Smoggy skies: Why solar energy isn`t as efficient as it could be

According to a new study, air pollution may have yet another harmful effect—reduction of solar energy production.

Researchers from Duke, the Indian Institute of Technology at Gandhinagar and the University of Wisconsin at Madison performed the research, which appeared last month in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. The investigators—including Mike Bergin, professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Drew Shindell, professor of climate sciences at the Nicholas School of the Environment—found that solar energy production was reduced by about 17 to 25 percent in India, China and the Arabian Peninsula due to particulates in the air....