Critics of small modular reactors forecast financial risk

[kentauros]

6. Solar panels, no,

but the manufacturing of the silicon necessary to make those panels isn't entirely safe, clean, and/or stable.

MEMC has a plant here that makes a large portion of the silicon necessary (I've read there are only two manufacturers of granular silicon in the US) to make the panels. I've also worked briefly at the plant here, and they use furnaces operating at around 1200F each in that process (I lost about thirty pounds in the three weeks I worked there due to being around that heat; the furnaces aren't well-insulated.)

So, that's quite a bit of energy going into five furnaces to make the processed silicon necessary for solar panels. It's hardly carbon-neutral.

Personally, I would rather see the development and implementation of both Polywell Fusion and solar rectennas (they absorb larger portions of the spectrum and can be tuned to specific wavelengths, such as IR to work at night!)