panels and “some batteries” is simply remote from all reason and reality. As Alex Epstein explains below.

Refuting the myth that just a small area of solar panels plus storage can power the world
Energy Talking Points
Alex Epstein
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By P.J. Gladnick ~

Neil Winton worked at Reuters for 32 years, including as their Science and Technology correspondent. Therefore when he claims that he was wrong about carbon dioxide being the cause of rising worldwide temperatures, he can’t be easily discounted. Winton made this admission in Thursday’s edition of The Daily Sceptic, “When I Covered Climate Change for Reuters I Thought CO2 Was Certainly to Blame for Rising Temperatures. I Was Wrong.”

When I became Reuters global Science and Technology Correspondent in the mid-1990s, the global warming story was top of my agenda. Already by then the BBC was scaring us saying we would all die unless humankind mended its selfish ways. Carbon dioxide (CO2) was the culprit and had to be tamed, then eliminated. I had no reason to think this wasn’t established fact. I was wrong.

My Reuters credentials meant that I had easy access to…