Environment & Energy

NNadir

(36,419 posts) Sun Aug 3, 2025, 06:05 PM Aug 3

The Effects of Air Pollution on the Output of PV Solar Cells.

The paper I'll briefly discuss in this paper is this one: Attribution of Solar Energy Yield Gaps due to Transboundary Particulate Matter Pollution Associated with Trade across Northeast Asia Fei Yao, Paul I. Palmer, Jianzheng Liu, Hongwen Chen, and Yuan Wang Environmental Science & Technology 2025 59 (29), 15092-15100.

It is my oft stated contention that unreliable energy is by its very nature environmentally, economically, and ethically unacceptable.

In stating this I often refer to the land and material costs, as I am an environmentalist of the John Muir type (which I also repeat often). Unlike the modern members of the Sierra Club, some of whom may even have pictures of John Muir in their offices just as some state capitalists in China may have pictures of Chairman Mao in theirs, I agree with Muir that wilderness should be protected, rather than industrialized for energy production.

However my real problem with the unreliable wind and solar energy that always is subject to rather oblivious cheering here and elsewhere is that it has done absolutely nothing to address the ever more exigent problem of fossil fuel combustion, which, as I often also contend, nuclear energy, and only nuclear energy can do. In stating this, I note that at least in its origins, addressing fossil fuels was never a concern of the people pushing solar and wind energy. Their major concern was to attack nuclear energy. This late in the game, one can still see here people who pay only lip service to being interested in fossil fuels - for instance reporting the latest of what Jim Hansen has published on climate - but if you push them even slightly, launch into diatribes attacking nuclear energy.

It turns out that solar energy in particular, owing to its complete inability to address fossil fuels becomes even more useless (in addressing extreme global heating) because of another fossil fuel waste it is entirely unsuccessful, addressing air pollution. Air pollution kills 7 million people per year and has done so continuously we've spent more than a decade wondering if Fukushima's radiation releases killed anyone. I kid you not.

It also effects - as should be obvious - insolation, this while absorbing infrared radiation and thus driving atmospheric heating.

From the text of the paper:

Rapidly transitioning from conventional to renewable energy sources is key to addressing the linked challenges of air pollution and climate change, but it is increasingly recognized that air pollution and climate change affect the supply and demand of renewable energy. (1−4) Whether we continue this vicious cycle or transform it into a virtuous cycle depends on the speed at which we transition away from carbon-based energy sources to meet the growing energy needs of the world’s population...

Really? Air pollution and climate change (aka "extreme global heating" ) affect the supply and demand of so called "renewable energy."

Who knew? Does this mean that depending on the weather to manage the occurrence of extreme weather might not be a good idea?

Again, who knew?

The authors continue:

...In this study, we examine the impacts of particulate matter (PM) on the functioning of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. Atmospheric PM significantly impacts solar energy generation by attenuating incoming light intercepted by the panels. (5) PM can also be deposited onto the PV panels, which also attenuates the incoming solar energy needed to excite the electrons in the PV semiconductor material. (6,7) Billions of dollars are lost every year in the solar energy industry due to these PM impacts. (8,9) Previous studies have focused on mitigating the solar energy generation losses by reducing PM emissions from anthropogenic sectors, (10−13) recognizing that natural sources of PM are more difficult to control. These anthropogenic PM emissions originate from producers of goods and services that respond to changes in domestic and international consumer demands. (14) From a production perspective, all emissions generated within a country are considered as its own responsibility regardless of where the associated goods and services are ultimately consumed. In contrast, a consumption perspective attributes all emissions induced by a country’s consumption to that country, irrespective of where the emissions are produced. Quantifying and contrasting PM emissions and the resulting solar energy generation losses attributable to both domestic and international producers and consumers would aid in their mitigation, but relevant studies remain scarce.

Northeast Asia (NEA), including China, South Korea, and Japan, is one of the most densely populated regions in the world. As of 2023, it is home to approximately 1.6 billion people, representing approximately 20% of the global population. (15) It includes some of the world’s largest economies, with its combined GDP in 2023 accounting for approximately 24% of global GDP, totaling approximately $39.59 trillion (at 2021 prices), (16) of which approximately 42% is related to trade (exports and imports of goods and services). (17) Driven in part by rapid economic growth, NEA has long been one of the most polluted hotspot regions globally, leading to significant environmental conflicts among China, South Korea, and Japan. (18) To meet the region’s energy demands while mitigating pollution and advancing carbon neutrality goals, NEA is actively developing clean energy technologies, particularly solar energy. As of 2023, the region’s total installed solar PV capacity reached approximately 724.04 GW, contributing to approximately 51% of the global installed solar PV capacity.

Earlier today in this space I noted that the substitution of peak capacity (which so called "renewable energy" almost never reaches, and if it does, does so for a matter of a few minutes), in units of Watts is inherently dishonest. The unit of energy is the Joule, not the Watt. Nevertheless this dishonest practice is widely used, including in the primary scientific literature as we see here.

The capacity utilization of solar energy is rarely greater than 25%; thus 724 "GW" of solar power actually is the equivalent of 118 GW of reliable energy, that is continuous average power, but with the requirement that there be close to 724 GW redundant power, which, despite all the horseshit one sees about batteries and (worse) hydrogen, is almost entirely from fossil fuels.

Indeed the paper contains a graphic of a type one seldom sees (or which I seldom see) giving the geographical distribution in Asia of solar capacity factors:

Figure 1. Geographical distribution of annual mean solar PV efficiency (a–c) described by capacity factors (CFs) and its losses (ΔCFs) due to PM pollution (d–f), including PM dimming (g–i) and soiling (j–l), for flat (a, d, g, j), tilt (b, e, h, k), and one-axis tracking (c, f, i, l) panels over Northeast Asia in 2015. Scales are different for the first and subsequent rows.

Figure 2, while showing all of Asia in the maps, actually breaks down the losses in capacity factors owing to air pollution by country.

The caption:

Figure 2. Geographical distribution of annual mean solar PV efficiency losses (ΔCFs) in OAT panels due to PM pollution (a–h), including PM dimming (i–p) and soiling (q–x), associated with emissions produced in (a–d, i–l, q–t) or induced by consumption (e–h, m–p, u–x) in China (a, e, i, m, q, u), South Korea (b, f, j, n, r, v), Japan (c, g, k, o, s, w), and “Others” (d, h, l, p, t, x) over Northeast Asia in 2015. Note that “Others” encompasses contributions from other countries and other natural sources of PM, but the latter cancels out when subtracting production-based results from consumption-based results, leaving only the contributions from net exports outside Northeast Asia. Scales are different for each column.

Figure three refers to the difference between two sources of capacity factors, dimming and soiling, the latter being more serious, since it will involve sending a fleet of window washers out to clean all thousands of square kilometers of solar industrial parks.

The caption:

Figure 3. Contributions from source countrys’ production-related (a–c) and consumption-related (d–f) emissions to receptor countrys’ solar energy yield gaps (SEYGs) attributable to PM pollution (a, d), including PM dimming (b, e) and soiling (c, f). Each cell in the grid shows the proportion of SEYGs that occurred in the country indicated by the column due to emissions produced in or induced by consumption in the country indicated by the row, wherein consumption stimulates emissions domestically and elsewhere. The diagonal thus reflects the proportion of SEYGs in a country due to emissions produced in or induced by consumption within the same country. At the top, the total SEYGs (GWh/yr) that occurred in each country are presented, while on the right, the total SEYGs (GWh/yr) in the three countries (aka Northeast Asia) caused by emissions produced in or induced by consumption in each country are outlined. Notably, the sum of the numbers at the top equals the sum on the right. (g–i) Differences between consumption- and production-related results. (j, k) Differences between PM soiling and dimming.

The final figure:

The caption:

Figure 4. Contributions of production-related emissions from China (a–c), South Korea (d–f), and Japan (g–i) to solar energy yield gaps (SEYGs) in Northeast Asia due to PM pollution (a, d, g), including PM dimming (b, e, h) and soiling (c, f, i), further broken down to components linked to consumption in these countries and elsewhere. Each cell in the grid shows the proportion of SEYGs that occurred in the country indicated by the column due to emissions produced in a Northeast Asian country that are induced by consumption in the country indicated by the row. The diagonal thus reflects the proportion of SEYGs in a country due to emissions produced in a Northeast Asian country and induced by its own consumption. At the top, the total SEYGs (GWh/yr) occurred in each country due to emissions produced in a Northeast Asian country are presented, while on the right, the total SEYGs (GWh/yr) in the three countries caused by emissions produced in a Northeast Asian country that are induced by consumption in each country are outlined. Notably, the sum of the numbers at the top equals the sum at the right.

I disagree with some of the focus of the concluding remarks, specifically the bolded portion:

A wide range of environmental (27−38) and social (39−43) impacts embodied in trade have been assessed from a consumption perspective. Our work is the first to extend this perspective to include large SEYGs attributable to PM pollution. Our work is timely because of the rapid expansion of solar energy projects in the region to meet the growing energy demands and to achieve carbon neutrality.

To mitigate SEYGs caused by PM pollution, current policy efforts primarily focus on the timely cleaning of panels to remove deposited PM (7) and on reducing anthropogenic emissions through domestic measures. (11) By further linking SEYGs to international trade, our work highlights additional opportunities for addressing SEYGs from a trade-related perspective. These trade-related policies may include, but are not limited to (1) adjustments of border taxes and tariffs to account for SEYGs, similar to current practices on carbon emissions such as the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism; (2) widening of technical and environmental standards to help reduce domestic and outsourced environmental impacts; (3) transfer of technology to help circumvent avoidable environmental impacts; and (4) interventions aimed at curbing unnecessary, unsustainable consumption. (44)

My objection, of course, is that the "rapid expansion of solar energy production in the region" has nothing to do with achieving carbon neutrality. The intrinsic unreliability and the need for redundancy to deal with issues like the well known issue of "night,"
"clouds," snow, and natural dust storms, not to mention forests burning as a result of extreme global heating can only entrench carbon dependence, not reduce it.

Have a pleasant work week.