Solar Power

[Duckshot]

Well then why did you claim-

There's enough hot air in this thread to power a city though. Even the article quoted by the OP has misinformation. The mirrors for the Ivanpah facility (3 units) are less than 1 sq. mile, not 5 sq. miles. It has been estimated to kill a bunch of birds though...

I do wonder how many of the posters on here have an interest in the fossil fuels industry. I seriously can't understand the outright hostility that some people express towards changing our lifestyle to conserve biodiversity, mitigate the effects of climate change, and make the planet cleaner place to live.

Whatever... Y'all can keep spouting misinformation and keep on hatin'. I'll keep picking up litter to keep plastic out of the oceans and my solar panels and Powerwall 2 will be installed in a couple of weeks.

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

For someone who does not understand other people's hostility you sure are hostile.

Like I said earlier, you seem to think that what yours is yours and what's mine is "ours".

 

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[crashbandicoot]

Let,s see, they killed 6000 birds,how many were birds of prey?Just for yuks lets say 200.Meanwhile the guy down the road kills a hawk,that is stalking his chickens and the feds will spend 100 grand to prosecute him for that,not withstanding the fact that there are literally 100,s of the things sitting on power poles and tree limbs where ever you care to look.Just saying!

 

[Duckshot]

It's all about property rights Kantuckeean. You go ahead and change your lifestyle if you want, just don't you use my time or my money to change my lifestyle.

Get it?

 

[Oregon Viking]

It's all about property rights Kantuckeean. You go ahead and change your lifestyle if you want, just don't you use my time or my money to change my lifestyle.

Get it?

I feel you would enjoy the hell out of the political forum...

 

[Duckshot]

You feel it, or do you think it? No offense, but the problem with politics is too many people feeling and not enough people thinking.

I feel a bit wobbly after a belt of rum. I think I'll go have one now.

 

[Oregon Viking]

You feel it, or do you think it? No offense, but the problem with politics is too many people feeling and not enough people thinking.

I feel a bit wobbly after a belt of rum. I think I'll go have one now.

In my opinion, you might enjoy the political forum. Less rules. Thee ability to say.. Up yours!! If that's the direction you are leaning..
Rum? Oh yeh!

Solar panels, well, they are getting more efficient. Take a look at lithium mines... Most earth killing practice by far...I'm a home builder helped a client set up solar panels. Well, batteries...pain in the ass.. Maintenance on said batteries... pain in the ass..

 

[billb]

Well said. Perhaps this should be on 6- Min....

 

[Duckshot]

I don't think I want to "Up yours!" anybody.

I believe the rules are always the same, no matter if we observe them or not.

One of the rules is "Thou shall not steal". That's rule #8.

 

[Al D]

Well said. Perhaps this should be on 6- Min....

Speaking of 6* minutes, I watched tonights episode on Bill Gates and his carbon zero project. First, I need to state that I am not a big fan of Gates, his structuring of Microsoft made it a shark among common people who just needed a computer system to work, but I digress, back to my initial point. On the show Gates revealed his nuclear reactor project, and I thought, this is good, finally someone gets it, but my enthusiasm was premature, his project is a sodium cooled reactor, good grief, apparently he did not heed the lessons learned from every sodium cooled reactor project since the 1950’s.Sodium cooled reactors are dangerous.
what we really need is a conscientious billionaire with some brains.
my rant is done...

 

[Oregon Viking]

I don't think I want to "Up yours!" anybody.

I believe the rules are always the same, no matter if we observe them or not.

One of the rules is "Thou shall not steal". That's rule #8.

OK I meant in the T-net political forum, you CAN say up yours. The rules in that forum are much less prohibitive compared to the rest of T-net.

 

[Oregon Viking]

What Is Bad About Solar Energy?

We all know the good parts about solar energy: financial savings, cleaner energy, and little more independence from your utility to name a few. With all these positives, this might leave you wondering what is bad about solar energy? For the most part, solar energy is a win-win for all involved – you save money and the environment is happier- but there are two sides to every coin.


#1: High Upfront Costs

We’ve all heard about how expensive solar is and, yes it’s true, but only in a limited sense. Solar is an investment – solar panels, equipment, and labor all quickly add up, but the savings you see far outweigh the initial cost. That’s why we like to talk about solar in terms of investment and return on investment. It’s a rare purchase that will pay you back.

Think of it this way: opening a new store is expensive, but (from a purely monetary point of view) would you say it’s a bad investment (assuming it’s successful)? Of course not! After that initial super-high investment to open the store, the owners reap the financial reward over and over again. Solar is no different, it’s expensive initially to purchase and install, but it’s been proven time and time again that after 20 years (and sometimes as short as 5 years), most homeowners will save thousands of dollars over their initial investment.

If you just can’t foot that initial bill to purchase your solar installation outright, other ownership models like leases, power purchase agreements (PPAs), and loans are there to make the process even more affordable and easy. So yes, installing solar is a high upfront investment, but there are ways to make it more affordable!

#2: Pollution Horror Stories

Manufacturing solar panels both requires and produces toxic chemicals throughout the process. Hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid (both very caustic substances) are used to refine and clean the wafers of silicon (which is the main building block of most solar panels). The refining process also produces silicon tetrachloride, a toxic compound that produces hydrochloric acid when combined with water.

These chemicals can largely be safely recycled, but unfortunately over the last 10 years stories from China (the world’s largest producer of solar panels) have surfaced of these chemicals being spilled or dumped into rivers and agricultural fields. One spill from a solar panel manufacturing plant in 2011 even led to the deaths of hundreds of fish and pigs in the local area, inciting local residents to picket the factory.

You can’t deny these horrible incidents happened, but an important distinction needs to be made here. These horror stories aren’t endemic to the solar industry – they’re outgrowths of poor management decisions and practices. In 2011 (the same year as the spill above), China passed legislation requiring solar manufacturers recycle 98.5% of all tetrachloride produced, a fantastic step to a cleaner, more responsible solar industry. As the industry grows, matures, and more stringent health and safety regulations are adopted, these horror stories will hopefully become less and less common.

And also keep in mind that, once up and running, solar panels produce zero emissions. Coal-fired power plants, on the other hand, produce about 3 million pounds of CO2 annually – and that’s not due to spills, dumps, or any other accidents!

#3: Intermittent Power failure

As with most renewable energy sources, solar panels don’t provide power consistently. Unfortunately we as humans simply don’t have control over sunlight. Clouds come in and hang around for days. The sun sets at different times throughout the year. You can’t just turn on your solar installation and expect it to produce electricity indefinitely and at all times of the day. Unlike coal-fired power plants or even our gas-powered cars, we can’t control when and how much fuel to give our solar panels – that’s up to Mother Nature to decide.

For most of us with solar panels on our roofs, the intermittency of sunlight isn’t too big of a deal. We’re connected to the utility grid, so when the sun’s not shining we simply pull power from the utility. No big deal.

This intermittency though does cause problems if you’re off the grid, with no backup power available from the utility. Imagine it’s a bright and sunny day and you’re washing clothes in the clothes washer. Everything is going great, when uh oh, you didn’t time this very well and now the sun’s beginning to set! Your washing machine stops halfway through the cycle! What to do?

This situation is why off-grid homeowners typically install a bank of batteries to complement their solar panels. Batteries allow you to store up electricity for those times when the sun’s not shining. It’s very convenient and really a necessity if you plan to live in the home for more than a couple of days at a time, but installing batteries adds some serious costs to your solar installation, so it’s really only adopted by those who have no other option.

That may be changing, however, as newer and better batteries (like the Tesla Powerwall II) come on the market.

#4: Space Requirements-solar power barn

Solar panels require a lot of space. The typical residential panel only produces about 15 watts per square foot in perfect conditions, so you’d need 4 square feet of solar cells (about ¼ of a typical solar panel) just to power a 60-watt incandescent light bulb! Now imagine all the other electric gadgets in your home you use every day that your installation needs to power: refrigerators, microwaves, laptops, TVs, washers and dryers. You’re now seeing why homes need a lot of solar panels! (The average residential installation is around 20 panels, but can climb to over 100 panels for homes with high energy use.)

With each solar panel measuring about 3’ x 5’, your installation needs a lot of space! For homeowners, installing on the roof is the perfect solution – it’s a large, unused area that you’ll probably never take advantage of otherwise.

These space requirements though are a serious issue for large utility-scale installations composed of millions of solar panels. Solar companies typically need large tracts of undeveloped land, which can become troublesome if the company doesn’t do their homework. Case in point, the ultra-large 250 Gigawatt Genesis Project, a utility-scale Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) installation that covers almost 2,000 acres of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ran into serious issues when Native American artifacts were found on the site and local kit foxes were killed during construction.

While solar panels are constantly becoming more efficient (and therefore installations require fewer panels for the same amount of energy), this doesn’t take the place of proper study and planning of the proposed installation area. As utilities and businesses install more and larger solar power plants, knowledge of the construction area and how the installation will affect local wildlife and environment – and how to act on this knowledge – will become more and more important.

#5: Solar Panels Use Scarce Resources

Just like any materials in construction or energy industries (steel supports, 2x4s, coal, oil, etc), solar panels are made from earth’s finite resources. The most common solar panels use silicon for the actual solar cells, aluminum for the frame, copper for the wires, and silver for electrical contact points. Thin-film solar panels use many more rare materials, including tellurium (which is 3x as rare as gold), germanium, selenium, and indium.

In the last few years, the solar industry and its’ watchdogs have focused more and more on the use of these scarce minerals in solar panels as well as how to recycle them. The US federal government opened the Critical Materials Institute in 2013 as part of the Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory to study these rare materials and prepare for shortages in the future, either by adopting new alternative materials or reworking the supply chain.

With between 60 and 80 million tons of waste expected from solar panels by 2050, responsibly dealing with all these old panels is slowly coming to the forefront. A report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) found that the value of the recycled materials in solar panels could be more than $15 billion by 2050! That’s big money, and as the industry matures and old panels are thrown out and replaced, more and more companies will likely jump on this lucrative bandwagon, providing a very necessary last step in the solar panel lifestyle.

#6: The Visual Element solar-beauty

Some people love the blue, boxy look of solar panels, while otherwise wouldn’t be caught dead with them on their roof. It’s true, today’s solar panels have a certain look about them, but beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. Other homeowners think solar adds flair (or at least a social statement) to their home’s exterior. So really, the visual element is more of a characteristic of solar panels more than a detriment, it’s just a characteristic some people don’t like.

Elon Musk is doing his part to overcome this challenge to solar, introducing Tesla’s solar shingles. These hardened glass tiles look like normal roof shingles or tiles but hide a small solar panel underneath the glass. For those who want to install solar but don’t appreciate the look of traditional solar panels, these solar shingles will be the perfect option when they are commercially available.

 

[Singlestack Wonder]

What Is Bad About Solar Energy?

We all know the good parts about solar energy: financial savings, cleaner energy, and little more independence from your utility to name a few. With all these positives, this might leave you wondering what is bad about solar energy? For the most part, solar energy is a win-win for all involved – you save money and the environment is happier- but there are two sides to every coin.


#1: High Upfront Costs

We’ve all heard about how expensive solar is and, yes it’s true, but only in a limited sense. Solar is an investment – solar panels, equipment, and labor all quickly add up, but the savings you see far outweigh the initial cost. That’s why we like to talk about solar in terms of investment and return on investment. It’s a rare purchase that will pay you back.

Think of it this way: opening a new store is expensive, but (from a purely monetary point of view) would you say it’s a bad investment (assuming it’s successful)? Of course not! After that initial super-high investment to open the store, the owners reap the financial reward over and over again. Solar is no different, it’s expensive initially to purchase and install, but it’s been proven time and time again that after 20 years (and sometimes as short as 5 years), most homeowners will save thousands of dollars over their initial investment.

If you just can’t foot that initial bill to purchase your solar installation outright, other ownership models like leases, power purchase agreements (PPAs), and loans are there to make the process even more affordable and easy. So yes, installing solar is a high upfront investment, but there are ways to make it more affordable!

#2: Pollution Horror Stories

Manufacturing solar panels both requires and produces toxic chemicals throughout the process. Hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid (both very caustic substances) are used to refine and clean the wafers of silicon (which is the main building block of most solar panels). The refining process also produces silicon tetrachloride, a toxic compound that produces hydrochloric acid when combined with water.

These chemicals can largely be safely recycled, but unfortunately over the last 10 years stories from China (the world’s largest producer of solar panels) have surfaced of these chemicals being spilled or dumped into rivers and agricultural fields. One spill from a solar panel manufacturing plant in 2011 even led to the deaths of hundreds of fish and pigs in the local area, inciting local residents to picket the factory.

You can’t deny these horrible incidents happened, but an important distinction needs to be made here. These horror stories aren’t endemic to the solar industry – they’re outgrowths of poor management decisions and practices. In 2011 (the same year as the spill above), China passed legislation requiring solar manufacturers recycle 98.5% of all tetrachloride produced, a fantastic step to a cleaner, more responsible solar industry. As the industry grows, matures, and more stringent health and safety regulations are adopted, these horror stories will hopefully become less and less common.

And also keep in mind that, once up and running, solar panels produce zero emissions. Coal-fired power plants, on the other hand, produce about 3 million pounds of CO2 annually – and that’s not due to spills, dumps, or any other accidents!

#3: Intermittent Power failure

As with most renewable energy sources, solar panels don’t provide power consistently. Unfortunately we as humans simply don’t have control over sunlight. Clouds come in and hang around for days. The sun sets at different times throughout the year. You can’t just turn on your solar installation and expect it to produce electricity indefinitely and at all times of the day. Unlike coal-fired power plants or even our gas-powered cars, we can’t control when and how much fuel to give our solar panels – that’s up to Mother Nature to decide.

For most of us with solar panels on our roofs, the intermittency of sunlight isn’t too big of a deal. We’re connected to the utility grid, so when the sun’s not shining we simply pull power from the utility. No big deal.

This intermittency though does cause problems if you’re off the grid, with no backup power available from the utility. Imagine it’s a bright and sunny day and you’re washing clothes in the clothes washer. Everything is going great, when uh oh, you didn’t time this very well and now the sun’s beginning to set! Your washing machine stops halfway through the cycle! What to do?

This situation is why off-grid homeowners typically install a bank of batteries to complement their solar panels. Batteries allow you to store up electricity for those times when the sun’s not shining. It’s very convenient and really a necessity if you plan to live in the home for more than a couple of days at a time, but installing batteries adds some serious costs to your solar installation, so it’s really only adopted by those who have no other option.

That may be changing, however, as newer and better batteries (like the Tesla Powerwall II) come on the market.

#4: Space Requirements-solar power barn

Solar panels require a lot of space. The typical residential panel only produces about 15 watts per square foot in perfect conditions, so you’d need 4 square feet of solar cells (about ¼ of a typical solar panel) just to power a 60-watt incandescent light bulb! Now imagine all the other electric gadgets in your home you use every day that your installation needs to power: refrigerators, microwaves, laptops, TVs, washers and dryers. You’re now seeing why homes need a lot of solar panels! (The average residential installation is around 20 panels, but can climb to over 100 panels for homes with high energy use.)

With each solar panel measuring about 3’ x 5’, your installation needs a lot of space! For homeowners, installing on the roof is the perfect solution – it’s a large, unused area that you’ll probably never take advantage of otherwise.

These space requirements though are a serious issue for large utility-scale installations composed of millions of solar panels. Solar companies typically need large tracts of undeveloped land, which can become troublesome if the company doesn’t do their homework. Case in point, the ultra-large 250 Gigawatt Genesis Project, a utility-scale Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) installation that covers almost 2,000 acres of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ran into serious issues when Native American artifacts were found on the site and local kit foxes were killed during construction.

While solar panels are constantly becoming more efficient (and therefore installations require fewer panels for the same amount of energy), this doesn’t take the place of proper study and planning of the proposed installation area. As utilities and businesses install more and larger solar power plants, knowledge of the construction area and how the installation will affect local wildlife and environment – and how to act on this knowledge – will become more and more important.

#5: Solar Panels Use Scarce Resources

Just like any materials in construction or energy industries (steel supports, 2x4s, coal, oil, etc), solar panels are made from earth’s finite resources. The most common solar panels use silicon for the actual solar cells, aluminum for the frame, copper for the wires, and silver for electrical contact points. Thin-film solar panels use many more rare materials, including tellurium (which is 3x as rare as gold), germanium, selenium, and indium.

In the last few years, the solar industry and its’ watchdogs have focused more and more on the use of these scarce minerals in solar panels as well as how to recycle them. The US federal government opened the Critical Materials Institute in 2013 as part of the Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory to study these rare materials and prepare for shortages in the future, either by adopting new alternative materials or reworking the supply chain.

With between 60 and 80 million tons of waste expected from solar panels by 2050, responsibly dealing with all these old panels is slowly coming to the forefront. A report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) found that the value of the recycled materials in solar panels could be more than $15 billion by 2050! That’s big money, and as the industry matures and old panels are thrown out and replaced, more and more companies will likely jump on this lucrative bandwagon, providing a very necessary last step in the solar panel lifestyle.

#6: The Visual Element solar-beauty

Some people love the blue, boxy look of solar panels, while otherwise wouldn’t be caught dead with them on their roof. It’s true, today’s solar panels have a certain look about them, but beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. Other homeowners think solar adds flair (or at least a social statement) to their home’s exterior. So really, the visual element is more of a characteristic of solar panels more than a detriment, it’s just a characteristic some people don’t like.

Elon Musk is doing his part to overcome this challenge to solar, introducing Tesla’s solar shingles. These hardened glass tiles look like normal roof shingles or tiles but hide a small solar panel underneath the glass. For those who want to install solar but don’t appreciate the look of traditional solar panels, these solar shingles will be the perfect option when they are commercially available.

Most importantly, not one solar or wind facility can survive without government subsidies as they do not produce enough power and require a tremendous amount of maintenance.

 

[newnan man]

I commute nearly every day from the coast to Orlando. For the most part it is rural country with lots of nice scenery. On one stretch of SR 520 I noticed them beginning to clear land. Hundreds if acres of trees cut down. Land was razed flat then they began installing solar panels. Hundreds that go on for thousands of feet. To say it is ugly is an understatement. Not to mention the wildlife displaced with nowhere really to go. For weeks various animals littered the highway trying to find new homes. It sicken me to see this abomination on a once beautiful landscape. Then the articles started appearing on how heavily subsidized the project was and investors were basically guaranteed to make money. Power bills in the area are slated to rise soon. Progress, don't piss down my back & tell me it's raining.

 

[Tpmetal]

Duckshot,

First of all, signal_line made the claim. I said that what he stated is no longer true. Now the burden is on him (or anyone else if they agree with it and so choose) to defend that claim. I'm not going to do someone else's homework for them. It's up to them to do theirs. Or, we can talk about the BILLIONS of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies given to oil, gas, and coal companies. Speaking of which, do you work for Dominion, Duke Energy, or another gas, oil, or coal company?

Second, I didn't really want to rehash it, but the way I tell it is what happened. I never accused you of racism. I simply stated that your previous avatar (which at the time was the Confederate flag) was offensive to many people and that the Confederate flag had been adopted by many hate groups and was widely viewed as a racist symbol. You interpreted that statement as though I called you a racist, which I never did. Since you had misunderstood my previous post about it being used as a racist symbol, I even clarified that for you in a subsequent post, which I still have and can copy verbatim, if you want. Sometime between then and now, you changed your avatar to the American flag. I like your new avatar much better.

Third, I'm not really interested in arguing anything with you. You keep calling me out, which is why I reply. You basically just called me a liar, which I'm not. People are welcome to believe what they want, even if it's an "alternate reality." However, when they post something on a public forum as a fact, they should be willing to back that up, otherwise they may just be trolling or spreading misinformation for whatever agenda. I don't like to see misinformation put out there without facts to back it up, because then that misinformation may be believed by other people and perpetuated.

I'm ready to move on...

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

Please back up what you have stated then. You come in on your high horse thinking you have a moral high ground, then you dismissively talk down to everyone and do exactly what you are complaining about. you have not provided one shred of evidence for your statements, yet you keep complaining when others don't. The irony of you in general never ceases to amaze me.

 

[Kantuckkeean]

Tpmetal,

You and I have been down this road before...

My point was that the burden of proof lies with the person who made the claim (i.e. signal line). My issue with not bringing counter evidence to the table was that signal line made a claim without backing it up whatsoever, and then you all put the burden on me to disprove what signal line said. Now, even though that's not how an argument typically works, I've done that... Did you not see posts 58, or 59 & 60 in this thread? Or now that I've done so, are you just going to ignore it?

I had already done what you asked. Now I'll just jump on my "high horse" and "shove it."

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[Kantuckkeean]

I commute nearly every day from the coast to Orlando. For the most part it is rural country with lots of nice scenery. On one stretch of SR 520 I noticed them beginning to clear land. Hundreds if acres of trees cut down. Land was razed flat then they began installing solar panels. Hundreds that go on for thousands of feet. To say it is ugly is an understatement. Not to mention the wildlife displaced with nowhere really to go. For weeks various animals littered the highway trying to find new homes. It sicken me to see this abomination on a once beautiful landscape. Then the articles started appearing on how heavily subsidized the project was and investors were basically guaranteed to make money. Power bills in the area are slated to rise soon. Progress, don't piss down my back & tell me it's raining.

That's definitely a shame. I see them putting up solar arrays (albeit small ones) in what was productive farm land and just shake my head. Solar has its place, but they shouldn't be tearing down green areas just to build arrays.

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[Duckshot]

Tpmetal,

You and I have been down this road before...

My point was that the burden of proof lies with the person who made the claim (i.e. signal line). My issue with not bringing counter evidence to the table was that signal line made a claim without backing it up whatsoever, and then you all put the burden on me to disprove what signal line said. Now, even though that's not how an argument typically works, I've done that... Did you not see posts 58, or 59 & 60 in this thread? Or now that I've done so, are you just going to ignore it?

I had already done what you asked. Now I'll just jump on my "high horse" and "shove it."

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

Read Signal Lines statement, I ask you to do so multiple times and you simply have not read it or you cannot comprehend what Signal Line said. His claim was that he read it someplace. It is only you that assigned value to what Signal Line read.

And another thing- You did not even provide evidence to refute what signal line read, you simply said it was wrong. Not a sound argument on your part. Just saying "That's wrong" means absolutely nothing if you can't explain why it is wrong.

Like I said already- too much feeling and not enough thinking. What feelings you choose to feel means very little to me.

 

[Kantuckkeean]

Duckshot,

Did you not see posts 58 and 59 & 60? Are you just ignoring that because it doesn't fit your narrative? That refutes what signal line said, even though the burden of proof should have been on signal line, since he made the claim, and which is why I didn't refute it earlier.

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[Kantuckkeean]

Most importantly, not one solar or wind facility can survive without government subsidies as they do not produce enough power and require a tremendous amount of maintenance.

Yes. It is true. Solar and wind receive subsidies. But you and everyone else have completely ignored the fact that oil, coal, and gas companies also receive subsidies and BILLIONS of dollars in tax breaks. And I'll also point out that oil and gas and coal companies often do not pay their civil penalties when they violate the law... and coal companies sometimes set up shell companies to cheat taxpayers out of royalties due to federal and state governments. So there's that... thoughts?

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[Tpmetal]

Tpmetal,

You and I have been down this road before...

My point was that the burden of proof lies with the person who made the claim (i.e. signal line). My issue with not bringing counter evidence to the table was that signal line made a claim without backing it up whatsoever, and then you all put the burden on me to disprove what signal line said. Now, even though that's not how an argument typically works, I've done that... Did you not see posts 58, or 59 & 60 in this thread? Or now that I've done so, are you just going to ignore it?

I had already done what you asked. Now I'll just jump on my "high horse" and "shove it."

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

No I read your sources. One is pointless because you are arguing a misquote of size and not the actual problem the solar field is causing. The other you are using a solar energy companies website "fact check" for a source. The most biased thing you could find and the least reliable. How about the study they made their conclusions from? If you clicked their link to the study, you would see that it only is referring to the production of the photo voltaic cells, and references nothing to what it took to get the materials or what it takes to recycle. Not only that the "study" they reference is nothing more than a conclusion based on like 3 other studies with no actual data obtained through this so called "study". I stopped looking into it after reading their referred study as you can start to see how they select only tid bits and parts that look good for this so called fact check. People keep making points to you about all the processes outside of the mere production of the cells but you refer them to this crap.....literally a sales pitch from a solar company