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| Solar panels (photo by Kevin T. Houle) |
We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming (24/7 reviews!) to recommend this interesting article from Nature on various methods of generating electricity without net carbon emissions.
I came away from the story with a renewed appreciation for the potential of solar power in particular. Consider this excerpt:
Earth receives about 100,000 TW of solar power at its surface — enough energy every hour to supply humanity's energy needs for a year. There are parts of the Sahara Desert, the Gobi Desert in central Asia, the Atacama in Peru or the Great Basin in the United States where a gigawatt of electricity could be generated using today's photovoltaic cells in an array 7 or 8 kilometres across. Theoretically, the world's entire primary energy needs could be served by less than a tenth of the area of the Sahara.
Exciting stuff! Let's get cracking on those giant solar arrays!! :)
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