Vocal Voices

We can brush aside the amount of energy used in their end-to-end production, and forget the rare elements gallium and boron that are necessary to make them and make them work are. And we can ignore the fact that they only work, at best, for 50% of the time and only for a fraction of that time - bright sunlight and cloudless skies - is in 100% production. Then we can ignore how many (billions) will be needed and the area they will cover. And don't mention storage. Well, why not? It is what solar supporters do.

But here is the true cost. Yes, we are turning productive (food) farmland into solar farms. So, we get more energy yet less food, but we still need the food so it will have to be imported and delivered at great (fluctuating) cost on fossil fuel powered ships and lorries - sometimes planes - and we have no control over those costs. Net Zero, energy security, my fundament.

I wonder what the real CO2 cost / benefit equation looks like?

The problem is that there are plenty of buildings to use but the associated costs to get a contiguous source up are huge.

Much cheaper to use farmland.