[ACAVJW4H]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade >One proposed sunshade would be composed of 16 trillion small disks at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrangian point, 1.5 million kilometers above Earth. Each disk is proposed to have a 0.6-meter diameter and a thickness of about 5 micrometers. The mass of each disk would be about a gram, adding up to a total of almost 20 million tonnes. Such a group of small sunshades that blocks 2% of the sunlight, deflecting it off into space, would be enough to halt global warming, giving ample time to cut emissions back on Earth.

> Such a group of sunshades would need to occupy an area of about 3.8 million square kilometers if placed at the L1 point. The deployment of the flyers is an issue that requires reusable rockets. With 100t LEO booster a single launch per day would allow to release the required number of sails within 20 years.

[xeyownt]

Geez. What a terrible idea. It will:

- Harm the only true source of renewable energy we have.

- Waste gazillion of fossil fuel to send that mess in the sky.

- very likely increase space pollution around Earth and be impossible to clean up.

[DennisP]

- A 2% increase in panel efficiency would compensate for that. Most people say panel efficiency isn't a big factor in solar pricing anyway.

- The only near-term way to do this affordably would be on Starship, and at scale they're planning to fuel that with methane made from ambient CO2, for net-zero emissions

- The L1 point is about a million miles from Earth, so space junk is not an issue at all

[antisthenes]

Also:

- Not going to last any significant amount of time, due to the solar sail effect. Solar wind will simply blow them out of the stable L1 orbit in a few decades at most, maybe a few years

- Let people emit more CO2, because "the problem is solved" in the short term, and when it doesn't work and that 2% of sunlight comes back, it'll exacerbate the problem.