Enlarge / Workers install photovoltaic panels on the roof at the reconstruction project of Fengtai Railway Station on November 12, 2021, in Beijing, China. (credit: Jia Tianyong/China News Service) Around the world, countries installed renewable power at a record pace in 2021, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency. The trend is […]
Enlarge / See these solar panels in space? They’re way too heavy to economically provide power to Earth. (credit: NASA) “This is an idea that’s older than even the space program,” Caltech’s Harry Atwater told Ars over Zoom. Citing Asimov and Clarke, Atwater conjured an image of gleaming solar panels floating above the Earth on […]
Enlarge (credit: US Fish and Wildlife Service) Pollinator habitats and solar farms may seem like ecologically great neighbors, but we still don’t understand very much about that relationship. A team of researchers recently published a paper surveying the ins and outs of keeping solar production alongside the kinds of plants that pollinators like bees and […]
The potential for electricity production is not solar powered. That is the Perspective of the International Energy Agency at its own fresh World Energy Outlook report, also published in October. The largest reason: Solar is currently less expensive than gas or coal in a lot of the planet. “I visit solar getting the king of […]