We Don't Need No ...

Mike. Dude.

What are solar panels made of? What holds them up on the roof?

Its KwH of -capacity- man, not kwh of power. Obviously. Being deliberately obtuse is not an argument.

Kilowatt-hour is a measure of energy.
Kilowatt is a measure of power, or as you call it "capacity".

To use 1 gram/kilowatt-hour is just like using so many kilos of coal/megawatt-hour of a coal-fired generator, or so many kilos of uranium/megawatt-hour of a nuclear generator.

In any case, the statistic quoted is wrong, and it demonstrates that the guy who wrote it is either telling outright lies, or he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Mike, they mean generating capacity, not the amount of power generated. Example, a 3 megawatt windmill consumes a h3ll of a lot more metal to build it than a 3 megawatt diesel generator, which will probably fit inside a two car garage. Because windmills are -bigger-.

Solar panels take aluminum to build them. They do not consume aluminum as part of their operation. This is taken as given in the article, because everybody knows that solar panels to not have a hopper where you shovel the aluminum powder in.

I say again, being deliberately obtuse is not an argument.

Again, kilowatt-hour is a unit of energy.

Power is energy per unit time.

1 gram per kilowatt is a reasonable thing to say.
1 gram per kilowatt-hour is a lie.

Also, given that a 3 kilowatt gas generator weighs on the order of 80 pounds, and that is a gas generator uses about 1 liter of gas/kilowatt-hour, 1 gram per kilowatt is not even worth mentioning.

I am not being obtuse, it seems it is you who do not know the difference between energy and power.

Care to comment on nickel? Since you're mister expert, why don't you tell the nice folks all about sulphur dioxide and acid rain and all the strip-mining going on (primarily in Canada) to make all your other silly green BS? Won't SOMEONE think of the children?!?

Mike, a reasonable person, which clearly you are not, would look at that statistic, and conclude that the metal consumption was calculated on a life-cycle basis. Solar panels don't last forever; their capacity degrades over time. A solar panel will produce a finite number of kWh over its useful life; determine that amount, and divide by the weight of aluminum used, and there you go. When they have to be replaced, so do the aluminum frames, which can be recycled, of course. Not so, the silicon, as far as I know. And the embodied energy in silicon is not trivial, either.

A McMaster EE prof that has specialized in semi conductor materials told me that the energy required to create the silicon semiconductor material for a solar panel likely exceeds the total Lifetime energy that will be produced, except under the most ideal conditions. Even with the technological advances, it's at least 10 years.

Mike said: "1 gram per kilowatt-hour is a lie."

YEAH! RIGHT ON!

Or,well... it could be a typo. Or maybe what Gord said. Or what I said.

I'd switch to decaf, Mike.