How many 18650's to power the world for one day?

Daveyboy

Daveyboy

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So I was at work today and my mind wandered a little.
To the point I did a little googling, then made a little spreadsheet.

According to the ever correct Wikipedia, worldwide electricity usage for 2012 was 20,900TWh.
Divide by 365 gives us 57TWh per day.
if the cells average 2500mah, then that's 9Wh per cell. 57TWh divide by 9 gives 6,362 trillion 18650 cells. We are talking 6 quadrillion cells here.
And that answer made me sad.
but then I wondered how many that would be per person.
7.6 Billion people on earth.
its 837 cells per person.
Well damn!! That sounds possible!

Of course, we'd need something renewable to power that lot.
Plus i don't know if worldwide electricity requirement is increasing or decreasing. Data from 2012 is a bit old now.
And this is only electricity consumption. Not all energy. Whats the general rule of thumb? 1/3 electricity 1/3 heating 1/3 transportation? Something around that.

Still. Was an interesting thought
 
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cool analysis, but i think in reality it is much easier to achieve this target. we dont have to power the whole world purely from batteries because we need powerplants anyways, at least for charging our 18650s. we only need batteries to balance out supply and demand, i.e. pv power during the day in order to run our stuff as well as charging batteries for the night.

long story short, it is even easier to achiev the goal in your example to run the world from 18650s :)

regards
karl
 
Yeah if we do it all over the world there will be sun somewhere all the time. This will take down the number of cells needed greatly! :)
 
hehe,
and I also think you don't need to power the world for a whole year at once, one week should also be fine :)
 
Even an unrealistically thick busbar would have significant losses over a distance of miles, which is why AC is used. Just saying.
 
Ok. Lets figure in. How many people have no running water let alone power? Probably two thirds. As for energy (electricity use) probably two thirds of that is industrial. Try calculate that? Well my guess is two thirds of the worlds population would be satisfied with one 18650 and a flashlight. The other sixth would be satisfied with a decent solar setup and a 8kwh battery. The final sixth of domestic population would never be satisfied no matter how many batteries they had. And no matter how hard you try, you cannot supply industry with 18650s and solar
 
Geek said:
Ok. Lets figure in. How many people have no running water let alone power? Probably two thirds. As for energy (electricity use) probably two thirds of that is industrial. Try calculate that? Well my guess is two thirds of the worlds population would be satisfied with one 18650 and a flashlight. The other sixth would be satisfied with a decent solar setup and a 8kwh battery. The final sixth of domestic population would never be satisfied no matter how many batteries they had. And no matter how hard you try, you cannot supply industry with 18650s and solar
Click to expand...

The 20,900TWh worldwide electricity consumption does include all of industry. What makes you say you cannot supply industry with 18650's and solar? Electricity does not care how it is made. A factory powered by electricity from a gas power station will work just as well from asufficiently sized solar/battery setup.

Charly144 said:
..we only need batteries to balance out supply and demand, i.e. pv power during the day in order to run our stuff as well as charging batteries for the night.
Click to expand...

Very true. But I'll be honest, I'm not sure how many batteries would be required to smooth the load/output. Whats your best estimate?
 
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