Scientists want to power the world with solar and wind energy, a feat they say is possible with large-scale wind and solar farms. Now, an international team of researchers says that building such an energy factory in the Sahara desert would come with a surprising boon: more rainfall.
The discovery means feeding the global power supply with renewable energy would be beneficial not only to regional climates but also society.
“In the light of our findings… we could transform our energy sources,” said Safa Motesharrei, a systems scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park, who co-led the new work. “That can lead in turn to sustaining freshwater, food and life on our planet.”
The notion to construct massive renewable energy installations in a desert came from livestock. Thanks to sheep, goats and cows chowing down on foliage, the landscape in Sahel, a semi-arid transition region south of the ...
