If you installed batteries in 1997 there is no chance they will last to 2023. You must have changed batteries by now, 10 years is superb life, 25 is impossible. 20 to 25 for solar panels but they will have degraded by then. We live off the grid and have since 2009, we installed a new system in 2010. If the batteries last 10 years I will be surprised, we have 2kW of panels and 1180 AHrs of Pb batteries on a 48V system, with a 5000W, 7000W peak inverter, we're in Northern NSW and have never come close to running out of power. Lowest temperature corrected SOC I have seen is 80% after 14 overcast/rainy days, we are very frugal but live comfortably. We moved to this mild climate on purpose, so we don't need AC, heating etc The Tesla batteries bring nothing much new to to the system for me, nor for most RAPS users my concrete slab easily handles the Lead Acid batteries. Yes, I spend 5 mins once a month topping up the batteries with water but I consider this a good thing.

I have never had to use a generator in the 6 years we have been off grid nor do we own one.

I live in rural Australia and vote Green :) Last time I voted LNP was Hewson. We've long been ignored, started in the '70s and continues today.

I am looking at an electric motorbike, the Zero DS, but the $30,000 (with extra batteries) is just too much.

Just a dumb question from an ignoramus:

All the bits a pieces that go into solar power production, panels, batteries, etc. - were they made using solar power, or the traditional coal- or oil-fuelled power supplies ? In terms of CO2 production, how much CO2 is produced over the life (including their manufacture) of solar panels, batteries, etc., and how would this compare to the total amount of CO2 produced if all the power generated was instead generated by dirty coal and oil ?

Taking the production of all those bits and pieces into account, how much CO2 is saved over the life of a solar panel ?

Gord, it just shows how ignorant some people can be to even ask that question :)

Joe

Hi Moe, don't be too hard on yourself, even some quite bright people have trouble working through this.

At present, most of the energy embodied in solar PV production is derived from fossil fuel sources, hence Peter Lang's obsessing over ERoEI, however, that is changing. There is no conceptual or practical reason that solar PV, even using current Si technology which requires high temperatures to smelt the silicon, can't be produced using energy solely derived from renewable sources, including the energy needed to mine the raw materials.

Some manufacturers are already moving that way, notably Solar City, but others as well. It's an obvious way to go.

At that point, no CO2 is generated by the manufacturing process, other than that released as a result of the smelting of the oxidised silicon and that's both minimal and readily captured.

Hi Craig, thanks, but that wasn't the question: I assume that solar panels etc. can be conceivably produced using solar power only, but how much CO2 is generated by the production of those input technologies, those machines which make the panels, a la Piero Sraffa ?

Surely all that has to be included in the total production of CO2 as a by-product of the total, go-to-whoa manufacture and maintenance of solar panels, and all the ancillary bits ? For wind farms as well, all that cement and steel ?

A Fool can ask stupid questions of a King, obviously.

Joe

Joe, I don't pretend to know as much as Craig on this topic, but I do know something about power supply and how its made; with i.e., average transmission and distributions losses from current coal fired power, being in excess of 50% or in total, around an averaged 67%?

And I can see what you want him to say, that coal fired electricity, used to build any of the solar panels or batteries, may contribute some once only carbon to the atmosphere, as may occur as the minerals involved are mined?

However, we have other things that are possible, like solar thermal power, that not only competes with coal fired power on price but base load requirements as well!

And here I'm referring to private working models, not theory.

I believe we could do far better with a combination of thorium power, micro grids and quite massive automation or high tech manufacture.

Moreover, I've seen massive regenerative electric walking draglines used in open cut mines, and the diesel electrics mine trucks and loaders could become CNG electrics, to cut down both carbon and costs?

And given truck transportable models, see no reason why the obligatory diesels can't be replaced at the mine site with, thorium reactors?

We have enough thorium to power the world for 700 years, but our homegrown industries for thousands; if kept here exclusively for our manufacturing base, and the huge competitive advantage that would then confer.

Other places might be able to build cheaper ships, but then those other places aren't currently supplied with price gouged gold plated power!

And professional wages/salaries are lower here than in Germany or Japan? Power prices, dumb tax policy and dumber intermittent production, is why we're losing to the comp!

Given my wish list, which has to include nuclear power, we could build ships and subs for half that of Germany or Japan; let alone, need to import panels or ceramic fuel cells from either!
Rhrosty.

Steady on there Craig Minns, you appear to be wearing rose coloured glasses.

Solar panel installations require quite a bit of material, including copper, plastics of various types, aluminium, steel & other "stuff", the production of which certainly generates plenty of CO2.

It would be nice to get an answer that we can believe from blokes like you, who know. You should paint a full picture, not an idealised one.

As far as I'm concerned personally the global warming CO2 fraud has nothing to do with the advantages or otherwise of solar panel usage, but for many it still does. I certainly hope you are right about the battery technology.