Just FYI: The claim that solar panels barely break even in regards of carbon is misinformation:
Indeed, the solar panels exported from China in 2024 will have paid off their “carbon debt” within an average of just four months, according to detailed recent analysis for Carbon Brief. Manufacturing the solar panels will have added some 72m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) to China’s emissions in 2024, but will cut them overseas by 203MtCO2 per year, the analysis found. In total, these solar panels will save some 4.1GtCO2 over their lifetimes, paying off the upfront “carbon debt” some 57 times over. Looked at another way, the lifecycle emissions of solar power are far lower than those of fossil fuels, as shown in the chart below, which is based on UN data published in 2021.
And since most solar panels are produced in China and China is rapidly building clean energy, that will also go down further in the future. Solar is great.
I used to genuinely be against solar because the carbon costs barely break even,
Carbon costs are not break even. The monetary costs include all economic inputs including the dirty energy used to produce the panels. So even if 100% of the $1000 cost to create a panel was from burning coal, that means once the panel has generated $1k in electricity, it has recouped all the carbon output. Because the alternative to $1k in burning coal to make a solar panel is $1k in burning coal for electricity.
Solar takes 10 years to break even and lasts a minimum of 20 years. And 20 years it hasn’t stopped working but is only outputting at worst 80% less power. There are 40 year old panels outputting 80% of what they did when new.
The owners of my family’s last house left us with solar panels, and as a struggling barely middle class family, it helped my parents afford all our expenses; from groceries to rent and even a vacation. It makes me so happy to see solarpunk become so popular, the good it can do is nothing short of awesome.
Can you clarify how the recycling works? We had BP solar panels and after 6-7 years they all cracked (the crystalline silicon couldn’t handle the sun or heat) and stopped working
If they cracked, your installer may have fucked up. You need to leave a gap between panels because they expand with humidity and heat, kinda like flooring.
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Just FYI: The claim that solar panels barely break even in regards of carbon is misinformation:
https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/factcheck/solar/index.html#section-solar-farms-pump-out-more-carbon-over-their-lifetimes-than-they-save
And since most solar panels are produced in China and China is rapidly building clean energy, that will also go down further in the future. Solar is great.
Carbon costs are not break even. The monetary costs include all economic inputs including the dirty energy used to produce the panels. So even if 100% of the $1000 cost to create a panel was from burning coal, that means once the panel has generated $1k in electricity, it has recouped all the carbon output. Because the alternative to $1k in burning coal to make a solar panel is $1k in burning coal for electricity.
Solar takes 10 years to break even and lasts a minimum of 20 years. And 20 years it hasn’t stopped working but is only outputting at worst 80% less power. There are 40 year old panels outputting 80% of what they did when new.
The owners of my family’s last house left us with solar panels, and as a struggling barely middle class family, it helped my parents afford all our expenses; from groceries to rent and even a vacation. It makes me so happy to see solarpunk become so popular, the good it can do is nothing short of awesome.
Can you clarify how the recycling works? We had BP solar panels and after 6-7 years they all cracked (the crystalline silicon couldn’t handle the sun or heat) and stopped working
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If they cracked, your installer may have fucked up. You need to leave a gap between panels because they expand with humidity and heat, kinda like flooring.
They were installed correctly and BP said they were faulty. They offered to replace them if an NDA was signed
Can you point me to a study saying carbon cost barely breaks even? Compared to what?
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