Tesla To Power Gigafactory With World's Largest Solar Rooftop Installation (inhabitat.com) 115
Last week, Tesla announced that its Gigafactory has begun mass production of lithium-ion battery cells in Nevada. But the company failed to mention one thrilling detail in their January 4 announcement: the Gigafactory could be powered by the world's largest solar rooftop installation. According to an investor handout, a 70-megawatt (MW) solar array along with ground solar panels could let the factory operate entirely on clean energy. Inhabitat reports: The 70 MW solar array would be around seven times larger than any rooftop arrays currently installed, according to Tesla's exciting handout released by Electrek and confirmed as genuine by The Verge. The rooftop array currently boasting the title of world's largest is a 11.5 MW installation in India. The United States' biggest rooftop array is a 10 MW array atop a California Whirlpool distribution center. SolarCity will likely manufacture the solar panels, according to The Verge, as Tesla acquired the solar energy company in November. Powerpacks will store any excess energy generated by the vast solar installation. Tesla said in the handout the "all-electric" factory will be able to run with greater efficiency and will produce zero carbon emissions. Heating and water use at the Gigafactory will also be sustainable. In the handout, Tesla said a large part of heating for the building would come from waste heat obtained from production processes. Also, "Gigafactory's closed-loop water supply system uses six different treatment systems to efficiently re-circulate about 1.5 million liters (that's around 400,000 gallons) of water, representing an 80 percent reduction in fresh water usage compared with standard processes." Tesla even said they're building a recycling facility at the Gigafactory that will be able to "safely reprocess" battery cells, packs, and modules to obtain metal usable in new cells.
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Sure you could but you don't have enough surface area to charge an electric car in a reasonable time.
Although it's plenty to run the stereo indefinitely.
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Actually 91.75 km/h [wikipedia.org]. (I think, but not sure, that includes night time.) But these vehicles aren't terribly practical, and wherever you live probably gets less sun than the Australian outback.
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Correction: Driving time is 8am to 5pm, with a little leeway for finding a good place to stop for the night. It does not include night driving.
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Although it's plenty to run the stereo indefinitely.
And the blower motor, and the after run coolant pump. And perhaps even the heat pump, a little bit, but that would take substantial panel area. Running the blower motor only takes a sunroof-sized area.
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If you had a car with no battery, I would agree with you. If you had enough battery to store sufficient juice for your typical drive then the solar roof could simply be charging that battery during the day when you are not driving. Seems like that would be plenty, especially for someone who uses the car infrequently (so long as it is parked in a sunny spot).
Recycle at the point of use (Score:4, Insightful)
Totally makes sense.
Don't know how much waste the recycle process produces, but not having to ship the material but across the street will save a bundle.
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Totally makes sense.
Sure does. Buy your own product for power and claim it as a capital expense, and get US taxpayers to help with a big tax credit. You get all that plus get to say Solar City sales are increasing. Smart move by Musk.
Dunno if (Score:5, Funny)
This is re-volting news for the anti solar PV crowd.
Re: Dunno if (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's paying? Musk has received billions of government aid. Is it a good investment, considering the outcome - a series of toys for the very rich? I don't think so.
Thanks, Obama.
Who's paying for oil and NatGas and Petrochemical and Ethanol subsidies? If solar was the only and only ever thing ever subsidized, you might have a point. But if oil and gas can have the huge subsidies they've gotten, well, let's hear you bitch about those.
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But if oil and gas can have the huge subsidies they've gotten
What huge subsidies are you referring to? All of the articles I've seen about fossil fuel subsidies are mostly bullshit. They'll include intangibles like "not having to pay for cancer or climate change caused by coal... that's worth $89 trillion!!!" as a subsidy. Or they'll include as a subsidy the full cost of the highway system, because "that's just for gas burning cars man! that's worth trillions!!!" (I guess they'll have to give up that line now that there are viable electric cars in mass production.) O
Re: Dunno if (Score:4, Interesting)
But if oil and gas can have the huge subsidies they've gotten
What huge subsidies are you referring to? All of the articles I've seen about fossil fuel subsidies are mostly bullshit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Pick which ones you want to debunk.
I'll make note that of the renewables, the major subsidy there is for fuel ethanol, which most people that are interested in renewable energy don't want.
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I've seen that list so there's an easy example to give you.
One of the largest subsidies is the cap on liabilities for nuclear accidents which the nuclear power industry has negotiated with governments. “Like car drivers, the operators of nuclear plants should be properly insured,” said Gerry Wolff, coordinator of the Energy Fair group. The group calculates that, "if nuclear operators were fully insured against the cost of nuclear disasters like those at Chernobyl and Fukushima, the price of nuclear electricity would rise by at least €0.14 per kWh and perhaps as much as €2.36, depending on assumptions made".
So an anti-nuclear group came up with some assumptions that make nuclear energy look bad. News at 11.
This is an example of what I'm talking about... this "subsidy" is actually not a payment to any fossil fuel producer or user.
Another one...
The three largest fossil fuel subsidies were:
1. Foreign tax credit ($15.3 billion)
Now I don't know if you know anything about taxes, but foreign tax credits are not a subsidy to fossil fuels. They are part of the tax treaties we have with many many countries. I get a foreign tax credit every ye
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I've seen that list so there's an easy example to give you.
Okay
So an anti-nuclear group came up with some assumptions that make nuclear energy look bad. News at 11.
This is an example of what I'm talking about... this "subsidy" is actually not a payment to any fossil fuel producer or user.
Another one...
You could have stopped at "anti nuclear" and that'ts all you needed to say. Here is your problem. The moment you utter or write that phrase, most people just stop listening. You and your ilk have a lot to do with that, as the simultaneous nuclear is hte safest" t
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Whoa, what? So you reject everything I said because I said "anti-nuclear"? Did you think I just applied that label because I assume they're anti-nuclear due to their use in the article? No, here's the wikipedia page about them: "Energy Fair in the United Kingdom is a group of six people leading a campaign that claims that the nuclear power industry receives unfair subsidies"
That's just what they do. They have tried to come up with every conceivable point to use against nuclear power, whether they are ration
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Whoa, what? So you reject everything I said because I said "anti-nuclear"?
No, not really. But what yu wrote told me what you were going to write after that. And I for one woud prefer not to dilute the discussion with what it will turn into as soon as we mention anti-nuclear. Subsidies, subsidies subsidies. we needn't have actual cash handouts. A subsidy might be a tax break, exemption from environmental regulations, limitations on liabilities. All things that reduce operating costs. Because money that you don't have to spend is just money that you either keep or distribute to
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The limitation on liabilities isn't even "money that you don't have to pay." It's money that some groups (like Energy Fair) *wish* you had to pay. Otherwise, the maximum liability would be capped at the assets of the company anyway.
I mean I guess you consider that a subsidy, so actually everybody is being subsidized due to bankruptcy laws. That doesn't seem like a useful definition. It's worthless in fact.
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The limitation on liabilities isn't even "money that you don't have to pay." It's money that some groups (like Energy Fair) *wish* you had to pay. Otherwise, the maximum liability would be capped at the assets of the company anyway.
I mean I guess you consider that a subsidy, so actually everybody is being subsidized due to bankruptcy laws. That doesn't seem like a useful definition. It's worthless in fact.
Let us take say, the Chernobyl disaster, direct loss estimated at 15 billion dollars. Estimates over 30 years are 235 billion for th eUkraine, and 201 Billion for Belarus.
So now, allow us to look at say, the Indian Nuclear Liability act. - The maximum liability for a nuclear accident for the operator is US 74 million. Now just between us chachalacas, Perhaps you could price out say a paltry 25 billion dollar liability policy. Is that magic money that rains down like manna form heaven? Or is it money tha
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And like I said, this limitation of liability applies to nearly everyone in the modern world. Debt slavery is gone. Debts are not passed to others. So we are all being subsidized by your logic, which is illogical.
Hey a homeless guy could start a fire in a big city and cause millions of dollars of damage. And he wouldn't have to pay a dime. So the government is subsidizing homeless guys to start fires!!! That's the equivalent of your logic. It's nonsense.
If there is money that you DO have to pay, and the gov
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And like I said, this limitation of liability applies to nearly everyone in the modern world. Debt slavery is gone. Debts are not passed to others. So we are all being subsidized by your logic, which is illogical.
Are you having some issues this evening? What would be the difference between a company paying for 12 billion dollars of insurance coverage, and one paying for 10 or 20 times that? Because in the disasters we've had so far, it is crediible that would be the amount of damage incurred. After that, the government picks up the tab. I would like that setup for say, my house insurance. Since we bought our place, it has trebled in value, and I have had to pay more every time it gets re-assessed. I would love to
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What would be the difference between a company paying for 12 billion dollars of insurance coverage, and one paying for 10 or 20 times that?
Do you not understand numbers or something? You don't know the difference between X and 10X and 20X?
I would like that setup for say, my house insurance. Since we bought our place, it has trebled in value, and I have had to pay more every time it gets re-assessed.
No you don't. Once you own your home, you don't have to have homeowner's insurance at all. It's only your mortgage agreement with a bank that requires you to. Oh hey you learned something new!
A better example would be car insurance since it's legally required in order to drive on public roads. But hey look what do you know, car insurance does not require you to cover a worst case scenario! In my state it's $3
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Buddy, please explain it, because I really don't understand. Why don't you have $500 million in the bank, since the government could assess various fees totaling $500 million against you? You didn't have to pay that, so it should be just lying around unused right?
Explain, I'm soooo confused! Or I would be if I was a fucking idiot like you and thought hypothetical dollars were real.
You are correct, you do not understand it. There is apparently nothing I can do about that, since I explained it to you several times already. Contact an accountant for further elucidation. Inability to get you to accept the truth isn't my problem, and I've been called a fucking idiot by more than one person who has turned out to be really badly wrong. Good day sir, how about a profanity laced reply so that you can call yourself the winner of the internet. Calling people "fucking idiots" really does show th
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Feeling superior are we? Yes I called you a fucking idiot because nothing gets through to you. I love how you ignored everything I said because you were so distracted and offended by that, whereas you expect people to tolerate your own arrogance and smugness.
You can't explain it because you're wrong. That's it. In the world of hypothetical money, the government could charge you $1 million for something, anything. It's hypothetical. Yet they didn't. In your world that must be a subsidy.
If not, explain how it
Solar Freaking roofways! (Score:2)
At least they're not planning to drive cars over those solar cells.
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You can make viable solar powered cars, there's a semi-regular race across Australia. 100kph is quite possible over sustained distances.
https://www.worldsolarchallenge.org/
Problem is, not very comfortable cars. No A/C, the ride is horrible (very narrow, very hard wheels) and there's only room for the driver in most of them.
I think there's a class for more conventional solar powered cars, a lot slower but still > 1kph.
However, where the race happens in Australia is mostly sunny.
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I'm not talking about solar panels on top of cars, i'm talking about cars on top of solar panels.
The solar freaking highways.
Re:But what if the sun isn't shining? (Score:5, Funny)
Duh. FTS: "Powerpacks will store any excess energy generated by the vast solar installation."
The real question is where on earth they're going to find such a number of "powerpacks". I mean, can you imagine the size of the factory you'd need just to make the batteries to support this, and how would they ever power such a place?!!!!
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There are some 50MW batteries deployed in Japan and Hawaii. They are sodium sulphur so a bit lower density than lithium, but they only take up the space of a small substation.
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Thank you for explaining my joke. Note to self: the word 'baseload' really triggers people.
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The original Gigafactory plan mentioned wind turbines as well but I'm sure they'll have a sizable grid connection.
They'd be crazy not to.
Re:But what if the sun isn't shining? (Score:4, Interesting)
The Dutch Railways are now completely wind powered as of Jan 1 2017 [theguardian.com]. Apparently they don't need baseload power plants.
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That usually means they have installed (or contracted) a certain amount of wind power that equals out to the amount of electricity they use, not that they have severed their connection to the baseline generation provided by the grid.
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Baseload is one of those talking points which get repeated and repeated again, but no one actually enumerates the baseload. How much energy do we have to provide constantly at a minimum?
The Dutch Railways are now completely wind powered as of Jan 1 2017 [theguardian.com]. Apparently they don't need baseload power plants.
I've yet to read about PF correction in a non-grid electrical setup. Not to mention 3 phase. I'd love to see that stuff.
Solar panels in Nevada? (Score:4, Informative)
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Except Telsa owns a solar panel manufacturing plant, not a Heliostat manufacturing plant.
Re: Solar panels in Nevada? (Score:4, Insightful)
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So⦠You admit they are not doing it because they want to be green, but for some other purpose.
Because your false dichotomy makes motherfucking sense, and it is impossible in your b&w world that a company could be trying to go green even if while having to use what it has at its disposal.
Whatever it is that you are smoking, stop.
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I think they chose PV solar because they own Solar City, and not for any other reason.
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As mentioned by others, Tesla produces and sells the panels themselves, they don't build heliostats.
In addition, they have a lot of rooftop real-estate at their factory and presumably it's a lot easier and cheaper to cover the roof with panels than construct a heliostat on a neighboring piece of land.
I'm sure that at a certain point one monolithic power plant has advantages in efficiency and other economies of scale, but I don't think Tesla+SolarCity is looking to become a traditional power utility company,
OMG (Score:1)
"...according to Tesla's exciting handout"
Is this what reporting has devolved to these days?
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The plant will be powered by Elon's love. Also, you have to wind it.
Not gonna work (Score:3, Funny)
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They would need a massive battery to store all that power to make this work. They clearly haven't thought it through.
See, factories and cars are exactly the same, so they have thought it through very well... and are definitely not doing it to create a completely inefficient system with a PF of 0.21 just to make the future prospective buyers of their products want them more. Hey, there are solar panels there! That means they work! /sarcasm :)
Useful information for SpaceX (Score:1)
Closed-loop water usage; large scale solar; on-site recycling. This sounds like an R&D project for SpaceX. No doubt much of the information gained by building and running this will feed back into other Musk projects.
Of course, if they want to practice this in a place without an atmosphere, they could always build Gigafactory 2 in Boring, Oregon - or even it's twin town of Dull, Scotland ;-)
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So, no night shifts? (Score:2)
Re:fuck this (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a problem why? Would you rather someone build a coal plant next to your house to supply the power instead?
The electricity has to come from somewhere.
Lowering air pollution benefits all.
Re:fuck this (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
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Agreed. However, that won't cut it. Population continues to increase. Unfortunately, because of copyright I can't write a book about the inconvenient truth of population reduction being the only "long-term, sustainable" solution. Of course, Humans can't accept that so I'm just making noise. ;)
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You first. Lead by example.
I am. I don't have kids and I refuse to do so. There, I'm leading by example. See? It doesn't have the slightest influence because it's unacceptable to deal with the reality of over-population leading us where we *say* we don't want to go.
Re:fuck this (Score:5, Informative)
You still think a "coal plant" belches out black soot and smoke don't you?
Educate yourself. Fossil plants use baghouses, dry sorbent injection, activated carbon, flue gas desulfurization, selective catalytic reduction, among other technologies to clean up emissions. Mostly what you see today is water vapor.
Yeah no one wants a power plant near them, but happy to use the electricity it generates. Ignorance is bliss.
The only reason that coal plants use *any* of those technologies is because they were FORCED. And they spent DECADES resisting any attempts to curb their pollution. Yes, they're cleaner than ever but they were fucking nasty for the better part of my life.
If Trump disbands the EPA, they'll happily go back to spewing their shite directly into your air & water with a hearty fuck-u-and-blow-me
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And they'll remove the mercury warnings for seafood, which is also caused by burning coal.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tunas-declining-mercury-contamination-linked-to-u-s-shift-away-from-coal/ [scientificamerican.com]
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Where is the evidence for that? I just looked up what a baghouse was, and according to Wikipedia they, "came into widespread use in the late 1970s after the invention of high-temperature fabrics (for use in the filter media) capable of withstanding temperatures over 350 F." So maybe the reason coal plants were not cleaner is because the technology was not there yet.
Baghouse collection isn't the only method. Electrostatic precipitator, for example, have been around for over a century.
Also it should be possible to use heat exchangers to control the temperature of the smoke destined for the baghouse so as to keep it within the correct operating temp range - and pump at least some of the captured heat back to the boilers or furnaces to improve overall efficiency.
Of course, there are challenges with any approach but not insurmountable and were always worth doing giving the
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Coal is dead, forget about it. Coal fuel costs more then you can make off the electricity you sell. Power prices keep heading down. Nobody is building coal plants anymore,
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Coal is dead, forget about it. Coal fuel costs more then you can make off the electricity you sell. Power prices keep heading down. Nobody is building coal plants anymore,
Trump's EPA and government might be able to cut regulations enough to make coal competitive. Basically if he just says to hell with the environment, then it might make financial sense. It likely wouldn't cause enough damage in four years to prevent his reelection, or even if it did, he could probably get enough people to lie and say it didn't to get around it.
Personally, I think he is just a con man that will say anything to win, and try to do just enough to keep the con going. If screwing over the envir
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Medupi power station [wikipedia.org]
Kusile power station [wikipedia.org]
Both still under construction (and running behind schedule and over budget)
I grew up next to this monstrosity
Hendrina power station [wikipedia.org]
When you woke up in the morning you had to wash the coal dust off the car, it would eat the galvanizing off fences because of the high sulpher content.
Sure it's a bit better now, but not by much. ZA has a fvckton of coal, it will be burning it for some time.
Re:fuck this (Score:4, Interesting)
>Sure it's a bit better now, but not by much. ZA has a fvckton of coal, it will be burning it for some time.
Don't be so sure of this. Coal comes in different varieties and a coal plant must be designed for a specific variety. And we have a problem here in ZA. Until around 2010 the coal we used in our plants had little export value, while the coal Europe used was exactly the coal we didn't need. So Eskom could get very low rates on the coal they needed - because the mines could make lovely profits selling the rest to Europe.
Since 2010 the European market has been shrinking fast, it's not a viable export market anymore. China on the other hand is growing rapidly and is now our major coal export market. Only problem: China's plants use the same coal variety we do. So suddenly the mines are very unhappy about selling coal at R5 a tonne to Eskom when they SAME coal can get R50 a tonne from China.
Part of why Eskom helped the Guptas to buy that coal mine is because the mine was about to go bankrupt. The owners are in a long-term cheap coal supply with Eskom and had decided they would rather close that mine and focus on the others (from where they could export the coal to China) than keep operating the one they had to sell so cheaply it was making a loss.
Helping the Guptas buy it was partly motivated by the risk that if the mine closes Eskom would face a critical shortage. That nobody was willing to buy it without kickbacks and help tells you a lot.
Either way, none of this is relevant to American coal-miners, we've never imported coal from them and we never will - since their coal won't work in our power plants and, like you said, we have plenty of coal anyway.
It's definitely in ZA's best interest to move away from coal - not least because the economics around mining and burning have changed and it's now a lot harder to do it economically. The answer isn't the ridiculous nuclear plan either.
The problem with nuclear is that it is extremely expensive and takes a long time to get online. A minimum of a decade - and nuclear plants are notorious for going extremely over budget and over time - look how late Kusile and Medupi already are, there's no practical way a nuclear project will produce a single KW/H of power in South Africa in under 30 years. We can't afford to wait that long.
Our answer must be solar - we can bring the same power as the nuclear project online with solar in 2 years for 10% of the capital costs. And the cost of the power is far cheaper as well. Even with storage factored in it remains the cheapest power source of all, and we are particularly suited to it what with being such a high sunshine country.
The best studies right now pegs the total cost per kw/h of coal at about R120, nuclear is at about R1.05. Wind is around 85c - solar is 55c.
Less than half the cost of coal.
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Yes, things get diluted pretty quickly as long as wind is blowing things away from you, but I am only talking about short-term effects. The level of adult-onset asthma in the commu
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Educate yourself. Fossil plants use baghouses, dry sorbent injection, activated carbon, flue gas desulfurization, selective catalytic reduction, among other technologies to clean up emissions. Mostly what you see today is water vapor.
We can find industrial emitters releasing illegal levels of pollutants as rapidly as we can pay people to sample them.
Re: coal plants still cause health damage (Score:2)
Damn subsidies (Score:5, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
A 2016 study estimated that global fossil fuel subsidies were $5.3 trillion in 2015, which represents 6.5% of global GDP.[3] The study found that "China was the biggest subsidizer in 2013 ($1.8 trillion), followed by the United States ($0.6 trillion), and Russia, the European Union, and India (each with about $0.3 trillion)."[3] The authors estimated that the elimination of "subsidies would have reduced global carbon emissions in 2013 by 21% and fossil fuel air pollution deaths 55%, while raising revenue of 4%, and social welfare by 2.2%, of global GDP."[3] According to the International Energy Agency, the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies worldwide would be the one of the most effective ways of reducing greenhouse gases and battling global warming.[4] In May 2016, the G7 nations set for the first time a deadline for ending most fossil fuel subsidies; saying government support for coal, oil and gas should end by 2025.[13]
Keep funding the middle east.
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From SolarCity's 2015 impact report [solarcity.com] it seems that 70MW of installed power produced 28,630 metric tons of CO2. It's 2017 (which should have yielded further emissions savings over 2015), plus installing bulk might yield yet further savings.
But I'm a firm believe in the energy trap [ucsd.edu], so I think that's 28,630 tons of CO2 well invested.