MIT: ‘Massive’ Solar Expansion Critical for Climate

A “massive” global expansion of solar power — possibly enough to supply about a third or more of the world’s electricity — may be necessary by 2050 to reduce the impacts of fossil fuels on the climate, according to a report published by MIT this week.

Solar’s efficiency and abundance make it the clean energy source best suited to cut greenhouse gas emissions.  But for it to make a big enough climate difference, the amount of solar power generation capacity on U.S. soil would have to increase from today’s 20 gigawatts to up to 400 gigawatts, or enough to provide power to 80 million homes, Robert Stoner, deputy director of the MIT Energy Initiative and a co-author of the report, said.
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John Rogers, senior energy analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the study gets a lot of things right and talks about building the foundation for a massive scale-up in solar power in the U.S.. “It says drastic cuts in government support are a bad idea, and I think that many of us would agree with that,” he said.
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Solar Energy Industry Association Vice President Ken Johnson said the report “offers an incomplete and flawed picture of solar economics,” especially regarding rooftop solar and tax credits, which have proved to be an incentive to build nearly all the solar installations operating today.
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It was previously thought that fairly cloudy regions such as New England could not produce as much solar power as southern states, but recent research suggests that solar power generation capabilities of New England and Florida aren’t very different if solar panels are oriented optimally to take the most advantage of seasonal sunlight and temperatures, Rogers said.

“Turns out we have a resource a whole lot more widespread than (the study) would lead one to believe,” Rogers said. “You want to be setting the record straight, not perpetuating myths.”

Read more at MIT:  ‘Massive’ Solar Expansion Critical for Climate