844

Vaclav Smil, Power Density: A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2015), 52–57, 199.

845

Peter Laufer, “The Tortoise Is Collateral Damage in the Mojave Desert,” High Country News, March 19, 2014, https://www.hcn.org/wotr/the-tortoise-is-collateral-damage-in-the-mojave-desert.

846

Quadrennial Technology Review: An Assessment of Energy Technologies and Research Opportunities, U.S. Department of Energy, 2015, https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/03/f34/quadrennial-technology-review-2015_1.pdf, 402.

847

Jemin Desai and Mark Nelson, “Are We Headed for a Solar Waste Crisis?” Environmental Progress, June 21, 2017, http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/6/21/are-we-headed-for-a-solar-waste-crisis.

848

Kelly Pickerel, “It’s Time to Plan for Solar Panel Recycling in the United States,” Solar Power World, April 2, 2018, https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2018/04/its-time-to-plan-for-solar-panel-recycling-in-the-united-states.

849

Nadav Enbar, “PV Life Cycle Analysis Managing PV Assets over an Uncertain Lifetime,” slide presentation, Solar Power International, September 14, 2016, https://www.solarpowerinternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/N253_9-14-1530.pdf, 20.

850

Idiano D’Adamo, Michela Miliacca, and Paolo Rosa, “Economic Feasibility for Recycling of Waste Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Modules,” International Journal of Photoenergy, June 27, 2017, article no. 4184676, https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/4184676.

851

Stephen Cheng, “China’s Ageing Solar Panels Are Going to Be a Big Environmental Problem,” South China Morning Post, July 30, 2017, https://www.scmp.com.

852

Travis Hoium, “Solar Shake-up: Why More Bankruptcies Are Coming in 2017,” The Motley Fool, April 18, 2017, https://www.fool.com. Travis Hoium, “Bankruptcies Continue in Solar Industry,” The Motley Fool, May 19, 2017, https://www.fool.com.

853

As an example, Solyndra’s bankruptcy led to its abandonment of a cadmium waste storage facility in Milpitas, California, due to the facts that the facility was not financed by Solyndra’s federal loan guarantees and that Solyndra had not made much money prior to its bankruptcy. Dustin Mulvaney, Solar Power: Innovation, Sustainability, and Environmental Justice (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019), 83–84.

854

Daniel Wetzel, “Study Warns of Environmental Risks from Solar Modules,” Die Welt, May 13, 2018, https://cloudup.com/c1xW_Mk$f85.

855

Cheng, “China’s Ageing Solar Panels Are Going to Be a Big Environmental Problem.”

856

“Illegally Traded and Dumped E-Waste Worth up to $19 Billion Annually Poses Risks to Health, Deprives Countries of Resources, Says UNEP Report,” United Nations Environment Programme, May 12, 2015, https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/illegally-traded-and-dumped-e-waste-worth-19-billion-annually-poses.

857

Amy Yee, “Electronic Marvels Turn into Dangerous Trash in East Africa,” New York Times, May 12, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com.

858

Smil, Power Density: A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses, 205, 208.

859

We can check this claim by assuming that his plant would be similar to Mesquite Solar, one of the largest solar plants in the world, located in the Sonoran Desert. In 2018, Mesquite Solar 1, 2, and 3 generated 1.15 TWh, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, on a land area of 10 km2. In 2018, the United States generated 4,174.4 TWh of energy. Replacing this electricity would require 3,636 Mesquites with an area of 36,422.3 km2. In comparison, the state of Maryland has an area of 32,131 km2.

860

Using monthly generation data for Mesquite Solar plants from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, we can see the lowest and highest sixmonth periods of generation at Mesquite, and compare them to the same lowest and highest half years of generation of electricity in the entire United States. If 3,642 Mesquites provided all electricity, the worst six-month energy deficit, from October 2018 to March 2019, would have been 444 TWh. Overbuilding solar in this example by 30 percent would reduce this deficit to 16 TWh.

861

The U.S. Department of Energy found that in 2018, four-hour-capacity lithium ion battery facilities cost $469 per kWh of energy storage capacity. K. Mongird, V. Foledar, V. Viswanathan et al., Energy Storage Technology and Cost Characterization Report, U.S. Department of Energy, July 2019, https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/07/f65/Storage%20Cost%20and%20Performance%20Characterization%20Report_Final.pdf.

862

Tesla, “Tesla Introduces Tesla Energy,” YouTube, May 2, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=82&v=NvCIhn7_FXI&feature=emb_logo.

863

Victor Tangermann, “Elon Musk Is Talking About Powering All of America with Solar,” Futurism, December 12, 2019, https://futurism.com.

864

Smil, Power Density: A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses, 247.

865

Smil, Power Density: A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses, 247.

866

D. Weißbach, G. Ruprecht, A. Huke et al., “Energy Intensities, EROIs (Energy Returned on Invested), and Energy Payback Times of Electricity Generating Power Plants,” Energy 52 (April 2013): 210–21, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.029.

867

D. Weißbach, G. Ruprecht, A. Huke et al., “Energy Intensities, EROIs (Energy Returned on Invested), and Energy Payback Times of Electricity Generating Power Plants,” Energy 52 (April 2013): 210–21, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.029.

868

Dohmen et al., “German Failure on the Road to a Renewable Future.”

869

The power density of wood-based biomass is from van Zalk and Behrens, “The Spatial Extent of Renewable and Non-renewable Power Generation.” U.S. electricity generation data are from the U.S. Energy Information Agency.

870

Nana Yaw Amponsah, Mads Troldborg, Bethany Kington et al., “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Renewable Energy Sources: A Review of Lifecycle Considerations,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 39 (November 2014), 461–75, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2014.07.087.

871

Timothy Searchinger, Ralph Heimlich, R. A. Houghton et al., “Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Changes,” Science 319, no. 5867 (2008): 1238–40, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1151861. Tiziano Gomiero, “Are Biofuels an Effective and Viable Energy Strategy for Industrialized Societies? A Reasoned Overview of Potentials and