Does Solar Have A Dirty Secret?

Expat Living contributor CATHIE HEARNS sheds some light on solar, the world’s third biggest renewable power source behind water and wind.

One year’s worth of solar energy hitting the earth’s surface exceeds the potential of all the known energy reserves for oil, coal, natural gas and uranium. In just one hour, the solar energy reaching the earth’s surface is around 173,000 TWh (terawatt hours, or one trillion watts). This compares to humanity’s annual consumption of 160,000 TWh (in 2017).

So capturing the sun’s energy to power our lives seems the most obvious and cleanest way forward. Right? Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple.

Analysing the industry

In order to gauge the carbon footprint of a product, you need to carry out a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). This should take into account everything involved in the realisation of the product from “cradle to grave” – for example, the mining of raw materials, the transportation of those materials and the finished goods, the electricity and other resources used in the manufacturing process, the cost of deployment, and so on.