Solar Industry
Solar power’s detractors frequently describe solar as “secretly” non-environmentally-friendly. They point to the PV module manufacturing process, utility-scale arrays’ potential impacts to land and wildlife, and concentrating solar power (CSP) plants’ on-site water usage as examples of attributes that negate the environmental benefits of deploying this renewable energy source.
But when all of the impacts are considered and all the costs are tallied, how does solar compare to other common energy sources? A new report called “The Hidden Costs of Electricity: Comparing the Hidden Costs of Power Generation Fuels” suggests that the indirect or externalized costs of fossil fuels, nuclear power and biomass still outweigh those of solar power.
Researchers analyzed solar power and five other energy sources (biomass, coal, nuclear, natural gas and wind) in several categories: water impacts, climate change impacts, air pollution impacts, planning and cost risk, subsidies and tax incentives, land impacts and other impacts.
The report, prepared by Synapse Energy Economics Inc. for the nonprofit and nonpartisan Civil Society Institute and the Environmental Working Group, concluded that “huge demands on increasingly scarce water are a major hidden cost of a business-as-usual approach to American electricity generation that needs to be more fully understood by policymakers and the public.”
If interested in discussing energy matters, you can contact Court Rich, director of Rose Law Group’s Renewable Energy Implementation Department, crich@roselawgroup.com
