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| Mon, 2nd Mar 2020 13:36:00 |
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Making solar panels is awful for the environment. This new design may be the cure. |
When it comes to combatting the planet's rising temperature and carbon emissions levels, renewable energy options like solar panels are a clear path of action. But despite the obvious environmental advantages of such an approach, authors of a new energy analysis write that current solar power technology has a larger carbon footprint than you might think. While it hovers around two percent today, as solar energy continues to scale in the coming decades, the authors write that emissions from solar technology could eclipse that of international aviation at about five percent the world's total energy budget.
In a study published Monday in Joule, researchers analyze these trends and demonstrate how a new approach to solar cell design could lower solar emissions twenty-fold and bring the technology close to its lowest emissions yet.
While the impact of solar energy on carbon emissions may seem counterintuitive, the authors write that its lurking carbon impact lies in both manufacturing energy expenses, differing efficiency standards across global sectors and the technology's anticipated scaling in the coming years.
"First, the carbon footprint of PV [photovolatics] depends on the total CO2 emitted during production, which is determined by the industrial requirements of the specific PV technology used and the maturity and efficiency of the manufacturing industry," write the authors. "For example, the footprint of a Si-PV [silicon photovolatic] module produced in China is twice as high in comparison to a production in the EU or the US due to a different degree of industrialization and environmental restrictions."
The authors considered three different future scenarios for the silicon-based solar cells we use today, ranging from optimistic to realistic emission levels, and found that in all scenarios the total level of carbon emissions created through these technologies was more than the international aviation industry as a whole.
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