The Carbon Footprint of Solar Panels

SAN FRANCISCO -- How long does it take to eliminate the carbon footprint of a solar panel; i.e., offset the carbon generated producing the panel with the clean energy coming from the panel itself?

About four years, according to Peter Owen, president of Linde Electronics, during a break at Intersolar U.S. taking place this week in San Francisco. Linde, like other equipment manufacturers such as Sixtron Advanced Materials, is increasingly touting the sustainability of its products. Factory equipment is being tailored so that more chemicals inserted into vacuum chambers gets used or can be more easily recycled.

Linde, for instance, is promoting a system for cleaning chemical vapor deposition chambers with fluorine rather than the more traditional nitrogen trifluoride. NF3 is one of the more dangerous greenhouse gases and enough of it leaks out of industrial plants to make it a problem.

Switching to fluorine can cut the carbon footprint down to two years. The industry's goal is to get it to a year.

Fluorine cleaning systems have been used for years in the flat panel TV industry but only recently have been promoted for solar panels. Why? Florine can be used with thin films, and the volumes are only beginning.