Hacker News Reader

But the thing is these materials represent a lot of greenhouse gases in their production. In the case of solar panels because of the whole industry related to their production, and in the case of wind because of the sheer amount of material, most of which is either (1) metals reduced with coke, or (2) concrete which outgassed massive amounts of CO2 when it set.

And they are not being reused or recycled.

View on HN

Sure, it's not ideal, and it would be great if economical recycling techniques are developed, but over their lifetime they produce a whole lot less emissions than most of the alternatives.

If we're going to start counting CO2 emissions in the production of these things, surely every single energy generation technique looks pretty crummy as well.

Btw: I really want SMR to succeed. A mix of solar, wind, SMRs, and a smart grid seems like a great way to go.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com