The “Green” Energy Boondoggle
By David G. Johnson
Copyright 2024
One of the more popular narratives in the U.S. today concerns “green energy” and the elimination of the use of fossil fuels. This topic is popular in the media throughout the U.S. as well as here in California. One simply cannot read a newspaper these days without finding a reference to the greatness and future of solar power. But has anyone considered what they are saying when they demand for the push to end fossil fuels? Or do they think about how much it will cost to build all of these new clean power facilities? What about the REAL cost to the environment?
Make no mistake, clean energy has its place. Reducing greenhouse gasses is a noble cause. But before we rush headlong into destroying the economy (see below), let’s look at some facts about solar power and specifically energy uses here in California.
Today, solar power represents a mere 7% of the State’s total retail energy usage. Currently, 41% of the state’s energy consumption is dedicated to transportation (fossil fuels), and another 24% of the State’s energy, mostly fossil fuels, is used for industrial uses. With this in mind, one begins to see that the goal of the elimination of fossil fuels, while well-meaning, does not begin to address the end of fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels are essential in the operation of many solar facilities. Solar panels are comprised of a number of rare and extremely toxic and hazardous materials that are used in their manufacture. Some of the materials used to make solar panels release in excess of 20,000 times the amount of green house gasses as the CO2 they are meant to help eliminate. Additionally, there is significant waste in the manufacturing process used to create the solar panels. Finally, the panels represent a huge problem at the end of their lives as there are currently no laws in the U.S. concerning how these toxic panels are safely recycled or what they will do to the environment when they are put into landfills. Source: California Energy Commission
It is useful then, to gain an understanding of the place that solar has in California, how much solar capacity the State has, and how much energy in total the State needs. Without the proper perspective, it becomes easy to fall in line with the narrative.
California Solar Production Compared to Other Sources
Currently there is one major solar facility in San Bernardino County, California, known as SEGS. SEGS is actually a series of facilities that were initially built in the late 1990’s and commissioned in 2004, when it started with a capacity of 50 MW. The complex has since grown to a capacity of 354 MW spread over several sites. These sites initially were built utilizing Solar Thermal Energy but that has since evolved into a photovoltaic complex.
The facilities that make up SEGS now consist of a total of 9 solar power plants spread throughout the Mojave Desert. The original site was a Solar Thermal Energy Facility, which when it was built, was the world’s second largest. This type of facility uses sunlight to heat oil to 400 degrees C (or more) which is then used to transfer the heat to water to create the steam needed to spin turbines, thereby creating electricity. This type of facility is located at Harper Lake and Dagget and employs about 140 people. Source: Solargenix Energy
One of the initial problems with Solar Thermal Energy is the use of fossil fuels. In 1999, at the SEGS Dagget facility, a 900,000 gallon tank of Therminol (a type of mineral oil), which is a heat transfer liquid used to transfer solar heat to the steam tanks, caught fire and burned for hours. Firefighters had to rush to keep the fire from spreading to other nearby tanks that contained sulfuric acid and caustic soda. It seems that not all solar plants generate electricity without the use of other fossil fuels. Source: LA times
The largest U.S. Solar Thermal Energy facility is a Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) facility located at Ivanpah (Mojave Desert, near the California-Nevada border). At a cost of $2.2 billion to build (of which $1.6 billion was federally guaranteed money), this facility uses 173,000 mirrors designed to concentrate sunlight to the top of three towers in which boilers are placed to transfer the heat to boil water which spin the turbines used to generate electricity. This facility was, at the time of its initial construction, the largest such facility in the world, but it has never lived up to its potential due to the high construction cost and numerous incidents and glitches in its operation. These glitches include a fire started by the mirrors directing heat to the wrong part of the solar tower, starting the fire which caused the shutdown of that portion of the facility. Plus there are thousands of birds killed each year as they fly through the beam of heat generated by the mirrors. The complexity of the facility also leaves open the possibility of any number of piping or other mechanical issues that impair full production. Source: BrightWorks
The cost per KWh from various solar facilities such as mentioned here is also about two to three times that of the cost to produce electricity versus the more practical Photo Voltaic facility at SEGS. As a side note, this facility created 1000 construction jobs to build the plant and has 89 permanent positions on site. Source: US Department of Energy
According to the US Department of Energy, the cost to build a solar plant based on the most recent numbers (2015) is more than four times as much as the cost to build a natural gas burning plant. Natural gas facilities last between 30 and 50 years, while a solar plant only has a life expectancy of 20 years. Source: US Department of Energy
The cost to build a Solar Thermal Energy facility or a Photovoltaic facility, is considerably more than the cost to build a natural gas facility, as noted by the chart below.
As of 2018, the total percentage of solar energy produced in California represented just 14% of the state’s electricity needs, while energy from coal was 15%. Electricity from nuclear power has fallen to 9.4% from the sole facility at Diablo Canyon, where production has remained constant as other sources of electricity have risen. As a side note, Diablo Canyon was slated to be shut down in 2024 (but postponed), which will make California’s energy shortfall worse.
The combined totals of wind, solar, small hydro, geothermal and biomass produce 32.3% of the state’s total energy output, but that number reached 43.6% with the addition of large hydro electricity production. Electricity from natural gas remains the top source of electricity with a total of 46.5% of the state’s total production. Source: California Energy Commission
One other important fact is that currently, California imports 32% of its power from other states. The total electrical generating capacity in the State of California is around 54,000 MW. Remove the +/-10,000 MW from Diablo Canyon and the total magnitude of the problem begins to emerge. If California produced 100% of the power it needed, it would need an additional 17,000 MW of capacity. To achieve 100% “green” power from solar it would take roughly 20 square miles of panels! That is a lot of panels.
An essential component of the solar conversation has to do with how the solar panels are manufactured.
Solar Panels – How They Are Made
There are two types of solar power plants, photo voltaic (PV) and heat generating. PV facilities use solar panels like the ones on your house to convert sunlight directly into electricity, whereas heat generating facilities use reflective panels to heat a liquid which is then sent to a turbine which in turn spins to create electricity.
The manufacture of solar panels and what happens to them once they have reached their life expectancy is of some concern. According to Chem Service Inc., an industry standards magazine, the manufacture of solar panels is, like fracking, reliant on a variety of chemicals in order to work successfully and efficiently. The panels use silicon similar to what they use for semiconductors, except that even pure silicon is not pure enough to make a solar panel efficient, so the raw silicon must be treated with a chemical-rich process.
First the silicon is mixed with copper and hydrochloric acid to produce trichlorosilane gas, which is then reduced with hydrogen to make silane gas. The silane gas is heated into molten silicon which leads to silicon crystals that can be reformed and used for PV cells and microchips. This process is very energy intensive and materially wasteful, with about half of the initial pure metallurgical silicon lost in the process. Silicon dust represents safety dangers and silane gas is incredibly explosive (it ignites when it mixes with oxygen).
Some other chemicals used to make solar panels include cadmium, nitrogen trifluoride and sulfur hexafluoride. Cadmium is a naturally occurring earth metal, produced from smelting zinc, copper or lead ore. The EPA has noted that inhaling or being exposed to cadmium can lead to cancerous and noncancerous damage to lungs and other organs. Cadmium is also very expensive, and like silicon, only about half of the cadmium is used in the PV making process - so the rest is waste. Finally the risk of any type of breach or leak of cadmium into the water supply would be very harmful.
While solar panels do not generate greenhouse gasses when they operate, the manufacturing process of solar panels does. Two additional chemicals used in the manufacture of solar panels includes nitrogen trifluoride and sulfur hexafluoride. As a greenhouse gas, nitrogen trifluoride is 17,000 times stronger than CO2 while sulfur hexafluoride is 22,800 times more potent than CO2. These gasses are released into the atmosphere during the manufacturing process. Source: ChemService Inc. Magazine
Finally, there is the matter of what to do with the solar panels once they have reached the end of their life expectancy. Currently, there are no laws in the US (as there are in Europe) with regard to the disposal of the used panels. Most panels go to a recycler first, who will remove any copper wires and the aluminum frame. But the rest of the panel is essentially chemically-laden glass which is toxic and potentially lethal.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency there is a solar e-waste glut coming with an anticipated 78 million metric tons of waste being generated by 2050 with another 6 million metric tons each year thereafter. This is an environmental problem that has yet to be addressed. Source: Renewable Energy Agency
World Wide Manufacturers of Solar Panels
The drive toward 100% clean energy, and specifically from solar, represents a boon to the companies who manufacture the panels, or the polysilicon crystals used to make those panels. The list that follows represents the top ten solar manufacturers and their country of origin as of 2019.
1. JinkoSolar, - Shanghai China
2. Canadian Solar – Guelph, Canada
3. Loom Solar – Faridabad, Haryana
4. Trina Solar – Changzhou, China
5. SunPower Corp – San Jose, CA
6. Hanwha Q Cells – Seoul, South Korea
7. JA Solar – Beijing, China
8. First Solar – Tempe Arizona
9. SF-PV - Changzhou, China
10. Yingli Solar – Baoding, China
Source: SolarClap.com
As of June 2019, only two of those companies, Sun Power and First Solar, are located in the U.S., meaning that in order to continue to work toward 100% “clean energy”, that the panels or components will be purchased largely from China or from elsewhere around the world. It is not clear if all of the panels manufactured by Sun Power or First Solar are made in the U.S., but it is likely that the polysilicon crystals are not.
Add to that fact that the construction, maintenance and operation costs of solar facilities exceed that of most gas-fired energy facilities, and that the solar panels themselves represent a toxic disposal problem that has yet to be addressed, and a new picture starts to emerge – that the true cost of the shift to solar has not been adequately addressed or publicly discussed.
While the move to “clean energy” is noble on its face, there is much to be said for energy independence. The U.S. has a 1000 year supply of fossil fuels. The thought that fossil fuels can / should be eliminated to “save the world” is short-sighted at best, and an outright lie at the worst.
Goal of 100% Carbon Free by 2045
California has a stated goal of producing 60% “clean energy” by 2030, and 100% clean energy by 2045. This information comes from CA SB 100, “The Clean Air Act”, a report produced by the California Energy Commission. A close look at this document reveals that this goal only applies to the RETAIL sector. So we are looking at 100% (or green energy) being used to serve the needs of 7% of the total energy market. It’s all about misdirection. Smoke & mirrors. A narrative put forth by well-meaning politicians and the media. Let’s all (not) get on the bandwagon.
According to the Wall Street Journal, 80% of the world’s solar components are made in China. The push to build more solar facilities in the U.S. represents what could be the single largest transfer of wealth to other countries in the history of this great nation. Those panels require extremely toxic chemicals in their manufacture, some of which release extraordinarily high levels of greenhouse gasses.
Finally, the disposal of the used panels represents yet another hurdle, as there are currently no laws or regulation as to their disposal. 78 million metric tons represents 172 TRILLION pounds of toxic waste. How green is that?
It is becoming clear that solar by itself is not the answer to producing “clean” energy. Nuclear power is clean. Nuclear facilities last a long time, and despite the bad rap that has been placed on these facilities, there have been very few issues here in the U.S. Hydro power is efficient and clean, but there is not enough of it. Biomass as an industry that is still in its infancy, but one that has potential to become an important part of the creation of green energy. Natural gas is dominant and relatively clean, especially in California, and will remain the go-to source for electrical power for a long time to come.
With all of this in mind, we need more transparency when it comes to having an honest and realistic discussion about green energy. Unionizing a labor force is not the answer, especially when the competition (China) is using forced labor to make solar panels. We must also be honest about the cost, which is rarely discussed. Any rational discussion about green energy should focus on the resources we already have in the U.S. If we have a 1000 year supply of natural gas, it seems that it would be far more cost effective to utilize what already works.
Timelines to generate 100% clean energy are nothing more than a push to lower the United States and California specifically into a second-class society at the effect of the New World Order. The total cost for the conversion of California’s energy to solar is in the trillions. The footprint of these facilities is considerably larger than gas-fired power plants. Solar facilities do not last as long as other types of facilities. Disposal of used panels is clearly a problem.
With regard to “going green”, the cost is clearly not worth it, nor has it been thought through.
David G. Johnson
Chairman
Republican Party of Santa Clara County