Letters | Nuclear, not solar, energy should power Hong Kong’s carbon neutrality push
- Readers argue for increased use of nuclear power, and discuss how the city can better prevent boar attacks on humans
Second, Hong Kong is a vertical city, whereas Australia is a largely horizontal one. We have many more high-rise buildings than Australia. That means fewer rooftops per capita on which to put solar panels.
The fundamental problem with solar energy – apart from not being able to produce energy at night – is that it is “energy-dilute”. Nuclear power, by contrast, is very “energy-dense”. Thus California’s Ivanpah solar farm is spread across 3,500 acres and has a gross capacity of 392 megawatts, while the state’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant takes up 750 acres and has a capacity of 2,256MW .
Hong Kong gets 25 per cent of its electricity from the Daya Bay nuclear power station. Imagine the amount of land needed to generate the equivalent amount of electricity from solar power.