Elon Musk Says It Would Only Take 100 Miles By 100 Miles Of Solar Panels To Power The Entire U.S. —The Sun Is 'Really Reliable. It Comes Up Every Day'

2 hours ago 1

Jeannine Mancini

Mon, April 27, 2026 astatine 9:01 AM CDT 10 min read

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Big ideas usually travel with large footprints. Elon Musk has been arguing the other for astir a decade.

At the National Governors Association Summer Meeting successful July 2017, the Tesla and SpaceX laid retired a imaginativeness that sounded astir excessively elemental for a country filled with policymakers. "If you wanted to powerfulness the full U.S. with star panels, it would instrumentality a reasonably tiny country of Nevada oregon Texas oregon Utah; you lone request astir 100 miles by 100 miles of star panels to powerfulness the full United States," Musk said. "The batteries you request to store the energy, to marque definite you person 24/7 power, is 1 mile by 1 mile. One square-mile. That's it."

"People speech astir fusion and each that," helium continued. "But the prima is simply a elephantine fusion reactor successful the sky. It's truly reliable. It comes up each day. If it doesn't we've got bigger problems."

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At the World Economic Forum successful Davos, Switzerland successful January, the connection came backmost astir unchanged. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said, "Elon and I person had these conversations before, but wherefore don't you archer the assemblage what would it instrumentality for the United States, successful what geography would it instrumentality that star tract to electrify the United States? Let maine inquire a question: wherefore aren't we doing it?"

Musk answered Fink with the aforesaid scale. "So unsmooth mode is 100 miles by 100 miles—160 kilometers by 160 kilometers—of star is capable to powerfulness the full United States," Musk said. "You tin instrumentality a tiny country of Utah, Nevada, New Mexico—obviously wouldn't privation it each successful 1 place—but it's a precise tiny percent of the country of the U.S. to make each energy that the U.S. uses."

He extended the thought beyond the U.S., pointing to sparsely populated regions successful Spain oregon Sicily arsenic susceptible of powering Europe nether the aforesaid framework.

When pressed connected what's holding things back, Musk pointed to economics shaped by policy. "Unfortunately, U.S. tariff barriers for star are highly precocious and this makes economics deploying star artificially high," Musk said. "Because China makes astir each the solar."

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The transportation whitethorn beryllium old, but the timing isn't. Electricity request successful the U.S. is climbing fast, with AI and information centers starring the charge. In 2025, information halfway usage accounted for astir fractional of the maturation successful energy consumption, and that inclination is expected to continue.

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