What is the environmental cost of solar panels?

SOLAR panels are a cheaper way of protecting the environment.
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You’ll have to forgive me but I don’t know what a ‘pv’ is; however the fitting of solar panels to provide minimal cost low grade heated water for domestic purposes, is done primarily for economic long term benefit rather than for environmental reasons. The cost (in money terms) of a solar panel heating system is not for the ‘environmentally pure of heart’ and there are probably very few average waged ‘greens’ who would contemplate installing one to ’save the planet’. To answer your question, I don’t believe it can be logically assumed that the production of solar panels is any more (or less) environmentally damaging than the production of any other ‘heat exchange’ apparatus; such apparatus being an essential part of industrial processes, heating systems, refrigeration systems and air conditioning systems to name but a few. The environmental benefits of solar heating are negligible unless a large percentage of the population are prepared to install it or unless the government insist on its inclusion in the specification of every new house or office block built; (unlikely at the moment).
By the way, if you look anything like your avatar then your ‘pen-name’ is most inappropriate.
You may have deduced from my answer that I am not a ‘green’ or ‘planet-saving’ type person; suppose I am more the ‘blue-cynic type’. I strongly believe that our Planet will ultimately save itself, when it’s ready.
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I don’t know the environmental cost of PhotoVoltaic panels, They do vary according to how long they last and the environmental responsibility of the factory where they were produced. Most of them are produced in China. I believe those not produced in China also last longer, and cost more.

If you’re buying solar panels for environmental reasons then I think you should look at water heating panels first, Navitron will give you a good price.

P.V. panels are better for off grid applications. You can get clean electricity form Good energy. or/and you could invest in green energy with some shares or possibly through Tridos bank. You could do a simple cost/production comparisom betweem P.V. panels and centralized renewable energy systems.

The ineffectiveness of micro generation is why the government has reduced the grants.

Well put on the planet saving itself benzee, but then really the planet is just fine and it’s only those beings that foresee problems ahead are in trouble.
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The environmental cost is Negative in the production of most PV panels. This is a very common misconception about solar panels. Everyone thinks that because they don’t create any waste by themselves that they are this ultimate clean energy source. Noone thinks about where the materials for the panel came from. The glass, metal, and all the little connectors used in assembling a solar panel don’t take much energy to build but the actual Photovoltaic material DOES!

The vast majority of PV panels are made from silicon that is created in High pressure, high temperature ( 1650 degrees C ) machines. This method is very energy intensive and unfortunately the amount of energy it takes to produce that high quality silicon is more than the solar panels made from the silicon will ever be able to recover. Add on top of that all of the other processes to "dope" the silicon so it will transfer electrons and the cost just keeps rising.

To really understand you would need to look into the production of semiconductors. Here are some links to Wikipedia entries that will give you an idea of where to research. I don’t have any exact numbers because semiconductor manufacturers don’t tell us how much energy they consume so you would have to get a hold of one of their bills to really find out. But my semiconductor professor in college gave us an estimate that was a magnitude larger than the life time capacity of your average solar panel.

here are some links…

Solar Cell entry… (big)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_cells

Semiconductor overview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor

The process for making silicon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czochralski_process

Sadly… Overall right now PV solar panels are not efficient enough to be used as a energy production method except in cases in of extreme remote locations like Space, at sea, or other places away from a power grid.

Of course Thermal Solar systems are totally different, using the sun’s heat create steam to generate electricty or to transfer that heat for some other use is a great use of free energy. Production of mirrors or dark glass materials is cheap compared to PV panels.
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Electrical Engineer with experience in semiconductors and solar powered vehicles

I would say that Solar panels are the greatest evolution for man to extract energy, and the production of these uses far less energy than any other known source, and that includes wind power
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.The real solution is to not use electricity. But people are conditioned power gluttons, and so look for some magic machine….I’ve lived solar and also without power at all..(4 years). The solar bit was one year, and it’s bullshot. I lived no power, walked barefoot, collected rain water, I loved it. Came out only because it’s no help to others if good experience and/or ideas are hidden.
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Solar PV panels are too expensive for most people to use on their homes just to make electricity. Passive solar collectors used for heating are not too expensive and can reduce heating costs greatly, in some cases to zero.

There is another way to make electricity using solar energy that is not too expensive. You would use a reflector to heat water into steam which would run a steam engine to power a generator. A bank of batteries would store the electricity for use at night or on cloudy days. For times when there is so little sunlight that this would not work you could use a boiler fired with a bio-fuel to make the steam. Being practical instead of purist. This would have much less environmental impact than solar PV panels too.

Solar electric power is fine if you only need power in the daytime or to recharge a small low-drain battery to operate an apparatus that uses little electricity. The catch is in the batteries used to store the power into the night. They can get expensive. The solar/fuelled steam generating system can work days on solar and nights on fuel and minimise the need for batteries which are not environmentally friendly.

While one could simply use an internal combustion engine for nighttime power, they are more polluting, use petroleum fuels and are more harmful to the environment than a biofueled steam powered generator. The water-tube boiler should be used to make them safe, since they do not explode. A stationary site can also be easily protected from freezing.

A small IC engine can be converted to operate as a steam engine. Someone good with tools and the help of a good machine shop could easily build their own solar/fuel system.
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beesidemeusa@yahoo.co.uk and ask about steam-electric

The cost per kilowatt hour is very high with solar power.

Go to http://www.uspto.gov and enter patent number 5,430,333.

There you will see pollution free electric power able to be built to be more than 1000 times that of our largest Nuclear Reactor!

Plant Vogtle, our last Nuclear Reactor makes only 930 megawatts.

The first generation “baby” power plants from this new technology makes 1000 megawatts.

Vogtle cost $10 billion, 30 years ago.

These new power plants cost $2.5 billion in today’s money.

Vogtle is about to be retired, as are all our other Nuclear plants.

All the fueled power plants only have about a 30 life span.

The power plant design you will see at patent office site live well 100 years.

They burn NO fuel what so ever!

It costs more to demolish a Nuclear plant than to build one new!

The spent Nuclear fuel has a 25,000 year storage problem with no solution yet, and a tremendous cost that defies accurate estimation due to the very long time frame.

Nuclear power has been estimated to cost more $50.00 per kilowatt hour when the demolition and storage costs are applied.

Guess who gets to foot that bill, the tax payer!

Being fuel-less the design you see at the patent office has a cost of about 3 cents per kilowatt hour.

Coal fired power plants make 8 lbs of air pollution to run 100 watt light bulb for an hour.

There are NO cost estimations for the clean up of all that pollution.

We keep seeing in the news about coal miners dieing in cave-ins.

With the high cost of electric power being hidden for so long by our politicians using their abysmally poor judgment to allow this to happen in the first place. Then compounding the problem with their constant lying about it to all of us, and the problem now coming to light despite their best efforts to lie and hide it. We are now stuck with the costs of their abysmally poor judgment after their being “paid” by big power to lie to us about the scope of this problem for decades.

Call all your elected official state, local, and federal. Tell them you want the pollution free electric power you saw at the patent office web site! Tell them to get off their assets and get moving on making pollution free and cheaper electric power happen ASAP!

Or swallow their lies so more until our nation is so polluted our children die younger than ever before. Cancer is running rampant everywhere, it comes from all the pollution our elected officials are allowing to be spewed into “our” environment every day. It time to put pollution into it’s proper place, “THE PAST”!

We now have the technology, we can build it, it’s 100% clean, and the electric power is cheaper than ANY fueled power plant.
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I think this is a really good point and goes a long the same lines as the hybrid car debate (hybrids cut carbon in their lifetime but produce a huge amount of carbon in production). However, due to the carbon cut from solar power i do believe that the production carbon costs will be offset quite rapidly. A small panel will cut 400kg of CO2 a year and save you £70 – I would definitely install solar if I could!
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http://www.biggreenswitch.co.uk/around_the_home/solar