It seems like a cheap way to block sunlight might be an ESL1 cloud between Earth and the Sun. Lots of very small particles gives a lot of surface area per unit mass, but shadows shrink with distance. Need to do some math. 
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Interesting! Small-angle scattering seems like it could be very low mass indeed, as it minimizes the amount of light pressure by only diverting it by a small amount. Of course, by the time you are worrying about light pressure being too high, you are redirecting a LOT of energy.
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I think the shade ends up redirecting a lot of energy that wouldn't have hit the earth anyway. But there's no way to avoid that really, as the shade can't distinguish the exact angle of a beam from the sun.
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