Brad McCormick wrote: > Christoph Reuss wrote: > [snip] > > Meantime the same wattage of solar energy will use zero trucks of fuel. > [snip] > > I think that in evaluating solar power, we need to > factor in the production of the solar cells (etc.).
Let's compare apples with apples. My statement referred to Harry's comment: >>> Meantime a large power plant, for the same wattage will use one truck of >>> nuclear fuel, 35,000 trucks of coal, or how many trucks of wood? So the issue was fuel for an existing powerplant, not the energy for building a powerplant. Anyway, modern solar cells provide 10-20 times more energy during their lifetime than their production used. Btw, an addendum to my previous comment re. NYT/"burning underground coal in China": Since this occurs underground (i.e. with little oxygen), the combustion must be mostly incomplete, i.e. resulting in CO rather than CO2. CO is irrelevant to climate change. So if e.g. 10% of that coal burn to CO2, the NYT claim is only true if some __700 million tons__ are burning "underground in one area of China" -- that's almost the annual coal production of the USA. Makes the NYT claim even more unlikely. Chris
