I agree - but what is the CO2 payback for a solar panel. With those nasties, that are 20,000 times the greenhouse impact of CO2, being spewed into the atmosphere?
The other is that silicon itself has to be kilned, and it takes 2 pounds of silicon to get to 1 pound of electronic component grade silicon - meaning you have to cook it down - with fossil fuels. Someone said the payback was 17 years, and I don’t know if that includes what NF3 or SF6 does in the atmosphere.
Don’t forget that a solar panel degrades about half a percent a year. In 20 years it produces 90% of day one power, and continues to drop.
I am not promoting solar panels either. I think that a electric generation plant with a pipeline of natural gas running to it is our nations current best choice for low cost energy.
We have an abundance of natural gas. Let the coal mines ship their product to China by the boat load. Let the Chinese all die of lung cancer. Have you seen the pictures of people walking around Hong Kong and Beijing with facemasks?