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无论我们如何发电，它都会占用空间。煤炭需要矿山和工厂将其转化为电力。核电需要铀矿、提炼设施、反应堆和安全储存乏燃料的地方。可再生能源需要风力涡轮机或太阳能电池板。那么为整个世界供电需要多少空间呢？今天我们一起来探索不同电源的可持续性。
No matter how we make electricity, it takes up space. Electricity from coal requires mines, and plants to burn it and convert the heat into electricity. Nuclear power takes uranium mines, facilities to refine the uranium, a reactor, and a place to store the spent fuel safely. Renewable energy needs wind turbines or solar panels.无论我们如何发电，它都会占用空间。煤炭发电需要矿山和燃煤工厂，并将热量转化为电能；核电需要铀矿、提炼铀的设施、反应堆和安全储存乏核燃料的地方；可再生能源需要风力涡轮机或太阳能电池板； How much space depends on the power source. Say you wanted to power a 10-watt light bulb with fossil fuels like coal. Fossil fuels can produce up to 2,000 watts per square meter, so it would only take a credit card-sized chunk of land to power the light bulb. With nuclear power, you might only need an area about the size of the palms of your hands.所需空间大小取决于能源。假设你想用煤等化石燃料为一个10瓦灯泡供电，化石燃料每平方米可产生高达2,000瓦的电力，所以，信用卡大小的土地就可以为灯泡供电；要是用核电的话，可能只需手掌的大小区域即可。 With solar power, you’d need at least 0.3 square meters of land— twice the size of a cafeteria tray. Wind power would take roughly 7 square meters— about half the size of a parking space— to power the bulb.若使用太阳能，则至少需要0.3平方米的土地——大小是自助餐厅托盘的两倍；风力发电大约需要7平方米才能为灯泡供电——大约半个停车位的大小。 When you consider the space needed to power cities, countries, and the whole world, it adds up fast. Today, the world uses 3 trillion watts of electricity. To power the entire world with only fossil fuels, you’d need at least about 1,200 square kilometers of space— roughly the area of Grand Bahama island. With nuclear energy, you’d need almost four times as much space at a minimum— roughly 4,000 square kilometers, a little less than the area of Delaware. With solar, you’d need at least 95,000 square kilometers, approximately the area of South Korea. With wind power, you’d need two million— about the area of Mexico.当考虑为城市、国家和全球供电所需空间时，数量增加很快。当今世界使用的电力为3万亿瓦，用化石燃料为全球供电的话，至少需要大约1,200平方公里的地方——大约是大巴哈马岛的面积；若用核能供电，至少需要几乎四倍的空间——即大约4,000平方公里，比特拉华州的面积略小；使用太阳能，则至少需要95,000平方公里，大约与韩国面积相当；风力发电则需两百万平方公里——大约是墨西哥的面积。 For each power source, there’s variability in how much power it can generate per square meter, but these numbers give us a general sense of the space needed. Of course, building energy infrastructure in a desert, a rainforest, a town, or even in the ocean are completely different prospects. And energy sources monopolize the space they occupy to very different extents. Take wind power. Wind turbines need to be spread out— sometimes half a kilometer apart— so that the turbulence from one turbine doesn’t reduce the efficiency of the others. So, much of the land needed to generate wind power is still available for other uses.针对不同的能源，其每平方米产生的电力不同，但这些数字让我们对所需空间有一个大致的了解。当然，在沙漠、热带雨林、城镇、甚至在海洋建设能源基础设施，其前景也完全不同，发电方式在不同程度上决定了其占据空间的大小。以风力发电为例，风力涡轮机需要分散开——有时相距半公里——以免一台涡轮机的湍流降低其它涡轮机的效率。这样风力发电所需的大部分土地仍可用于其他用途。 But the baseline amount of space still matters, because cities and other densely populated areas have high electricity demands, and space near them is often limited. Our current power infrastructure works best when electricity is generated where and when it’s needed, rather than being stored or sent across long distances.但所需空间的基线量仍然很重要，因为城市和其他人口稠密地区电力需求很高，而且其附近空间通常很有限。在电力需求地按需发电，而非长距离存储或发送时，目前的电力基础设施效果最好。 Still, space demands are only part of the equation. As of 2020, 2/3 of our electricity comes from fossil fuels. Every year, electricity generation is responsible for about 27% of the more than 50 billion tons of greenhouse gases we add to the atmosphere, accelerating climate change and all its harms. So although fossil fuels require the least space of our existing technologies, we can’t continue to rely on them.尽管如此，空间需求只是等式的一部分。截至2020年，我们2/3的电力来自化石燃料，每年，我们向大气排放500多亿吨温室气体，其中约27%是发电产生的，加剧了气候变化及其危害。因此，尽管化石燃料对现有技术的需求最小，但我们不能继续依赖它们。 Cost is another consideration. Nuclear plants don’t emit greenhouse gases and don’t require much space, but they’re way more expensive to build than solar panels or wind turbines, and have waste to deal with. Renewables have almost no marginal costs— unlike with plants powered by fossil fuels, you don’t need to keep purchasing fuel to generate electricity. But you do need lots of wind and sunlight, which are more available in some places than others.成本是另一个考虑因素。核电站不排放温室气体，也不需要太多空间，但其建造成本远高于太阳能电池板或风力涡轮机，并且还要处理核废料。可再生能源几乎没有边际成本——和化石燃料发电厂不同，无需持续购买燃料来发电，但确实需要大量的风和阳光，某些地方比其他地方更易获得这些资源。 No single approach will be the best option to power the entire world while eliminating harmful greenhouse gas emissions. For some places, nuclear power might be the best option for replacing fossil fuels. Others, like the U.S., have the natural resources to get most or all of their electricity from renewables. And across the board, we should be working to make our power sources better: safer in the case of nuclear, and easier to store and transport in the case of renewables.在消除有害温室气体排放的同时，没有哪个单一发电方式是为全球提供能源的最佳选择。在某些地方，核电可能是替代化石燃料的最佳选择；其他国家，如美国，拥有从可再生能源中获取大部分或全部电力的自然资源。全面而言，我们应该努力使我们的能源更好：让核电更安全、让可再生能源更容易储存和运输。
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