Re:Economic growth no longer requires rising emissions
by Schroedingersat on Friday November 11, 2022 @06:03PM
(#33568004)
> There aren't even enough materials currently mined to support the US switching to mostly (>50%) solar / wind. Silver/gold/copper/nickle prices would go up an order of magnitude, for instance.
You're thinking of nuclear. Which has a variety of critical resources and no plan reduce them. Renewables live in the real world where using less of a scarce resource allows you to outcompete your competition.
Modern perc panels use 30-50g (so half of silver production would produce 500GW/yr) of silver per net kW with commercial but not fully deployed technologies to reduce it to 18-30g, and feasible technologies to bring it below 5g (which is what a nuclear reactor uses). This is the only limiting resource that renewables necessarily use more of than nuclear other than concrete.
You're thinking of nuclear. Which has a variety of critical resources and no plan reduce them. Renewables live in the real world where using less of a scarce resource allows you to outcompete your competition.
Modern perc panels use 30-50g (so half of silver production would produce 500GW/yr) of silver per net kW with commercial but not fully deployed technologies to reduce it to 18-30g, and feasible technologies to bring it below 5g (which is what a nuclear reactor uses). This is the only limiting resource that renewables necessarily use more of than nuclear other than concrete.