Manufacturing Carbon footprint of PV

[Jeff Birkle]

Hello.
Some food for thought.
Has anyone looked into what the actual Manufacturing Carbon footprint of a PV panel is?
For example; Does a panel require 50 tons of carbon to manufacture, and then save 50 tons of carbon in energy production over a 25 year span?
How harmfull is the non recyclable material?
How harmfull is the process to manufacture?

Jeff

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Jeff,

There has been lots of research about this, I've seen this discussed many times in various venues. One of the better articles written about the embodied energy of PV (which is more accurate than carbon footprint, because it is energy we are talking about and how much carbon making that energy makes or offsets depends on the energy source) was by Home Power Magazine. As it happens it is one of their free articles as well (http://www.homepower.com/view/?file=HP127_pg32_Sanchez), just click the link.

For those not wanting to read it: For a PV module used in the USA it will on average take 2 years or less to generate as much energy as it took to create every part of the module. Regular monocrystalline takes the longest, polycrystalline takes less energy to make and earns back its energy faster, and thin-film is the fastest. This is averaged; places with more sun will take less time than places with less sun-hours.

The whole argument about how PV modules will never make enough energy to offset what it took to make them is a hoax.

-RoB-