‘Green energy’ scam: Solar’s vast appetite for mining, energy and fossil fuels

The environmental cost of so-called ‘green energy’ is something climate change activists don’t want to talk about.

The enormous material and energy inputs required to manufacture large-scale solar power fields has raised questions over the real value of the technology.

Building solar panels with a generating capacity of 1 gigawatt requires roughly 18.5 tonnes of silver, more than 3,300 tonnes of polysilicon, and over 10,000 tonnes of aluminium. Those materials do not appear by magic. Producing the polysilicon alone is said to require thousands of tonnes of quartz, coal, petroleum coke, charcoal and woodchips — all extracted, processed and transported through energy-intensive industrial supply chains.

The metals themselves carry heavy energy costs. Manufacturing the silver required for a single gigawatt of solar capacity is estimated to consume more than 4,600 megawatt hours of electricity — comparable to the annual power use of several hundred households in the US. Aluminium production is even more demanding, with the energy required equated to the yearly electricity consumption of more than 100,000 average homes.

Critics say these realities are routinely glossed over by green energy advocates, who focus on “zero-emissions” operation while ignoring the upstream environmental damage from mining, smelting and fossil-fuel-powered manufacturing.

Solar panels with a power capacity of 1 GW require about 18.5 tons of silver, 3,380 tons of polysilicon, and 10,252 tons of aluminum. Producing just the polysilicon requires 8,112 tons of quartz, 2,028 tons of coal, 1,149.2 tons of petroleum coke, 5,121 tons of charcoal, and… pic.twitter.com/ZiB8oa45UB

— John Lee Pettimore (@JohnLeePettim13) December 20, 2025