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Peter Todd profile picture
Peter Todd
@Peter Todd
https://www.techradar.com/pro/maybe-its-not-science-fiction-solar-panels-are-causing-rainwater-to-fall-in-one-of-the-driest-places-on-earth

“The researchers modeled solar panels as nearly black surfaces that absorb 95% of incoming sunlight.”

It's hilarious how easy it is to debunk this article. Typical solar panels convert about 15% to 25% of the incoming light into electricity while operating. That's energy that is removed from that location entirely, and re-released somewhere else. This is one reason why putting solar panels on your roof can keep your house cooler.

It is physically impossible for efficiently operating solar panels to absorb 95% of the incoming sunlight.
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Tyler Burns · 1w
To put it simply, you're wrong here. They're referring to how much of the sunlight is absorbed by the panel, not how efficient they are at turning that sunlight into electricity. Those are two very different things. Most of the sunlight that is absorbed by the panel is radiated off as heat. A small...
frphank · 1w
95% of the sunlight gets absorbed and the energy gets re-emitted as infrared heat radiation. So that's totally possible. They also explain that in the article. The infrared heat radiation heats the air more effectively than the sunlight does and causes and updraft.
Jesse · 1w
The weather mechanism may be dubious, but the energy absorption claim is not. PV panels will absorb most of the solar energy, literally why they look black. A small percentage of that is converted into electricity and the rest is released as heat either through convection or radiation back to the ...