Re: Not sure how you figure that


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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [209.33.95.254] on Tuesday, January 13, 2015 at 14:53:13 :

In Reply to: Re: Not sure how you figure that posted by Don in Missouri [97.64.167.2] on Tuesday, January 13, 2015 at 14:21:09 :

If you want to figure long-term sustainability, that's a whole different matter. But if you want a tank full of fuel right now under today's economic conditions, you can't beat oil because the energy content has already been "made" by nature millions of years ago.

What I would like to see someone calculate is the amount of fossil fuels it takes to produce a solar panel. All of the mining and transportation of the raw materials and finished goods is done via petroleum. The smelting of the alumina and silica are done by electricity which may or may not come from coal and/or oil. The workers in the factor get to work via fossil fuels, and the factories and warehouses may be heated or lighted by fossil fuels.

Then take that number and divide it by the amount of kWH a solar panel is likely to produce over its useful life. A good panel might produce 250 watts peak. In a sunny location that would probably average out to around 1 kWH/day. A well made panel should last 25 years. That's roughly 10 MWH (or $1000 worth) of electricity over its useful life, under ideal conditions. Figure roughly double the cost of the panel by the time you include mounting, wiring, and electronics (grid-tie inverter, etc), and you've got an up-front investment of $500 to $1000 to produce $1000 worth of electricity. The break-even equation has finally titled (just barely) to the right side so that people with a very long-term view can justify installing solar systems.

But now the question is how much fossil fuel it took to produce that 10 MWH of electricity via solar panels, and whether that is indeed less fossil fuel than it would have taken to to produce that same amount of electricity in a thermal boiler. I don't know the answer, but it's a number that needs to be calculated before we decide that solar panels actually reduce our consumption of fossil fuels.



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