[Dana1963]

Originally Posted by Number 10 GI

The solar panel isn't as "Green" as it's proponents want you to believe. I used to work as an Industrial Research Analyst in the Industrial Research Division for the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. The purpose of the Department was to attract new industry to the state and to help existing businesses to expand their operations.

Hemlock Semiconductor selected Clarksville, TN as their site for a silicon plant to produce silicon for solar panels. My division was given a list of raw materials needed in the manufacturing process and we were to locate sources for the materials.

Silica sand with a very high purity level is the main ingredient. That kind of sand is hard to find, there are huge deposits of sand in nearly every state but silica sand of that purity level is scarce. To get the sand it has to be extracted from the ground using DIESEL fueled earth moving equipment. Because of the scarcity of high purity silica most of the sources were many miles from the proposed silicon plant. That sand had to be transported to the plant using DIESEL powered trucks.

The next lower raw material was charcoal made from HARDWOOD, not sawmill leavings. Charcoal is made by burning the hardwood down to briquettes. This creates all kinds of smoke pollution and again the sources weren't near to the plant and the charcoal had to be brought in with again, DIESEL powered trucks.

The next raw material was industrial gasses. Luckily the gas generation plant was required to be built on site however the gas plant required a lot of electrical power, which is generated by COAL!
Now once the silicon manufacturing plant has all the necessary ingredients to make silicon all is good except that the process uses copious amounts of electricity all of which is generated by COAL fired plants.

Now it takes a plant to manufacture the solar panel so the processed silicon has to be transported again by a DIESEL powered truck to the plant making the panels which probably uses COAL fired electric generation plants for power. All of these processes produce industrial pollution. Then you have the problem of recycling, if possible, the worn out solar panels.

Now for the irony. Hemlock Semiconductor spent $1.2 Billion, yes Billion, to construct the plant. Due to an over supply of silicon from Asia, Hemlock decided that it wasn't fiscally sound to produce silicon because of the cheap silicon from overseas. They closed the plant and it never manufactured 1 ounce of silicon. The plant was abandoned and everything was sold for scrap.

Hemlock Semiconductor is still in business Michigan