Many countries around the world are experiencing a boom in roof-top solar panel installation on residential premises. In Australia, for example, the Clean Energy Council has reported in their “Clean Energy Australia Report 2010” that 105,520 solar power systems were installed between the start of January and the end of September of 2010.
In this context, here is what a review says, comparing solar and nuclear energy in terms of resource required to produce same energy. In terms of how much power is packed into each gram of its respective material: cadmium telluride, versus uranium. CdTe thin film solar power (using cadmium telluride) takes ten times less PV material to make 1 kilowatt hour of electricity, than nuclear uses of uranium, to make an identical 1 kilowatt hour of electricity.
Goes without saying that solar doesn’t burn up fuel. You can get electricity from the same grams of PV material for at least thirty years, and then the material can be recycled and still used again. By contrast, the equivalent grams of nuclear uranium must be replaced with newly mined uranium once the first has yielded its energy.
But the comparison comparison to coal is something else! Even assuming just thirty years use, then tossing the solar, the thin film photovoltaic material uses just five millionths of the weight of coal needed to make the same kilowatt hour of electricity.
Question is of recycling. How well can PV cells be recycled, given their toxicity?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment