Many "Green" Energy Technologies are not Innocent

There are many scientific misconceptions on how to capture energy without releasing carbon dioxide.
A particular area of confusion is in the science of solar panels. As our technology exists today, it takes more energy to produce a solar panel than it will ever collect in its life time. That's pretty much why many utilities love the idea of having a solar panel on every house. Huge amounts of energy are required to process the silicon and other earth metals in these panels. Currently, the only way to collect solar energy efficiently is to use mirrors, as is done in with Sterling engines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine) or by exploiting Carnot cycles in heat engines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_engine).

Another misconception is that wind energy, as it exists right now, does not require carbon to work. Remember, most windmills are made from poly-carbon material, extremely energy intensive to make and are actually made either from oil, or coal byproducts! Also, most overlook the extreme level of maintenance that these windmills require. Look at any wind company’s expense report (e.g. Gamesa) to see how carbon intensive it is for windmill upkeep.

Even if we were able to exploit these two types of energy to their fullest potential across the planet, in the perfect situation, they would only provide 25% of the energy we currently use. The real question is not how do we use these types of ‘green’ technologies to provide power, rather it is once these technologies are in place, where do we get the other 75%? Biomass and hydroelectricity may give us another 15 – 20%, but do we then have to turn to (gasp) nuclear? Fusion energy is about 50 years off (according to the guys at Berkeley) so where do we store the fission nuclear refuse in the meantime? These scientific caveats are extremely important to consider as we transform our energy sector and are so how missing in the dialog down in Washington.