{"id":57267,"date":"2022-01-10T12:05:31","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T01:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=57267"},"modified":"2025-04-02T07:23:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T21:53:01","slug":"coal-vs-solar-mining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/coal-vs-solar-mining\/","title":{"rendered":"Coal Uses 100x More Mined Material Than Solar Per kWh Generated"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Coal<\/p>\n

On Christmas Eve, on Twitter, DaveMySpace asked this question:<\/p>\n

\"Mining<\/p>\n

Finn promised DaveMySpace an answer. After two weeks of research, this post is my best answer.<\/p>\n

As DaveMySpace has realised, solar panels<\/a> require resources.\u00a0 Silicon and metals need to be mined and refined. Energy must be expended.\u00a0 Some people get very worked up over these facts. They invariably express horror, shock, and disbelief at how many resources and how much mining is required to make renewables, but they never seem to say anything along the lines of…<\/p>\n

“It would be wonderful to further reduce the resources required to manufacture renewables, but thank god it’s only a small fraction of what’s required for coal and natural gas.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I can understand people getting upset about solar panels, batteries and wind turbines consuming resources.\u00a0 I’m personally furious we haven’t yet mastered the magic spells to pull solar cells from a hat.\u00a0 But if the whingers truly care about the amount of mining and resources required to generate energy, they should be jumping for joy wind and solar power require far less per kilowatt-hour generated than fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

I see two reasons people worry about how many resources renewables consume instead of celebrating how much they save compared to coal and gas:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Ignorance:<\/strong>\u00a0 They simply don’t know solar and wind energy generation uses far fewer resources than fossil fuel generation.<\/li>\n
  2. Human Nature:\u00a0 <\/strong>Some people just want to whinge.\u00a0 Whether or not there’s a real reason rarely matters.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I’m writing this article to help solve the first problem, but it’s not going to do much about human nature. \u00a0Hopefully, it will encourage whingers to whine about something unimportant, such as their favourite Pokemon not getting enough respect or how people laugh at them when they insist yellow is a flavour1<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n

    The Main Reason For Confusion<\/h2>\n

    Building a solar or wind farm or installing solar panels on roofs requires a lot of material resources invested upfront.\u00a0 More than for a coal or natural gas power station per kilowatt-hour it will generate over it’s lifetime.<\/p>\n

    For solar and wind, that’s about it2<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n

    But for fossil fuel generation, getting the power station built is only the beginning.<\/p>\n