You might be surprised how little cadmium telluride is required. With a 2.5 micron CdTe cell thickness [1] and 17.6% beginning-of-life module efficiency, 25 yea

You might be surprised how little cadmium telluride is required. With a 2.5 micron CdTe cell thickness [1] and 17.6% beginning-of-life module efficiency, 25 years operation with linear power degradation [2], that's a lifetime average module efficiency of 16.45%. If it's illuminated to achieve 20% capacity factor -- which is realistic for utility scale solar projects [3] -- a square meter of panel generates 7205 kWh over its lifetime. A square meter of panel contains 16 grams of CdTe. That's 3150 kWh of electricity generated per 7 grams of cadmium telluride over the module's lifetime. If a 7 gram uranium fuel pellet releases as much thermal energy over its lifetime as a tonne of coal [4], that's 8141 kWh. Assuming a thermal efficiency of 33% for conversion to electricity [5], that's 2687 kWh of electricity from one 7 gram fuel pellet. A breeder reactor could extract many times as much energy from one fuel pellet's worth of uranium, but the world currently operates hundreds of power reactors and only one breeder power reactor, the Russian BN-800. [1] Table 1 in https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Timothy_Gessert/publication/255814928_Perspectives_on_the_Pathways_for_Cadmium_Telluride_Photovoltaic_Module_Manufacturers_to_Address_Expected_Increases_in_the_Price_for_Tellurium/links/5c7d3ca4458515831f829593/Perspectives-on-the-Pathways-for-Cadmium-Telluride-Photovoltaic-Module-Manufacturers-to-Address-Expected-Increases-in-the-Price-for-Tellurium.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Timothy_Gessert/publica... [2] http://www.firstsolar.com/-/media/First-Solar/Technical-Documents/Series-6-Datasheets/Series-6-Datasheet.ashx http://www.firstsolar.com/-/media/First-Solar/Technical-Docu... [3] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_b https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... [4] https://www.energycentral.com/c/ec/nuclear-fission-can-help-solve-george-monbiot%E2%80%99s-environmentalist-dilemma https://www.energycentral.com/c/ec/nuclear-fission-can-help-... [5] http://holbert.faculty.asu.edu/eee463/NuclearPowerPlants.pdf http://holbert.faculty.asu.edu/eee463/NuclearPowerPlants.pdf