Originally posted by aldra
in terms of green energy, a single solar panel or wind turbine is never able to generate enough power over its lifetime (which is typically less than 20 years) to manufacture the steel or glass required to make another solar panel or wind turbine,
So, you're either just plain wrong to begin with and referencing nothing or, generously, are referencing some extremely fucked up figuring of input energy.
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/se/c9se00127a#!divAbstractlet alone the rare earth metals or more exotic materials required to boost efficiency
Not sure what the point is in this one tbh.
Solar panels can be recycled including for rare earth metals, it's just not something we actually do yet. The relevant process chains are simply not in place but there's no fundamental barrier to doing so. It's just cheaper right now to not recycle shit.
maybe tidal and geothermal are feasible, but outside of those (which only work in certain regions) the best option we have is nuclear
Nuclear is not renewable, it's the absolute best non-renewable and it should certainly play THE key role to getting off fossil fuels but the core reason we should want renewables is because producing the actual energy generation method somewhere is no longer linked to constantly importing the entropy gradient to be turned into electricity.
Those methods still obviously use materials but the supply chain for those materials isn't specifically for energy generation. You can use the other materials involved for a bunch of other shit.
