Every City Should Encourage This Kind of Solar Development

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By Richard Conniff, Mother Jones magazine. 

Excerpt: It uses pre-cleared land, makes electricity where needed, and keeps parking lots cool. ...By 2050, in one plausible scenario from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), supplying solar power for all our electrical needs could require ground-based solar on 0.5 percent of the total land area of the United States. To put that number in perspective, NREL senior research Robert Margolis says it’s “less land than we already dedicate to growing corn ethanol for biofuels.” ...The appeal of parking lots and rooftops... is that they are abundant, close to customers, largely untapped for solar power generation, and on land that’s already been stripped of much of its biological value.…

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