Not only is solar more than capable of supplying all the world’s energy, in the long term it is the only power source that won’t fry the planet
By Michael Le Page
3 September 2025
Just 0.3 per cent of the world’s land area would need to be covered in solar panels to meet all energy needs
VCG via Getty Images
Solar power has been on the rise for years, and for good reason. It has become one of the cheapest ways to generate energy almost everywhere, and it is one of the best options for combatting climate change.
Yet it still has its detractors. US energy secretary Chris Wright has claimed solar couldn’t supply all the energy the world needs. This is wildly and embarrassingly wrong, as many have pointed out. In fact, in the long run, solar – including wind, which captures the sun’s energy through a different mechanism – is the only power source that can meet growing energy demand without frying the planet.
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On 2 September, Wright posted on social media platform X: “Even if you wrapped the entire planet in a solar panel, you would only be producing 20% of global energy. One of the biggest mistakes politicians can make is equating the ELECTRICITY with ENERGY!”
Now to start with, electricity is measured in terms of the energy it provides, so for practical purposes, yes you can equate electricity with energy.
As climate scientist Gavin Schmidt at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies pointed out on Bluesky, the energy content before use of all the fuels used worldwide in 2024 was 186,000 terawatt-hours. He said Earth receives 6000 times as much energy as that each year.