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There's already a lot in the desert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_plants_in_the_Mojave_Desert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_plants_in_t
by burkaman 3y ago
There's already a lot in the desert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_plants_in_the_Mojave_Desert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_plants_in_the_Moja.... I think maintenance is easier than a hypothetical Sahara megafarm because in the US we can still build them near existing transmission and roads.
They definitely do affect the local climate, and at a very large scale they can hypothetically change the albedo of the desert enough to affect global weather and climate patterns.
- mulmen 3y agoCould this be leveraged to mitigate climate change?
- burkaman 3y agoMaybe? Apparently if we blanket the Sahara with solar it could actually increase cloud cover and reduce solar potential in a lot of the rest of the world: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-01117-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-01117-5. I guess my answer is no, it would literally cause the climate to change so by definition that's not mitigating climate change. It would be a form of geoengineering, which is sort of its own category separate from mitigation, which refers to action that reduces change.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- edgyquant 3y agoAny mega engineering like this will have large scale effects on climate and/or ecology