New Report shows low lifecycle emissions from PV [RE-wrenches]

Allan Sindelar allan at positiveenergysolar.com
Tue Feb 26 21:22:48 PST 2008


Wrenches:

Here's a link to a new American Chemical Society report on PV production and
other emissions:
http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/esthag/asap/abs/es071763q.html.

Here's text copy in a 2/26/08 New York Times article about the report:
"Solar power generated by photovoltaic cells is among the greenest of energy
options. The cells just sit there, basking in the sun and emitting nothing
but electrons.

But cells are manufactured, and the manufacturing process is not benign.
Over the life cycle of solar cells - from the mining of raw materials to the
finished product - just how green are they?
Vasilis M. Fthenakis of Brookhaven National Laboratory and colleagues have
the latest analysis, to be published in Environmental Science and
Technology. The short answer is that photovoltaic cells are still very
green.

The researchers looked at emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants like
nitrogen oxide gases and heavy metals from the manufacture of four types of
cells. Most of the emissions are results of the electricity used, and the
amounts depend in part on the mix of electricity in the grid, or how much
comes from coal plants, hydroelectric, nuclear and the like."



Abstract: Photovoltaic (PV) technologies have shown remarkable progress
recently in terms of annual production capacity and life cycle environmental
performances, which necessitate timely updates of environmental indicators.
Based on PV production data of 2004-2006, this study presents the life-cycle
greenhouse gas emissions, criteria pollutant emissions, and heavy metal
emissions from four types of major commercial PV systems: multicrystalline
silicon, monocrystalline silicon, ribbon silicon, and thin-film cadmium
telluride. Life-cycle emissions were determined by employing average
electricity mixtures in Europe and the United States during the materials
and module production for each PV system. Among the current vintage of PV
technologies, thin-film cadmium telluride (CdTe) PV emits the least amount
of harmful air emissions as it requires the least amount of energy during
the module production. However, the differences in the emissions between
different PV technologies are very small in comparison to the emissions from
conventional energy technologies that PV could displace. As a part of
prospective analysis, the effect of PV breeder was investigated. Overall,
all PV technologies generate far less life-cycle air emissions per GWh than
conventional fossil-fuel-based electricity generation technologies. At least
89% of air emissions associated with electricity generation could be
prevented if electricity from photovoltaics displaces electricity from the
grid.


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