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No, not really. Resource consumption isn't an externalized cost. The pollution is though. But do you really think that making a solar panel creates more polluti
by pkulak 16y ago
No, not really. Resource consumption isn't an externalized cost. The pollution is though. But do you really think that making a solar panel creates more pollution than that created by the coal you would otherwise need to make the same amount of energy over the panel's 20, 50, or even 100 years of pollution free existence? There's probably a difference of several orders of magnitude.
- roel_v 16y agoActually in most cases (currently), resource consumption does include many externalized costs (from a practical point of view). All those Chinese-made PV panels, they have caused massive pollution by the time they are done. (of course resource consumption per se is not an externalized cost, that's obvious; but the price we pay today for many things do not include the full lifecycle ('cradle to cradle') costs. Regarding the amount of energy used; PV panels have working life of 20-25 years. The links I provided below include numbers (well, somebodies interpretation of them) somewhere on the consumed/produced ratio; I don't know how they relate. I'm just saying that using dollar value cost to calculate grid parity is wrong, from an environmental point of view, and that that goes for both sides (the coal and the PV side of the equation).