Right now land costs are on the order of $1k-$2k/acre/yr (1 acre ~ 4000m2, but I find it a convenient metric because an average acre receives an average of just over 4MW of sunlight if you spread it across the full 8760 hours in a year, which gives an average of ~1MW output at current efficiencies if you had 100% panel coverage). and with current efficiencies in typical regions that’s something like 2000-8000 MWh/yr depending on local weather and panel layout, so <$1/MWh. If we move towards tandem or other multijunction cells (which seems plausible in the 2030s) that power density could double. In addition there are some slower trends that should start to support things like agrivoltaics (dual use of land without decreasing crop yields) and comparably cheap or cheaper non-silicon semitransparent panels (which can actually be used in greenhouses or over crops, selectively absorbing wavelengths plants can’t use while providing shade to reduce water consumption).
In other words, there are lots of options to address this. World electricity consumption would have to increase by at least 3 orders of magnitude before land use even started to become a consideration.
I do think the OP is overestimating the rate at which energy storage and synthetic fuel costs will fall, and that that is a bigger consideration than land use. I also think resistance to early retirement of existing assets will slow down the later stages of the move away from fossil fuels, both in electricity generation and in transportation fuels. But I doubt that shifts the overall timeline by more than 5-10 yrs.
Right now land costs are on the order of $1k-$2k/acre/yr (1 acre ~ 4000m2, but I find it a convenient metric because an average acre receives an average of just over 4MW of sunlight if you spread it across the full 8760 hours in a year, which gives an average of ~1MW output at current efficiencies if you had 100% panel coverage). and with current efficiencies in typical regions that’s something like 2000-8000 MWh/yr depending on local weather and panel layout, so <$1/MWh. If we move towards tandem or other multijunction cells (which seems plausible in the 2030s) that power density could double. In addition there are some slower trends that should start to support things like agrivoltaics (dual use of land without decreasing crop yields) and comparably cheap or cheaper non-silicon semitransparent panels (which can actually be used in greenhouses or over crops, selectively absorbing wavelengths plants can’t use while providing shade to reduce water consumption).
In other words, there are lots of options to address this. World electricity consumption would have to increase by at least 3 orders of magnitude before land use even started to become a consideration.
I do think the OP is overestimating the rate at which energy storage and synthetic fuel costs will fall, and that that is a bigger consideration than land use. I also think resistance to early retirement of existing assets will slow down the later stages of the move away from fossil fuels, both in electricity generation and in transportation fuels. But I doubt that shifts the overall timeline by more than 5-10 yrs.