Amount Of Coal Burned To Make Solar Panel

Solar is cleaner than coal.

Amount of coal burned to make solar panel.

In an april 25 new york times article today s energy jobs are in solar not coal reporter nadja popovich wrote that last year the solar industry employed many more americans 373 807. Questioning the irony of renewable energy advocates demonizing coal when it is essential to silicon purification and solar cell production is what made everyone start calling me names. The 550 mw desert sunlight solar farm for example is one of the largest solar power plants in the world with 8 8 million solar panels covering six square miles. It takes energy to make all the things used to burn coal for electricity.

Workman shovels coal and lumpy quartz silicon ore into a silicon smelter in china. All the world s photovoltaic solar panels generate as much electricity as two coal power plants. The very question insinuates that only manufacturing solar takes energy. Most commercial solar pv modules use photovoltaic cells solar cells made from highly purified silicon si.

My endgame is finding out how much coal is required to make a solar panel and also if anthracite is required or just more efficient. The equivalent of between 1 and 4 tons of coal are used in the manufacture of a single solar panel. So let s get this straight. I say at least because the most often cited report is by.

That all these 50 ton coal trucks these railroads these coal hauling railroad cars these coal power stations these turbines that turn coal into electricity are all somehow built by fairies. Why do we burn coal and trees to make solar panels. Utility scale solar uses much more land than a coal power plant since each solar panel needs to face the sun and can t be shaded by other panels. Why do we burn coal and trees to make solar panels.