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| Life after coal: what 300 GW of solar might look like. |
Above, I envision 300 quarter-township solar generating units dispersed in the southwestern United States. Each unit would be rated about 1 GW at 75% capacity factor—effectively retiring the country's entire 300 GW of coal-fired generating capacity. The underlying solar resource map is quoted from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
We would rather not build these solar generating units disturbing some 3,000 miles of the Southwest's beautiful, living deserts—but, would we drastically and irreversibly alter the earth's climate rather than build them?
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