Solar panels in Sahara could boost renewable energy but damage the global climate – here's why

By Zhengyao Lu, Researcher in Physical Geography, Lund University
Benjamin Smith, Director of Research, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University

The world’s most forbidding deserts could be the best places on Earth for harvesting solar power – the most abundant and clean source of energy we have. Deserts are spacious, relatively flat, rich in silicon – the raw material for the semiconductors from which solar cells are made — and never short of sunlight. In fact, the ten largest solar plants around the world are all located in deserts or dry regions.
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