this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
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Climate
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You still need petrochemicals for the material refining and production process of solar cells. They're better, but not as amazing as some people seem to think.
Thanks a lot, captain obvious. We did the calculations, thanks for repeating fossil industry propaganda.
It's not propaganda, it's an unfortunate fact of almost all industrial processes that they require oil based products at one stage or another. I don't like it either but until/if these technologies can rely on renewable alternatives for such processes, they're not really green or renewable, and neither are the electronics that they power. Everyone seems to conveniently forget this. If you want true green technology and renewable energy, you're going to need to give up industry altogether. Which we'll probably end up doing when the coming climate catastrophe forces us all back to the stone age.
Even if they do, they massively cut down on total pollution. They don't magically produce more pollution in one manufacturing process, than all the oil they are replacing that will be burned. That's nutzo.
As I already stated, yes, they are better than say, a coal burning power plant. I'm not saying otherwise. But I'm pointing out that solar panels and electronics in general still require many polluting and non-renewable resources and processes to create. And solar panels wear out eventually, like everything else. So yes, you're burning less fuel, but it's not "zero emission" or "sustainable" (currently) for their production or their eventual replacement. I'm just annoyed by the way these technologies get pushed as an almost magical alternative to fossil fuels when fossil fuels and chemicals are still required to make them.
And when they wear out they can largely be recycled
Mining equipment does not strictly need to be diesel powered. Rest of solar manufacturing uses electricity and heat, that also doesn't strictly need to be fossil fuel powered. When oil is used for plastics/tires/asphalt it is not burned and so does not create emissions.
That's like saying, you cannot actually go to school, do homework and pass tests if you only reach a score of 99/100 points.
Yeah I thought they grow on trees, like oil tankers
pretty much anything is far better than setting something on fire exactly one time
We'd have a lot more for material refining and production processing if we weren't lighting it all up to generate our next iteration of crypto coins and AI slop videos.
Maybe we just need a law that prohibits use of petrochemicals except in the procurement of new green capital.