this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
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I'm not gonna pretend to be an expert. I can't even find the graph I saw -- much less verify its integrity. If you're really curious, I can tell you I once saw a bar graph that had fossil fuels (or maybe it was just coal) as very negative, then solar as barely breaking even, then wind or maybe it was hydro electric as more positive, and nuclear as very very positive. I don't really want to defend the graph because I can't even find it to check the axes.
I will say my undergrad was in material science (actually "nanoscience" but basically material science), and there seemed a lot of semi-open corruption in wafer fabrication (or maybe it was just between Andrew Cuomo and CNSE). I was never really clear on the details, but it made me quite skeptical of anything associated with that field. Life-time is actually one of the big points as the economics teacher I had in undergrad said most solar panels are tossed well before they reach their supposed lifespans -- again, I don't know if that's actually true.
To be honest, as I've gotten older the independence aspect of solar panels has been what's appealed to me more than the environmentalism. Not to say I don't care about the environment. Just that I don't think green energy is going to be adopted in time to solve the problem, and carbon capture is obvious BS unless it's biologically based (went into structural biology in grad school, so the biology is closer to my expertise).