Quote:
Originally Posted by fintstone
I imagine that those miners preferred the known risk of black lung to the known risk of starving. How does your overpriced wind or solar power feed their families?
Of course the materials used for solar cells have to be mined...just like coal:
Chemicals used in Manufacturing Solar Panels
That mining has health hazards as well.
You do realize that during manufacture and after the disposal of solar panels, they release hazardous chemicals including cadmium compounds, silicon tetrachloride, hexafluoroethane and lead such as Cadmium Telluride, Copper Indium Selenide, Cadmium Indium Gallium (Di)selenide, Silicon Tetrachloride, etc.? I bet the Chinese folks that manufacture those cells have some pretty sick looking organs as well. |
Photo Electric only takes advantage of a limited amount of the energy of the sun.
Largescale photo-electric solar is wasteful in the end except in prime locations such as orbit above the major atmosphere; or remote locations.
Solar really shines in the latter as you don't need to run an electric grid to power generation centers with transmission losses.
Solar input is also effected by weather and positioning.
It is viable based on the situation, but should not be regulated as a replacement for mainstream solutions. It is an alternative for a reason.
Similar stipulations apply to wind.
I'm also curious of wind harvesting and climate, wind is moving differences of pressure and temperature in the atmosphere. What happens when on a large scale you slow down the surface layer? I've never taken the time to see what studies there are. Perhaps someone here knows.
Latest gen nuclear for population centers, alternative energy for the remote locations. This is closer to what we should be moving to. Alternative everywhere is going to be bad.
And when it comes to batteries, solar, electric cars, etc, many do not factor in the environmental costs of creating those items and infrastructure. Hydrocarbon burning may be the cleaner solution in the majority of cases over solar/electric.
I feel the need to add that my post is dealing directly with photovoltaic solar. There are other forms of solar harvesting that are "less high tech", but far more effective.