Solar discusion thread, is it right for you?
ok so we haven't had one fo these as long as I can remember. lets get a friendly discussion going on the pro's and cons of solar vs other power sources.
I'll start off.
its a given that my p...
Forum Discussion
ok so I was waiting to see if anyone would bring in the enviormental impact fo the production of solar panels haha.
so solar panels off set the enviormental impact from their manufacturing in 4 to 6 years. then it is all offsetting global co2 emissions. now let talk generators they require a significant amount of mining, more than solar panels, a genny running under load is producing polution equivalant to a ideling automobile. then you have the saftey risks of carbon monoxide poisoning, the oil and filter changes ever 100 to 150 hours and so on. with proper maintenance and care a average genny can last 2000 hours, high quality ones up to 10000 hours. so depending on how it is run you could be burnign a genny every year on a 8 hour run day.
so looking at that aspect solar is the winner hands down, but I am not a tree hugger by any means so that was never part of my disision for going solar. for me it was more of a install and forget type thing, and it was cheeper than a genny. then the other benifits are its lighter, silent, doesnt take up any storage, and works weather I am parked or driving so you get charging the whole day, not just when you start up the genny.
Case in point to my earlier post and why I really didn't want to get into a debate about it. I can cite sources that disagree with just about everything you wrote. It's not just the solar production it's batteries too. The simple answer is neither process is inherently “better” than the other. Both battery material mining and oil drilling carry significant environmental and social costs. The impact of each depends heavily on factors like location, regulations, extraction methods, etc. Battery material mining often involves open-pit mining, which requires clearing large areas of land, destroying habitats, and disrupting ecosystems. The disposal of mining waste, known as tailings, can also pose a significant environmental challenge, potentially contaminating soil and water sources. The construction of evaporation ponds for brine extraction further alters the landscape and can disrupt wildlife migration patterns. While overall the lifecycle of battery use (most research is around EV's) regarding emissions is generally lower than gas vehicles, but the social, socioeconomic and ecological damage is about the same. So, solar and batteries are not a hands down winner in terms of being eco-friendly. So back to my question, with regards to being more ecologically better. It isn't. Both are bad. It's not solving problems it's just creating different versions of the same problems. Ironic that we use products that are damaging the same environment we are trying to enjoy. I'm not interested in dying on any hill for further debate, the information is out there to interpret in any way that suits you.
I never said they are awash, you have to keep batteries seperate from solar panels. I said LiFePO4 has a slight advantage to lead batteries because of the type of impacts they have, but solar panels are fare more green than anything else and they have theire offset payback in 4 to 6 years, then you get another 20 years of reduction.
I work in the largest open pit base metal mine in Canada and the third largest copper mine in north america. it all comes down to the companies that run/own them and local regulations. as with any industry it is evolving as time goes by. we have reclaimed parts of the old mine and turned a tailings pond into a lake with rainbow trout as a reclamaition trial, or old waist dumps into grasslands. if the regulations are not there to reclaim land and to use enviormentaly friendly methods, then you won't get that kind of thing. there has to be balance as we need the copper, but we need to be able to return it to a kinda natural state. we have engineers who plan the dump shapes and sizes so when it is time to close the land the landscape will be simular to the surounding area.
Agreed. It's great your company has some really good intentions and actually acts on them. Regulations and government play a big part. Canada seems to get it right more than a lot of others regarding ecology- all I'm going to say about that :-). I'm not against batteries and I'll hit you up when we move on to our next rig for ideas on how to leverage them better. Just playing devil's advocate for the sake of a well-rounded debate.
