Do Solar Panels Use Coal

Because solar doesn t have to move on to harvest sunlight in the space next door the way a coal mine must because mining depletes all the potential energy from each acre of land as it scoops up its coal.

Do solar panels use coal. Thursday 13 august 2020 23 44 solar panels and wind turbines are on the up but coal usage must fall by 13 per cent around the world each year if we are to have a hope of hitting the targets of the. Workers install solar panels in california. It is a porous carbon rich solid fuel made by coking coal in large slot ovens to drive out most of the volatile. Not just the panels that make solar energy but the turbines and power stations and gas pipelines and railroads and railcars that make dirty energy they all take energy to make.

Furthermore you have to think about the energy debt involved in acquiring raw materials and converting them into the parts used to make solar panels. All the world s photovoltaic solar panels generate as much electricity as two coal power plants. The equivalent of between 1 and 4 tons of coal are used in the manufacture of a single solar panel. Metallurgical coke metcoke is a source of carbon for solar silicon smelting.

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. Although solar energy is a clean alternative to fossil fuels making the panels themselves can have a negative environmental impact. The very question insinuates that only manufacturing solar takes energy. To make up the rest of coal s share with solar would require boosting the amount of electricity we get from solar about six fold to around 50 000 megawatthours per year.