Can Extremely Reflective White Paint Save the Planet?

To stabilize global temperatures, humanity needs to replace the energy basis of industrial modernity. We must build vast constellations of wind and solar farms, lace continents with high-voltage transmission lines, replace all internal combustion engines with batteries, decarbonize heavy industry, increase the energy efficiency of our buildings, expand mass transit, and promote housing density, among myriad other things.

Unless we just need to dump 139 billion gallons of extremely white paint across roughly 2 percent of the Earth’s surface.

This week, the New York Times reported on Xiulin Ruan’s extraordinary feat of pigmentary engineering. A researcher at Purdue University, Ruan has spent years trying to develop a maximally reflective type of white paint, one that could bounce upwards of 95 percent of the sun’s rays off of any given surface and then back out into deep space, cooling the planet in the process. Now, Ruan’s team has engineered a shade that reflects 98 percent of sunlight.