Posted on 02/20/2014 11:37:51 AM PST by Titus-Maximus
BERKELEY, Calif., June 4, 2012 – Solar cells do not offset greenhouse gases or curb fossil fuel use in the United States according to a new environmental book, Green Illusions (June 2012, University of Nebraska Press), written by University of California – Berkeley visiting scholar Ozzie Zehner. Green Illusions explains how the solar industry has grown to become one of the leading emitters of hexafluoroethane (C2F6), nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). These three potent greenhouse gases, used by solar cell fabricators, make carbon dioxide (CO2) seem harmless.
Hexafluoroethane has a global warming potential that is 12,000 times higher than CO2, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is 100 percent manufactured by humans, and survives 10,000 years once released into the atmosphere. Nitrogen trifluoride is 17,000 times more virulent than CO2, and SF6, the most treacherous greenhouse gas, is over 23,000 times more threatening.
The solar photovoltaic industry is one of the fastest-growing emitters of these gases, which are now measurably accumulating within the earth’s atmosphere according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). A NOAA study shows that atmospheric concentrations of SF6 have been rising exponentially. A paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters documents that atmospheric NF3 levels have been rising 11 percent per year. “If photovoltaic production grows, so will the associated side effects,” claims Zehner. “Even worse, there’s no evidence that solar cells offset fossil fuel use in the American context.” Zehner explains that alternative energy subsidies keep retail electricity costs incrementally lower, which then spurs demand. “It’s a boomerang effect,” remarks Zehner. “The harder we throw alternative energy into the electrical grid, the harder demand comes back to hit us on the head. Historically, we’ve filled that demand by building more fossil fuel plants, not fewer.”
Instead, Zehner advocates shifting to energy taxes and other conservation measures. He claims that even some of the most expensive options for dealing with CO2 would become cost competitive long before today’s solar cell technologies.
“If limiting CO2 is our goal, we might be better off directing our time and resources to those options first; solar cells seem a wasteful and pricey strategy,” says Zehner. “It is hard to conceive of a justification for extracting taxes from the working class to fund installations of Stone Age photovoltaic technologies high in the gold-rimmed suburbs of Arizona and California.”
Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism forms “a bold look at the downside of green technologies and a host of refreshingly simple substitute solutions,” according to Kirkus Reviews.
Green Illusions highlights and author biography are available at: http://GreenIllusions.org
Who knew that solar panels are an environmental disaster?
Never trust an environmentalist, unless you want just one side of the story.
Carbon Dioxide IS harmless (at least at any foreseeable levels that might occur in our atmosphere).
WTF? MORE TAXES? Aren't they afraid that the beloved "poor" will be affected?
I have a friend that has a degree in nuclear science. He was telling me about this just a few days ago. I have to admit I was surprised by what he said.
As of this writing, there is no Scientifically proven, laboratory tested, peer-reviewed, published article on any known Cause and Effect between the amount of CO2 and change in air temperature.
In the field, for example, the Global ppm of CO2 has increased in the last 17 years, but the Global air temperature has not changed, or has gotten colder depending on the site being measured.
Last year the Arctic Ocean Ice Cap grew in area and thickness with Global CO2 at its highest level, providing yet another addition to the very long list of field test failures to the proponents of the pop-culture, junk science speculation called “Global Warming.”
CO2 is essential for plants to obtain Carbon, and thus CO2 is an environmentally friendly Green House Gas right along with the most abundant Green House Gas, Water Vapor.
BTW, Water Vapor abundance in the atmosphere is 25,000 ppmillion, and CO2 is 400 ppmillion, +/-, adjusted for volcanic and seasonal variation.
Fear-mongering, Spendaholic Politicians can fool some of the real Scientists some of the time, but they have convincingly proven that they can fool all of the “junk scientists” all of the time.
Since abundant CO2 is essential for Green Plants to grow by the process of Photosynthesis, we FReepers are duty bound to break down the Spendaholic Politician’s Barrycades that un-Scientifically discourage the increased generation of life-giving CO2.
Let us as FReepers storm the Anti-Green Energy, “Phony CO2 Barrycades” of the Spendaholic Politicians with the following chants and street signs:
“Support Green House Gas Increases:
CO2 means more plant food for you;
Corn and CO2 go together like Wealth and Work;
Carbon is a Plant’s Best Friend;
If you like to hug trees, then produce more CO2;
Make more CO2, not more Taxes;
Bring back our life-giving Coal fired plants:
Support the Green Energy Revolution!”
I'm guessing that, to make matters worse, plants are unable to metabolize NF3 and SF6 and thus remove them from the atmosphere, as they eagerly do with CO2.
Yep, just checked Wikipedia: Toxic!
Regards,
Solar Cells are a modern technology (as opposed to trains and windmills) and have a place in energy generation, especially should batteries ever improve significantly (order of magnitude).
Climate change can be sucesfully disputed by:
1: Data. Folks, things just aren’t getting warmer over the past 15 years or so. Period. And earlier temp claims by the climate “Scientists” wouldn’t get a D in any good analysis class.
2: Modeling. None (that’s zero, nada) of the current models can produce what we’ve got now from what we had years ago without unbelievable Obama’ing (shorthand for complete mathematical mast*rbation) of the model’s parameters. But, once they get past to morph to present, none will do accurately predict the future.
3. Physics: Heat IS completely absorbed by CO2 way, way before it travels through the atmosphere. It was that way 500 years ago. It’s that way now. really - an increase in CO2 from 3 one hundredths of one percent to a bit more than that will really make a diff? The incompetency displayed by climate researchers to trick physics into assuming more warming could only be believed by journalists and political science majors. There’s a reason these clowns didn’t go into science. Kerry is a prime example.
4. The sun’s output. Yup, it’s going down. And yup, in the vast spectra of things that control our temp, the sun is way, way at the top. CO2 is down there lower than the Kerry/Gore’s IQ.
5. Consensus? Bull Obama. Ain’t no stinkin’ consensus - at least among real physicists.
6. And, finally, if a liberal says it...really, do you even think of believing it? After all, they believe in liberalism - which is just about as flat earth as it can get.
Ooooo, measurably. When we can measure chemicals in the parts per trillion range, "measurable" tells you nothing.
Your local bureaucrats, government teachers and retired government NIMBYs, heavily invested in local electric and gas companies, are depending on you to avoid installing your own personal power plants and becoming self-sufficient. They need more time and money to dominate both political parties in politics and control you and your property.
These morons think they can play chess with God.
I'd like to have ~800 watts of solar power, but have yet to find a local source for inexpensive solar panels.
Well, if I'm searching for Waldo, it tells me I better include a few more solar systems as potential hide outs for that wiley doofus.
The folks behind the following link will ship the module shown by UPS, so I use them. Non-UPS, truck freight costs to my place are high, even though I’m only a few hundred miles from there. Trying to add enough to get the first 72-volt array to use with the MidNite Classic 200 controller (second link).
http://www.solar-electric.com/kyocera-kd140gx-lfbs-140-watt-polycrystalline-solar-panel.html
http://www.solar-electric.com/misocl.html
Apologies, if I already sent that info to you and forgot (rough winter here, as usual).
Why is this NOT a surprise?
Bzzzzzt. Wrong
The 1st solar cell was invented in 1883 by Charles Fritts.
Hardly modern technology.
If after 130 years and 100s of billions in subsidies solar cells still produce way less than 1% of the energy in America, we can say that they have only a little place in energy generation
Oh, the irony!
A little solar cell cleanup tip. Spotted Owl feathers dipped into alcohol removes dirt without leaving streaks.
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