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Ozzie Zehner
Solar energy may appear
to have the potential to be
economical but there are
hidden costs
OZZIE ZEHNER
Ozzie Zehner
is a visiting
scholar at UC
Berkeley and
the author
of'Green
Illusions: The
Dirty Secrets
of C lean Energy and the
Future of Environmentalism'.
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DOWN THE street from my
house in San Francisco, Royai
Dutch Shell is preparing to huild
a massive solar array in one of
the foggiest urhan microclimates
on Earth. In this deal, which the
Wall Street Journal identifies as
a 'victory' for the oil company,
tens of millions of taxpayer
dollars will flow away from
public programs to subsidise
superfluous energy production.
As engineers, we have an
ethical obligation to critically
engage energy firms and
researchers in promoting their
various energy schemes. Solar
ceUs may be marketed as green,
but they are harmful to the
environment and human
prosperity for several reasons.
First, solar cells are hardly
clean. They contain heavy metals
that can leach into groundwater
when disposed at the end of their
lifecycle. Photovoltaic
manufacturers also employ toxic
and explosive compounds that
can lead to unintended health
risks for workers and local
residents. Scientists are
discovering the same types of
short- and long-term harms that
concerned citizens have
historically rallied against.
Second, it takes power to make
power. Humans use dirty fossil
fuels because their energy is
dense, portable, storable,
fungible and transformable into
other products. When we expend
those finite resources to build
solar arrays, we are left with
energy that is not dense, hut
diffuse. Solar energy is not
readily portable, storahle,
fungible or transformable. These
limitations and their associated
environmental impacts aren't
easuy measured and so they
typically do not show up in
official solar analyses.
Third, there's no evidence to
support the assumption that
solar ceUs are a zero carbon
energy technology A study in
Nature Climate Change by
U niversity of Oregon researcher
Richard York, points to just the
opposite. Solar ceUs don't offset
fossil fuel or carbon footprints in
practice - they are merely a
green illusion. Solar cells rely on
fossil fuels for mining,
fabrication, installation and
maintenance. They also require
conventional power plants, or
storage mechanisms such as
batteries, with additional layers
of environmental impacts.
We've been promised that
solar cells will become efficient
and affordable. Today the only
difference is that these fairy tales
are funded through the glossy PR
campaigns of BP and Shell, and
other energy firms.
Nevertheless, the apparent
thrift of solar cells is also a slight
of hand. C hina and other
countries heavily subsidise solar
ceU production, which makes
them seem more affordable than
they actually are. The solar
industry generally highlights the
cost of polysilicon and the
technical components of solar
cells. But these represent less
than half the cost of an installed
solar system. The larger costs
arise from installation,
maintenance, insurance, as weU
as expenses that accrue through
operating and maintaining
concurrent power plants or
battery backup. Newer thin film
technologies degrade quicker
than older models, offsetting
much of the presumed benefit.
Even if solar cells were
massively more efficient and less
expensive, they would only serve
to expand energy supplies and
accelerate overall demand. Solar
cells shine brightly within the
idealism of textbooks, hut
experience reveals a scattered
collection of side effects and
limitations.
The real clean energy is less
energy If we wish to leave a
smaller footprint on the Earth
and back away from resource
scarcity we should develop
strategies to use far less energy
overall, not subsidize more
energy production.
Any number of conservation
strategies offer far higher
dividends than solar cell
investments. We could question
growth in energy production,
economy, and population. A ll of
these initiatives are left
under-represented as we
unwittingly rush to celebrate
energy firms who are building
the next round of ecological
disaster machines.
Haich 2013 E n g i n e e r i n g & 1 1 e c h n o l o g y
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