You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, and the total eclipse is a stark reminder of that adage when it comes to the key role solar energy currently plays in the US. More than 31 million people — nearly 10 percent of the population in the US — live in an area that will experience the total solar eclipse today. Millions more live near dirty power plants that could be tapped to make up for a loss of solar power.
expects gas to cover about 30 percent of the loss in utility-scale solar generation. Put simply: more gas, more pollution. On a national level, that’s not good for US climate goals, which aim to slash greenhouse gas emissions roughly in half by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. When it comes to soot and smog-forming pollutants, the effects are more concentrated in communities that border fossil fuel power plants.