This rather obscure chart illustrates how space intensive different power sources are in relation to each other. The grey energy sources are renewable, while the white boxes are fossil fuels.

Basically, it illustrates how much less dense many of the renewable energy options are compared to coal and oil. Not that they don’t also take up a great deal of space, but that there’s more energy returned afterward because of the high amount of energy stored in these fossil fuels.

The graph is from Vaclav Smil, Energy in World History.