Solar panels don't make themselves.

Hah, ive never been an environmentalist but i ever thought about that even though im an industialist. hows that for a kick in the head liberals?

It shows how half truths are still lies. The coal burners you see here produce the electricity that run a lot more than solar panel factories. They also provide the electric for business, government, and residences. Fortunately, other sources are used, such as hydro electric fans (one about 10 blocks from here) nuclear plants, wind generators, natural gas generators. It just happens that coal is still used during this transition period to renewable energy. The heavy carbon footprint will still affd t the world.

Swiggys-back, thanks for the comment! a reply is on its way shortly!

Swiggys-back, the transition to renewable energy that you envision cannot happen, because solar modules do not ever make as much power as it took to manufacture them; the "energy balance" is profoundly negative, anywhere from 8x to 40x. If you don't believe me, will you believe Elon Musk? The quote is real, the article is real, please go read it:

“Sometimes the solar roof is positioned as sort of a competitor to utilities, but we’re actually going to need utility power to increase and we’re going to need local power generation. Because if you transition all energy to electric, that roughly triples the amount of electricity that is needed.” - Elon Musk
http://www.powermag.com/elon-musk-the-future-is-bright-for-utilities/

P.S.: The first photo is (part of) China's newest and largest polysilicon plant, the air is orange because most of China is covered by coal smoke most of the time. The second photo is from Shaanxi province where many of the "older" polysilicon plants are located, and the grid is 100% coal powered. Between 2005 and 2015 China built somewhere between 40-200 new polysilicon factories, and nearly doubled the world's production capacity. The photos are real, there actually are much scarier looking photos available.