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Truly sustainable solar panels (solar.lowtechmagazine.com)

submitted 11 months ago by ecoelectrify to c/technology

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Solar panels have always bothered me because they require such intense manufacturing and usage of scarce resources. TLDR of article: "Many people will argue that if low-tech solar panels are less efficient, we would need more solar panels to produce the same power output. Consequently, the resources saved by low-tech production methods would be compensated by the extra resources to build more solar panels. However, efficiency is only crucial when we take energy demand for granted, sacrificing some efficiency may gain us a lot in sustainability."

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[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Couldn't we decrease demand with more efficient solar panels too? It seems like the critical tradeoff here (given unlimited space and funding, which is actually important) is the environmental cost per kwh energy produced.

[–] ecoelectrify 1 points 11 months ago

"Environmental cost" is a very vague concept. If we only consider carbon emissions, more efficient panels might be better. But factoring in the waste generated over time, the lifecycle impacts of the panels (mining, manufacturing, disposal, etc.) I think there needs to be more analysis. Not saying it will outweigh, I just think its worth a hard look.

In terms of decreasing demand, that's a consumer-side factor, so it has no connection to actual panel production.