[Tade0]

I don't think it's really factual.

Ultimately it's about the energy invested to on one hand keep civilization running and on the other dispose of its products in a non-disruptive manner. There's an overabundance of it from the sun, we just haven't scaled up our means of extracting it.

A solar panel throughout its lifetime gathers way more energy than is required to produce it and later turn into materials for new solar panels. There exists a process for that and I'm sure eventually legislation will follow as the number of end-of-life panels grows.

[londons_explore]

I think OP is saying it's impossible to have no impact - both theoretically and practically.

From a theoretical perspective, that sunlight on your solar panel isn't free - there was some tree or plant who would have used it if you had not.

Even if you build over the ocean, there would be some algae grown with that light and fish who ate the algae.

From a practical perspective, good luck making and deploying huge amounts of solar panels without huge mines for materials, a big road network cutting through the forest to deliver the parts, huge cities for people to live in who operate the factories etc.

[Tade0]

> From a theoretical perspective, that sunlight on your solar panel isn't free - there was some tree or plant who would have used it if you had not.

Actually, no. Plants typically use just the two chlorophyll bands and the carotenoids band and they really don't need all of the 1000W/m2 of solar radiation - you see this in how plants in direct sunlight turn red to absorb less. For the same reason they're typically green, not black.

On top of that the Earth's albedo is 0.367 - much of the energy which reaches our planet is reflected back to space.

I was addressing this comment:

> There’s no version of it that’s truly sustainable long-term, just degrees of delay or harm reduction.

Yes, we have an impact on the ecosystem, no matter what we do. But the ecosystem is also able to regenerate and sustainability is just a matter of not straining it beyond that ability. It's entirely feasible, we just need to scale up certain technologies available today.