OK that’s only one paper, but surely better than a single highly tendentious & unsubstantiated tweet (isn’t uncritical quoting of those how ‘fake news’ spreads?)
(Admittedly Izabella Kaminska’s wider point is clearly correct)
Twitter: *You still have to burn more energy creating solar panels than solar panels can give back in a useful lifetime.*
Cris: *isn’t uncritical quoting of those how ‘fake news’ spreads?*
Daniel: *Right, except that I also quote Tyler Cowen who provided a lot more than a tweet.*
The “fake news” that Cris is objecting to is the potential-fact that the energy required to produce a solar panel is greater than the lifetime energy produced by that panel . Although I haven’t researched it, I’d be quite surprised if the claim is true.
Your post and response imply that Cowen confirms that energy payback is never reached, but I didn’t see anywhere in the linked page where Cowen even discusses the energy payback period of solar panels. Perhaps it was removed?
If it’s true that solar panels are a net energy sink, this seems like important knowledge to spread. If false, I’d agree with Cris that this fits into the category of “fake news” even if (as Cowen points out) there are many other problems with full adoption of solar.
The solar panel energy balance point appears to have tipped around 2010-4, and the early deficit may be ‘paid off’ by 2020: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es3038824
OK that’s only one paper, but surely better than a single highly tendentious & unsubstantiated tweet (isn’t uncritical quoting of those how ‘fake news’ spreads?)
(Admittedly Izabella Kaminska’s wider point is clearly correct)
isn’t uncritical quoting of those how ‘fake news’ spreads?
Right, except that I also quote Tyler Cowen who provided a lot more than a tweet.
This quote is grossly inaccurate:
“You still have to burn more energy creating solar panels than solar panels can give back in a useful lifetime.”
From this Nature article(1), the energy payback times are ‘under 1 year for poly-Si and just over 1 year for mono-Si PV systems currently’.
From this NREL study(2), in North America, you should be able to get 25 years of energy out of a solar panel.
Of course, everybody’s an expert on Twitter, so what do I know?
1. https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13728
2. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51664.pdf
Tyler Cowan is well known for publishing outlandish claims from the far right, and should always be fact-checked.
The solar panel myth is a good example. People were debunking it as early as 2008. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/solar-cells-prove-cleaner-way-to-produce-power/ The tipping point was widely reported in 2013. https://www.theverge.com/2013/4/2/4174204/solar-panels-finally-generate-more-energy-than-they-consume The scientific literature agrees. https://phys.org/news/2016-12-solar-panels-repay-energy-debt.html
Twitter: *You still have to burn more energy creating solar panels than solar panels can give back in a useful lifetime.*
Cris: *isn’t uncritical quoting of those how ‘fake news’ spreads?*
Daniel: *Right, except that I also quote Tyler Cowen who provided a lot more than a tweet.*
The “fake news” that Cris is objecting to is the potential-fact that the energy required to produce a solar panel is greater than the lifetime energy produced by that panel . Although I haven’t researched it, I’d be quite surprised if the claim is true.
Your post and response imply that Cowen confirms that energy payback is never reached, but I didn’t see anywhere in the linked page where Cowen even discusses the energy payback period of solar panels. Perhaps it was removed?
If it’s true that solar panels are a net energy sink, this seems like important knowledge to spread. If false, I’d agree with Cris that this fits into the category of “fake news” even if (as Cowen points out) there are many other problems with full adoption of solar.
I removed the link to the unsupported tweet as it was poorly phrased. The author’s genuine point was valid, but lost in the few characters I quoted.