Comment & Debate
Alan Robock. “20 reasons why geoengineering may be a bad idea”. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist. 2008: 8. Less sun for solar power. Scientists estimate that as little as a 1.8 percent reduction in incoming solar radiation would compensate for a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Even this small reduction would significantly affect the radiation available for solar power systems—one of the prime alternate methods of generating clean energy— as the response of different solar power systems to total available sunlight is not linear. This is especially true for some of the most efficiently designed systems that reflect or focus direct solar radiation on one location for direct heating.14 Following the Mount Pinatubo eruption and the 1982 eruption of El Chichón in Mexico, scientists observed a direct solar radiation decrease of 25–35 percent.