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    Default Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    I was recently watching a video of nuclear vs other types of energy, and one of the claims was a bit weird: that nuclear has lower carbon emissions than any other form of energy generation except wind, and explicitly, that it had lower carbon emissions than solar.

    Now, the video was flawed in various other ways (including what is ultimately the most crucial - cost), but I'm not particularly interested in discussing the viability of nuclear power - we've had that discussion more than once, and I am well aware of its pros and cons.

    Instead, I'm trying to figure out where that claim of carbon emissions of solar panels came from, and have not been able to find anything solid. Do you know what this is about? All I can think of is that it's including the manufacturing process (and fair enough, that does need to be considered, and if anyone has solid numbers, I'd like to have a link), but if that is the case, surely the nuclear power station itself also has a non-insignificant CO2 cost from building it?

    Thanks,

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    I'm quite sure production is part of it. Solar panels tend to require kind of complex chemicals which are not super eco-friendly. Of course a nuclear power plant, building and procuring uranium is also not cheap (with regards to CO2) I guess there are too many variables to get some good numbers but maybe someone knows better..

    I think another aspect that (I think) is usually unregarded is space. What area do you need to get same output. . Just random guessing, but I assume a nuclear plant gives you much more watt per sqm than solar, and while you can grow grass under your panels but not on the plant, I feel the latter still leaves you with a better balance.
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Another question is, are we talking about a Thorium reactor or a Uranium one? An old school solar farm or one that uses the new pnales which are a quarter the size?

    I mean, I could theoretically see how nuclear could produce less, but I'm just not sure how someone is getting the numbers for all those variables
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by Blackhawk748 View Post
    Another question is, are we talking about a Thorium reactor or a Uranium one? An old school solar farm or one that uses the new pnales which are a quarter the size?

    I mean, I could theoretically see how nuclear could produce less, but I'm just not sure how someone is getting the numbers for all those variables
    The video was almost certainly talking about US nuclear, so I'm guessing the old, inefficient one. Their main point was, in any case, the issue of dealing with leftover fissile material (as I said, the video had a number of issues beyond the "less CO2 emissions" claim).

    It bothers me a lot because the channel seemed reasonably well researched in other topics, but this one video has made me doubt their honesty and/or competence.

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Is this any help? CARBON FOOTPRINT OF ELECTRICITY GENERATION (published ~2006, so may be out of date)

    Photovoltaics (PV), also known as solar cells, are made of crystalline silicon, a semi-conducting material which
    converts sunlight into electricity. The silicon required for PV modules is extracted from quartz sand at high
    temperatures. This is the most energy intensive phase of PV module production, accounting for 60% of the total
    energy requirement.
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by Manga Shoggoth View Post
    Is this any help? CARBON FOOTPRINT OF ELECTRICITY GENERATION (published ~2006, so may be out of date)
    Nice find. It does seem to be exactly what I was hoping, thanks! Will read it later.

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kato View Post
    I'm quite sure production is part of it. Solar panels tend to require kind of complex chemicals which are not super eco-friendly. Of course a nuclear power plant, building and procuring uranium is also not cheap (with regards to CO2) I guess there are too many variables to get some good numbers but maybe someone knows better.
    You've also got the energy requirement for the high temperature and low pressure processes required in semiconductor production, which I'd imagine to be produced by a commercially viable energy source that can meet the demands of the factory.

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    The main cost of solar panels is that the materials have to be melted at extremely high temperatures. That was also the reason why for a long time, they weren't seen as very efficient over their lifetime. Of course, nuclear produces CO2 in production too, from mining uranium and building the plants (huge amounts of concrete, which is horrific all on its own). But then, all kinds of plants need to be built, whether they are coal plants or factories to produce wind turbines or solar panels.
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by Eldan View Post
    The main cost of solar panels is that the materials have to be melted at extremely high temperatures. That was also the reason why for a long time, they weren't seen as very efficient over their lifetime. Of course, nuclear produces CO2 in production too, from mining uranium and building the plants (huge amounts of concrete, which is horrific all on its own). But then, all kinds of plants need to be built, whether they are coal plants or factories to produce wind turbines or solar panels.
    The document linked by Manga Shoggoth seems to take all that into account. Heck, it even incorporates the CO2 emissions of the helicopter rides to the off-shore wind turbines for regular maintenance. It doesn't include the full breakdown of the numbers (it's a four page summary), but they do seem to have done their homework.

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    Instead, I'm trying to figure out where that claim of carbon emissions of solar panels came from, and have not been able to find anything solid. Do you know what this is about? All I can think of is that it's including the manufacturing process (and fair enough, that does need to be considered, and if anyone has solid numbers, I'd like to have a link), but if that is the case, surely the nuclear power station itself also has a non-insignificant CO2 cost from building it?
    Not only production, but disposal. Solar panels have a lot of fairly toxic elements in them. Now mind you, radioactive waste is also far from great, but fairly little is produced relative to the immense power output. One would need quite a lot of solar panels to match the output of a nuke plant.

    Transportation of components is also an input. If you've ordered your solar panels from china, they take up freight space aboard ships, and thus are responsible for a proportion of the oil burnt.

    In terms of what is best, that depends in large part upon the exact technology we're discussing. Solar efficiency has improved significantly, and so has nuclear power. If one looks at older technologies for either, it's very easy to skew the numbers. This is commonly done for political purposes, so we'll skim past that.

    If intent on a fair comparison, you'd also want to normalize for risk over lifetime. On average a nuclear power plant is pretty safe, where a coal plant is generally less so. However, the risk is distributed differently, with coal plants emitting pollutants on a fairly regular basis, while nuclear power plants have a quite small risk of something quite bad happening. People react differently to these risk profiles, so the problem is complicated.

    Solar, while installed, is fairly safe, but the aforementioned toxicity can matter both during production and final disposition. If they're being shipped off to third world places and kids end up disassembling them with zero safety gear, like with many electronics, well...that's not super safe. It's not something people usually plan on happening, but it's something that does happen in practice.

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    However, the risk is distributed differently, with coal plants emitting pollutants on a fairly regular basis, while nuclear power plants have a quite small risk of something quite bad happening.
    And in addition to the regular, consistent pollution, coal plants also have a small chance of very bad things happening. Except that the the chance is higher than for nuclear plants, and the damage is greater.

    The worst radiological disaster resulting from power generation in US history was a coal fly ash spill in Tennessee, in 2008, and that's even before you account for the even worse chemical toxic effects.
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by Chronos View Post
    And in addition to the regular, consistent pollution, coal plants also have a small chance of very bad things happening. Except that the the chance is higher than for nuclear plants, and the damage is greater.
    Worse than Chernobyl?

    The worst radiological disaster resulting from power generation in US history was a coal fly ash spill in Tennessee, in 2008, and that's even before you account for the even worse chemical toxic effects.
    Is coal based weapons research dangerous too?

    I'm not particularly in favour of coal or against nuclear, but you seem to have been drinking the cool-aid by the gallon.
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Nuclear gets a lot of bad press.

    I really wish we invested more into our nuclear plants.

    Its important for everyone to know that the majority of power in the USA comes from Coal and Oil plants. Its also important for you to know that Coal has heavy metals. Might surprise you to know that more people die in a coal power plants each year due to radiation poisoning than all the history of Nuclear plants (only accounting for USA and our stuff is ANCIENT!).

    Solar panels and wind farms have proven to have a significant impact on the local weather patterns. To include warming the air ~10 degree yearly(this is an as much as but has been seen in more than one location). Hydro plants and including the shoreline plants, have increased algae production to toxic levels changing the habitual species.

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by landstalker10 View Post
    wind farms have proven to have a significant impact on the local weather patterns.
    [citation needed]

    Also, nuclear is damn expensive, and cannot be made any cheaper than gas. Therefore, nuclear will never be a good solution to electricity generation without substantial government subsidies, and at that point, it feels like any money would be better employed in wind and carbon capture tech.

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Among other issues, wind farms tend to desiccate the local environment. This is one of the reasons off-shore installations are attractive--evaporate the water in a place not really subject to salinization and then let the water vapor blow on-shore to fall as rain.

    For some reason, people worry less about this and more about the occasional bird kill, even though an average cell tower will have a higher dead bird count than a wind farm most years.

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    At least in my area of PA, the concern is less from direct impact deaths and more that theyre going to take detours to go around the windmills and we don't really understand where that will take them. For those who don't know, PA has both a lot of hills and a lot of woods, so theoretically we could establish quite a lot of windmills if we wanted to. But we aren't, because that would enter us into the realm of wild speculation about what would happen to the woods and animals, and nobody really wants to take the blame if something really visibly bad does happen as a result. Also, the natural gas companies don't appreciate that kind of intrusion, so there isn't a lot of incentive to establish them here, even though theres potential.
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by Rogar Demonblud View Post
    Among other issues, wind farms tend to desiccate the local environment.
    If true, that would be bizzare, wind farms don't create wind, they harvest what's already there.
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by landstalker10 View Post
    Solar panels and wind farms have proven to have a significant impact on the local weather patterns. To include warming the air ~10 degree yearly(this is an as much as but has been seen in more than one location).
    This statement needs to be qualified by noting that it applies to an extremely restrictive definition of 'local' that can be roughly translated as 'the immediate vicinity of the plant.' In the case of a wind turbine, this means more or less directly beneath it, because the turbine blades shift local air patterns, especially at night. It's not a regional, or even landscape-level impact.
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by halfeye View Post
    Worse than Chernobyl?
    Probably a lot of ways to define worse, but...
    April 26, 1942: A coal-dust explosion at Benxihu Colliery in Japanese occupied China killed 1,549 making it the worst disaster in the history of coal mining
    compared to
    April 26, 1986: Chernobyl disaster.
    The ensuing steam explosion, fire and radio-isotope releases killed approximately 31 to 50 first responders, with most of those exposed to radiation only, dying with acute radiation syndrome within weeks to months after the accident. Future, total death toll predictions, state that there may be a total of between 4,000 and 25,000 cancer deaths in the years to decades ahead due to radiation induced cancers
    Of course cancer deaths estimated based on coal pollution are going to be very high too, they just don't have a single source to attribute them to. Although...
    December 1952: The Great Smog of London caused by the burning of coal, and to a lesser extent wood, killed 12,000 people within days to months due to inhalation of the smog.
    A lot of the coal ones fall under the general "industrial accidents" types of things, related to boilers, mining, electrical equipment and general "sorts of things that could happen at any industrial plant"

    Quote Originally Posted by halfeye View Post
    I'm not particularly in favour of coal or against nuclear, but you seem to have been drinking the cool-aid by the gallon.
    The spill killed a "tremendous" number of fish, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Although residents feared water contamination, early tests of water six miles (10 km) upstream of the ash flow showed that the public water supply met drinking water standards. A test of river water near the spill showed elevated levels of lead and thallium, and "barely detectable" levels of mercury and arsenic. On January 1, 2009 the first independent test results, conducted at the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry laboratories at Appalachian State University, showed significantly elevated levels of toxic metals (including arsenic, copper, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel, and thallium) in samples of slurry and river water.
    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    Also, nuclear is damn expensive, and cannot be made any cheaper than gas. Therefore, nuclear will never be a good solution to electricity generation without substantial government subsidies, and at that point, it feels like any money would be better employed in wind and carbon capture tech.
    It is one of those questions of "how much of the cost to meet regulations versus how much to build and run the facility" be factored in. Not that we shouldn't highly regulate and control nuclear power, but much of the high cost of nuclear isn't from how it is made, but all the regulatory overhead costs of complying with federal laws.

    Which is also true for coal. Having worked at a plant with coal and natural gas boilers, the coal boilers were much cheaper for each KW produced, but when we had to install $20M worth of new precipitators on the coal boilers to comply with newer standards... well it takes a *lot* of savings to pay for that much overhead. Not to say that it wasn't needed and it isn't good, but it makes direct comparisons a lot more complex and rarely "direct."

    And I guess just because it is fitting

    Energy source
    Mortality rate
    (in deaths/PWh)
    Percentage of energy type Year
    Coal (global) 100,000[6] 41% (electricity) 2012
    Coal (China) 170,000[6] 75% (electricity) 2012
    Coal (US) 10,000[6] 32% (electricity) 2012
    Oil 36,000[6] 33% (total energy) 2012
    8% (electricity)
    Natural Gas 4,000[6] 22% (electricity) 2012
    Biofuel/biomass 24,000[6] 21% (total energy) 2012
    Solar – rooftop 440[6] <1% (electricity) 2012
    Wind 150[6] 2% (electricity) 2012
    Wind (UK) <1,000[7] 3.81% (electricity)[8] 2011
    Hydro (global) 1,400[6] 16% (electricity) 2012
    Hydro (US) 5[6] 6% (electricity) 2012
    Nuclear (global) 90[6] 11% (electricity) 2012
    Nuclear (US) 0.1[6] 19% (electricity) 2012


    *quotes above from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by halfeye View Post
    If true, that would be bizzare, wind farms don't create wind, they harvest what's already there.
    They do that by effectively slowing down the wind. though, which is going to have an effect on the downwind side. It's also worth noting that wind turbines can't be used in isolation (e.g. as your sole electricity source)--because you can't predict how strong the wind is, and thus how fast the turbines will spin, they have to use induction generators in them, and those require an existing electricity supply. If you didn't supply electricity to a wind turbine it would generate nothing.

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    I wonder what kind of impact, CO2 or otherwise, do thermal updraft towers have. It's a different kind of solar power that doesn't use photovoltaics - a "solar wind turbine", if you will -, so the production-time impact is limited to the construction cost of the tower and the collector cover, none of which would use particularly special materials. And it can be installed in high-heat arid areas where few plants can grow, limiting operating-time CO2 impact. But what environmental effects they have is a good question.
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    One thing that often seems to be missing from the nuclear discussions is the cost (and CO2 impact) of decommissioning the plants at the end of their lives. I don't have the statistics to hand, but I know we've been struggling with this issue in the UK for the last few decades. Decommissioning a plant costs way more than building one, and there is ongoing work involved in storing the waste and decontaminating the land.

    It's a completely different scale of problem to the issues involved in disposing of solar panels. Besides, there's plenty of electronic equipment in a nuclear plant that has the exact same issues.

    At the same time, I find it hard to imagine that the energy cost of mining, refining and transporting nuclear fuel is less than the cost of extracting silicon from sand to make PV panels (which is described above as the main source of CO2 in the process).

    Overall, my reaction to the claim that nuclear power is cleaner than solar is... doubt.
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ninja_Prawn View Post
    One thing that often seems to be missing from the nuclear discussions is the cost (and CO2 impact) of decommissioning the plants at the end of their lives.
    As far as I can tell, it is missing because there is nothing to discuss: nuclear is, by far, the most expensive, and there is a hard limit to how much cheaper it can be made... which is still more expensive than all the others. After all, it has all the costs of a coal or natural gas (a turbine who takes heated water to generate electricity), plus all the extra costs associated to the reality that nuclear explosions are more difficult to deal with than coal or natural gas burning.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ninja_Prawn View Post
    At the same time, I find it hard to imagine that the energy cost of mining, refining and transporting nuclear fuel is less than the cost of extracting silicon from sand to make PV panels (which is described above as the main source of CO2 in the process)
    By the document posted above (which was commissioned by the UK), nuclear has an edge in the CO2 emissions by KWh generated. Each solar panel produces very little in isolation, so the fabrication costs are outsized for its contribution. That said, they are not that far off.

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    By the document posted above
    Yeah, I had a look at that. Even assuming its numbers are accurate (which I'm skeptical about to begin with), the solar ones are from 2000. Solar panels are like 50% more efficient now than they were then (the panels I've been looking at have gone from about 15% to about 23% in that time), and use about half as much mass of silicon. Plus as the technology improves and the people that install and maintain them get more clued up, they'll last longer, which directly increases their kWh/kgCO2 (as the report hints at when it references annual daylight hours).

    What we really need is some up to date figures.
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ninja_Prawn View Post
    Yeah, I had a look at that. Even assuming its numbers are accurate (which I'm skeptical about to begin with), the solar ones are from 2000. Solar panels are like 50% more efficient now than they were then (the panels I've been looking at have gone from about 15% to about 23% in that time), and use about half as much mass of silicon. Plus as the technology improves and the people that install and maintain them get more clued up, they'll last longer, which directly increases their kWh/kgCO2 (as the report hints at when it references annual daylight hours).

    What we really need is some up to date figures.
    The document has future projections, which more or less fall in line with my expectations. But yes, more recent data is always better.

    In any case, low CO2 cost for nuclear is about its only decent selling point, so it is not that surprising it beats solar there.

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    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by Erloas View Post
    Probably a lot of ways to define worse, but...

    compared to
    That's a mining disaster, not a coal powered generating disaster.

    Of course cancer deaths estimated based on coal pollution are going to be very high too, they just don't have a single source to attribute them to. Although...
    The smog was mainly caused by coal used for domestic heating, which was most domestic heating at the time.

    A lot of the coal ones fall under the general "industrial accidents" types of things, related to boilers, mining, electrical equipment and general "sorts of things that could happen at any industrial plant"
    It is one of those questions of "how much of the cost to meet regulations versus how much to build and run the facility" be factored in. Not that we shouldn't highly regulate and control nuclear power, but much of the high cost of nuclear isn't from how it is made, but all the regulatory overhead costs of complying with federal laws.
    Nuclear is expensive because the equipment is huge.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkle..._power_station

    In August 1963 during a hot run test on the first reactor, which had not then been loaded with nuclear fuel, problems were encountered due to noise from the single stage axial flow gas circulators. This could be heard up to five miles away, and personnel working at the station had to wear ear defenders. After unexplained drops in the mass flow rate and motor driving current in number 3 and 5 gas circulators, the hot run tests were stopped and the gas circuit opened up. Severe mechanical damage to the blading and diffuser sections of the number 3 and 5 gas circulators was observed. Large sections of the diffusers had broken away, and extensive fatigue cracking was found in the outer tapering shell and central axial cone. Large pieces of the diffuser casing had entered the gas circulator blades and caused heavy impact damage, and large amounts of debris had been transported down the gas duct. The Inlet Guide Vanes (IGVs), which were provided to enable the performance of individual gas circulators to be "trimmed," were found to be extensively damaged, and the rotor blades and outlet guide vanes also had extensive impact and fatigue damage. Large numbers of the nuts and bolts involved had been shaken loose.[7]
    Which is also true for coal. Having worked at a plant with coal and natural gas boilers, the coal boilers were much cheaper for each KW produced, but when we had to install $20M worth of new precipitators on the coal boilers to comply with newer standards... well it takes a *lot* of savings to pay for that much overhead. Not to say that it wasn't needed and it isn't good, but it makes direct comparisons a lot more complex and rarely "direct."

    And I guess just because it is fitting

    Energy source
    Mortality rate
    (in deaths/PWh)
    Percentage of energy type Year
    Coal (global) 100,000[6] 41% (electricity) 2012
    Coal (China) 170,000[6] 75% (electricity) 2012
    Coal (US) 10,000[6] 32% (electricity) 2012
    Oil 36,000[6] 33% (total energy) 2012
    8% (electricity)
    Natural Gas 4,000[6] 22% (electricity) 2012
    Biofuel/biomass 24,000[6] 21% (total energy) 2012
    Solar – rooftop 440[6] <1% (electricity) 2012
    Wind 150[6] 2% (electricity) 2012
    Wind (UK) <1,000[7] 3.81% (electricity)[8] 2011
    Hydro (global) 1,400[6] 16% (electricity) 2012
    Hydro (US) 5[6] 6% (electricity) 2012
    Nuclear (global) 90[6] 11% (electricity) 2012
    Nuclear (US) 0.1[6] 19% (electricity) 2012


    *quotes above from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents
    I don't know where wikipedia gets that table from, but there are a lot of new wind and solar plants in the UK, I've seen them on car journeys. The turbines are huge and highly visible, and there are whole fields full of solar panels, which looks strange, but there's presumably a big profit in it, the way there was in oilseed rape a few years ago. There may well be subsidies involved, I have no idea about that except that I know farmers love subsidies.
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    It's also worth noting that wind turbines can't be used in isolation (e.g. as your sole electricity source)--because you can't predict how strong the wind is, and thus how fast the turbines will spin, they have to use induction generators in them, and those require an existing electricity supply. If you didn't supply electricity to a wind turbine it would generate nothing.
    If the application requires it, an induction generator system can be built in such a way that it can black start. It's cheaper to depend on grid power for startup, of course.

    Also, many small turbines use permanent magnet rotor generators, and thus can inherently black start.
    Quote Originally Posted by Harnel View Post
    where is the atropal? and does it have a listed LA?

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Yeah. People tend to forget the rural U.S. had a lot of wind electric generation up until Roosevelt used the REA to chain everyone to the utilities. Basic wind turbine technology is over a century old, and those old plants still work fine (there's a couple still in use on a farm about a mile from where I sit).

    Also, Chernobyl is a bad example to use for radiation poisoning, as it turns out most people's exposure came about because the Communists really screwed up the prophylactic treatments by giving everyone extremely high doses of radioactive iodides.

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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    The US's current nuclear power fleet was mostly designed before 1970. Additional safety requirements were imposed later. Other safety requirements are still built into the existing plants even though, with our current knowledge, they're obsolete.

    These requirements significantly increase the carbon footprint.

    If we were to design a nuclear power plant from a ground up today, we could optimize its carbon footprint to power ratio to be perhaps half that of the existing plants. We could even do it with a larger safety margin than most of the existing plants, because we've learned a lot about nuclear safety in the last 50 years.
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    Default Re: Carbon emissions of solar panels?

    Quote Originally Posted by Grey_Wolf_c View Post
    As far as I can tell, it is missing because there is nothing to discuss: nuclear is, by far, the most expensive, and there is a hard limit to how much cheaper it can be made... which is still more expensive than all the others. After all, it has all the costs of a coal or natural gas (a turbine who takes heated water to generate electricity), plus all the extra costs associated to the reality that nuclear explosions are more difficult to deal with than coal or natural gas burning.


    By the document posted above (which was commissioned by the UK), nuclear has an edge in the CO2 emissions by KWh generated. Each solar panel produces very little in isolation, so the fabrication costs are outsized for its contribution. That said, they are not that far off.

    Grey Wolf
    I mean, it would take quite an impressive screwup, on the order of blatantly designing the plant to be a bomb and not a plant, to get a Nuclear Explosion out of a Nuclear Power Plant. The issue with plants is that when they melt down, it releases large amounts of long lasting radiation. Not that it's going to go up like a nuke and take out the surrounding land.
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