What math? The Sahara desert is approximately 3.6 million square miles.
Yes, I understand worldwide power consumption could be sated with a fraction of that.
I'm simply saying that, were we to do regional-scale deployment of solar concentration type tech, what soft of environmental impacts will be had from generating intense hot spots over large swaths of land?
You need to go back to school, Solar power doesn't generate heat it collects heat/energy, big difference.
Take a look at Solar Thermal Energy on Wikipedia jackass.
You essentially have a large mirror array concentrating sunlight on a tower with a molten payload.
It's heat collection. But it's high-temperature heat collection. As noted, a liquid fluoride system can operate at temps between 700-800 degrees Centigrade.
Again, while average temps on and above a desert range in the 40-50 degree Centigrade range, what starts happening in the region if we start introducing an 800 degree hot point every square mile?
As soon as you can give me a definitive answer on this, then, maybe, I'll go back to school.
Absurd statement because of lack of quantity / perspective,
I believe the lack of perspective is yours my friend.
have you blackened out your windows to prevent bird deaths?
As I'm not living in a high rise or in the concentrator tower of a solar thermal facility. No. Why should I? Please, strawman elsewhere.
Destroying the desert, sounds like a massive exaggeration to me.
Sure it does. Because you're operating on a bias here. "Your" anointed "solution" is "perfect".
Never mind that you don't simply stick poles into the ground to hold the mirrors. You put in concrete foundations. Destroying habitat for plants/creatures that live on or under the desert floor.
So solar only requires 3x the ground space of nuclear if you exclude mines, processing plants and nuclear storage. That sounds pretty good to me.
Hey. Maybe YOU have no problem living in a field of such nuclear solar plants.
I prefer more compact solutions.