Quote:
Originally Posted by Zythryn
What I am trying to get at is:
How much pollution is created by other alternatives (to the solar panels at that specific builder). If the amount of pollution generated at the coal plant per unit of energy is STILL greater than the level of pollution generated by the plant mentioned in the article, it is STILL a 'greener' option to buy solar from that deplorable solar panel plant than other alternatives.
Please note, that would be an awful lot of pollution and I would be surprised it a coal plant kicked out more damage to the environment. But the point is, I don't know and there is no information in the article.
To come to a logical conclusion, it is necessary to know the pollution of all types of energy.
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I know your trying to explain your questions, and I may have misunderstood your point. That said:
The production process (when recycling during solar panel material processing) still involves using extra energy (coal for this example) to reprocess the waste while you still have to provide energy for existing needs.
While one can say that this plant in the article has avoided that extra energy use by not recycling, at some time the cost will be incurred to reprocess that material, whether its by the man-hours and materials used to spread it out (tillage); if thats even an acceptable method for this by-product or by burning more energy later to heat it back up.
According to the article, this plant produced 300 tons of product. This translates into 1200 tons of by-product needing to be recycled.
I dont know how many KWH are used in reprocessing this by-product back into whatever. I dont know how many finished solar panels are made from 300 tons of product. But this must be calculated into when solar panels achieve "green" status (rather than gray status as Alex pointed out).
But I did find a good guide to figure how coal converts into KWH here:
What is Energy? Conversion and Resource Tables
My quick (and need to be checked math calculations) 1 lb of coal (USA coal) = 3KWH. The above link also provides the types of coal and amounts found in the USA. I have no idea what kind of coal is used in chinese coal plants.
So then the consumer must try to balance all these things to decide whether using existing coal vs environmental recovery via solar panel methods (which there are multiple) or wait for the new technologies to assess whether the cost to the environment is less by waiting a few years for technology advances like this (found on a football forum of all places):
PopSci's Best of What's New 2007
Company site:
Nanosolar - Advantages
Is this closer to the kind of response you were trying to get?
