--- title: "Elon Musk Is Talking About Powering All of America with Solar" description: "Tesla CEO Elon Musk has resurfaced his idea to turn 10,000 square miles in the U.S. desert into a solar farm that can power the entire nation." date: "2019-12-12" modified: "2019-12-12" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-solar-panels-america" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Energy" - "Future Society" - "Renewable Energy" - "Science & Energy" - "Solar Power" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "elon musk" - "solar panels" - "tesla" - "the digest" --- # Elon Musk Is Talking About Powering All of America with Solar ![Tesla CEO Elon Musk has resurfaced his idea to turn 10,000 square miles in the U.S. desert into a solar farm that can power the entire nation.]() *\Image: Pacific Southwest Region/Victor Tangermann\* ## Solar U.S.A. Elon Musk is talking, again, about his idea to turn 10,000 square miles in the U.S. desert into a solar farm that can power the entire nation. In a Saturday [Twitter reply]() to an [article]() by *Treehugger* about Bill Gates questioning the efficiency of solar power, Musk fired back that "all you need is a 100 by 100 mile patch in a deserted corner of Arizona, Texas or Utah (or anywhere) to more than power the entire USA." He first talked about the idea in 2015, and reiterated them in 2017, as [*Inverse* points out](). "The batteries you need to store the energy, so you have 24/7 power, is 1 mile by 1 mile,” Musk [said]() at the National Governors Association Summer Meeting in Rhode Island in 2017. "One square-mile. That's it." ## Sunny Money Musk also linked to a University College London [blog post](), in which energy researcher Andrew Smith did some back-0f-the-envelope calculations, finding that a 10,000 square kilometer area — far smaller than the "100 by 100 mile patch" to be clear — could generate about 500 Gigawatts at 21 percent efficiency, the average in Northwest Texas. That's more than the U.S. annual average consumption of 425 GW. But it would be an extremely expensive mega project as well. If you were to cover the patch with Tesla's solar panel-covered Roof tiles, it would still cost about six trillion dollars, [according to *Popular Mechanics*]() — which is about the GDP of Japan. **READ MORE:** [Elon Musk's Plan for One Giant Solar Farm Is a Little Insane, but Not Completely Insane]() \[*Popular Mechanics*\] **More on the idea:** *[Elon Musk Tells National Governors Association How We Could Power the U.S. With Solar]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()