$300 Trillion for Solar To Supply All World’s Electricity?

Among all the noise and sound about solar comes an interesting analysis.

To a question on how much land area would be required for solar to supply the total world’s electricity, the answer is provided as approximately 500,000 sq km. And the cost for this? About $300 trillion!

I am not sure how reliable their calculations are, but if these numbers are correct, it is a mind boggling amount to invest to have solar as a sole source of power. Given that solar PV systems have a lifetime of about 25 years, every 25 years this amount needs to be reinvested (OK, not so much, perhaps much less than half given that solar panel prices are falling dramatically, but even that will be a lot of money).

So, that would be $300 trillion for 25 years or about $12 trillion per year.

Whew!