Will Mt. Everest be covered with solar panels?

WORLD SCIENCE

High moun­tains such as Mt. Ev­er­est may be the best places for gen­er­at­ing so­lar en­er­gy, if fac­tors in­clud­ing snow­fall can be suc­cess­fully ad­dressed, a new study pro­poses.

The re­search adds a sur­pris­ing twist to long­stand­ing as­sump­tions that hot des­erts are ide­al places for set­ting up so­lar ar­rays.

While many hot re­gions such as the U.S. des­ert South­west are in­deed ex­cel­lent loca­t­ions for gath­er­ing the sun’s en­er­gy, some of the high­est and cold­est land­scapes may have even great­er po­ten­tial, the study con­clud­ed.

Ar­eas such as the Him­a­la­ya moun­tains, which in­clude Mt. Ev­er­est, could be es­pe­cially well-suit­ed to sup­ply­ing Chi­na’s bur­geon­ing econ­o­my with so­lar pow­er, ac­cord­ing to the re­search, which ap­pears in the jour­nal En­vi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence & Tech­nol­o­gy.

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