The dirty truth about clean energy
It’s not nearly as green as proponents would have you believe.
Over the past couple of decades, there has been a growing movement to eliminate the use of so-called fossil fuels and to replace such energy sources with green and renewable products. Even beyond that, there is a push to eliminate drilling for oil completely, all in the name of saving the environment. What most people fail to realize, however, is that these supposed green energy sources are even more detrimental to the environment than traditional sources, and even if the impossible is realized and fossil fuels are replaced, there are still a myriad of products that rely upon petroleum-based products.
The two primary proposed replacements for natural-gas and coal-fired electric production plants are solar and wind farms. These both sound like great ideas on the surface. Who could argue that sunlight or wind are bad for the environment? There are, however, several considerations that tend to be overlooked:
What does it take to produce the necessary equipment?
How much equipment is required to meet power needs for the community served by the equipment?
What impact does normal operation have on the environment?
What is the lifespan of the equipment and how is it disposed of at the end of its life?
Let’s address each of these in turn. What does it take to produce solar and wind power? For solar, first the panels are needed. One of the two primary components of solar panels necessary for generating energy from sunlight is silicon. To make this silicon, first quartzite or sand is reduced with highly purified coke. This is not cocaine; it is derived from heating coal or oil in the absence of air. Wait - what? Your eyes are not deceiving you. Either coal or petroleum are needed to form the coke required for the first step in refining the silicon needed for semiconductor applications, which means coal mining and/or oil drilling are a prerequisite for producing solar panels . This step produces a substance called ferrosilicon which is then further refined through the introduction of hydrogen chloride at high temperature to produce trichlorosilane, a volatile liquid. This is then reduced, via the addition of pure zinc metal, to elemental silicon from which the silicon crystals necessary for semiconductors are formed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon#Production ) Every one of these steps has an impact on the environment (zinc refining has significant impact - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc#Environmental_impact ), but no one is advocating the termination of computer or mobile phone production to save the environment. That is more than enough information on that part, as the majority of the rest of the panels are glass, aluminum, and plastic (keep in mind, most plastic comes from petroleum products).
While windmills are predominantly made of steel, the rotor blades are primarily composed of fiberglass or carbon fiber. Fiberglass is made of incredibly thin strands, or fibers, made from glass (hence the name) arranged in a way to create rigidity and set in a plastic polymer to bond them and hold the shape. Some of the most common plastics used in fiber glass manufacture are polyester resins which come from hydrocarbons. Most carbon fiber is manufactured from a process called the polyacrylonitrile process, which also requires the use of hydrocarbons. Both involve substances and processes that do or may have serious harmful effects on the environment.
At this point, we’ve only touched at a high level the manufacture of the equipment required for the production of energy using sun and wind. Not only are petrochemicals required for the creation of the equipment, but other petrochemicals are likely necessary for purposes such as lubricating the machinery on which these devices are manufactured and for generating the heat needed for many of the chemical production processes. How much damage is done to the environment in producing these components? How can these components be considered green with all of the resulting environmental destruction? How also can these be said to be replacements for so called fossil fuel-generated energy when the processes whereby the equipment is made requires the use of fossil fuels?
Moving on, what about energy production? Regarding solar farms, according to information at regenpower.com, “for a city like New York which uses 10.5K MW of electricity we need at least 420 Sq. km of area. It is almost impossible to find such a large area in the vicinity of a metropolitan region.” That would be an area over 12 miles long by 12 miles wide. According to Bloomberg news, in June of 2022 in Texas, “with air conditioners humming across the nation’s second most-populous state, demand on the power grid topped 74.9 gigawatts at 4:50 p.m. local time, surpassing a record set in August 2019, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which runs the system.” Based on the calculation above from Regen Power, that would require over 1,140 square miles of solar panels to generate 74.9 GW of power. None of this even takes into account the actual power generating efficiency of solar panels, not to mention that these estimates also assume full sun exposure. When skies are cloudy, power generation can drop significantly. So daytime energy production is unpredictable at best, and nighttime energy production is nil. That brings up another issue - how can a city be powered by solar at night? Since solar power is unavailable at night, providing power from solar at night requires significant power storage facilities (in other words, batteries). Such batteries would necessitate more land area as well as a lot of additional environmental impact (suffice to say producing the materials necessary for creating batteries used in solar storage has significant negative effects on the environment).
Perhaps wind can do better. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, the average production among wind turbines that were put into commercial operation in 2020 would generate approximately 843 kWh per month (https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-many-homes-can-average-wind-turbine-power ). According to an article on sciencing.com, a wind farm with properly spaced turbines can produce about 10 megawatts per square mile. Back to the example of New York, it would take a 1,050 square mile wind farm to produce the needed 10.5K MW, or approximately 7,500 square miles to generate enough power to meet peak needs for Texas. That is a lot of land. it appears that these calculations may take into account the fact that wind is not available at all times to generate power, though there is no evidence that the land estimates account for storage. As with solar, the fact that wind is not 100% reliable means there is a need for batteries to store power for when wind is not blowing. Germany has attempted to move to all green energy sources, and with current conditions, is unable to provide the power needed by the people. Germany is struggling to generate enough electricity and is now having to fall back to using coal (https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/21/germanys-green-energy-disaster-is-a-warning-to-the-united-states/ ).
What about the environmental impact of operating solar and wind farms? Though people believe these technologies to provide clean energy, there is more to them than meets the eye. In one picture above, a wind turbine can be seen leaking a substantial amount of oil. Yes, turbines require oil for lubrication and proper operation (more reliance on those dreaded fossil fuels), and as the turbines age, they can leak. Turbines have also been known to kill birds in flight, and to destroy insects at alarming rates, which also can reduce the energy-producing efficiency of these turbines. Solar presents another problem, as concentrated farms of solar panels have been seen to generate heat such that they literally fry birds in mid-air as they pass over the farms. None of this seems to be as environmentally-friendly as proponents claim.
As with any physical product, there is a limited lifespan during which these power-generating technologies are able to operate. After such lifespan, they must be dismantled and replaced. When dismantled, wind turbines are disposed of in landfills - they are unable to be recycled (though GE is apparently working with a company on a method for recycling turbines and/or their rotors). Likewise, some materials in solar panels can be recycled, but it seems the majority of them, like turbines, end up in landfills. The LA Times published a story in July 2022 about solar panels hitting their 25-to-30 year lifespan and then winding up dumped: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-07-14/california-rooftop-solar-pv-panels-recycling-danger . These objects will take eons to decompose, if ever they do, and the materials of which they are comprised can contaminate the land on which they sit, and that contamination can spread via run-off as well as getting into the ground water.
The moral of this story is, though these alternative methods of generating power are being sold as green, they are still highly dependent upon the demonized coal and petroleum products against which they are pitted, and these technologies themselves pose a significant threat to the environment they are claimed to preserve. This is the lie of green energy.
Most of those screaming for the end of fossil fuel use don't look beyond the end of their noses at what is needed to actually MAKE their beloved solar panels and wind turbines, much less at what happens to the components when the MACHINES fail, and ALL machines do fail in time.
And the fact that there can not be enough turbines and panels put into operation to produce the power needed is neither here nor there. And the still want enough energy to charge all of the EVs that are going to replace gas engine cars and trucks. And THAT is another can of worms to get into with the mining of lithium (mostly child slave labor) for the batteries, the byproducts of the refinement ofbthe mineral and the disposal of those batteries when the reach the end of their lifespan.
The FACT that we have enough oil in North America alone to supply the WORLD for the next 2000 years and that the refinement process is being refined itself regularly to be more environmentally friendly makes oil a MUCH more viable option in my opinion. And the oil industry provides jobs for countless ADULTS to support themselves and their families fir generations to come.
I'm sure that other technologies can and will be fine tuned and made better over the next 2000 years but until they are MUCH MORE reliable I say we leave things alone and get on with life. We can do what we can individually to help "reduce the carbon footprint". Sadly we can not be responsible for what OTHERS do. There are some (china and india specifically) that do little or nothing to curb THEIR abuse of the environment. There is little we can do about that short of overthrowing their governments and placing ones that suit our own needs in place. But that too would be wrong and rightfully criticized by the world.
Hydrogen. Nuclear.
Those are the only two rational options for a "sustainable" future.
"Green" energy is just expensive and inefficient compared to... basically everything else.