Some important calculations and comparisons

For the Tirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu, India, consider the following chart that shows the variation of irradiance against the time of year.

[caption id="attachment_20580" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Values courtesy Weather Underground (data from the US National Weather Service)"][/caption]

Considering the energy ratings of the major solar panel-manufacturers in the market, the average efficiency at which they perform (14%), and the average cell temperature on a particular day of the year (34 degrees Celsius), it can be estimated that to produce 169.1875 watts of energy, an initial investment of US $989,688.125 will have to be made against the installation of 1,000 panels, each measuring 1m to a side. Given that there are those who suggest solar energy be used instead of commissioning a nuclear power plant in the district, it should be noted that to make up for the deficit of 2 gigawatts, 11,821,205 panels will have to be installed covering a 11.82 sq. kilometer swath of land at a total cost of US $69,149,911,828.50 or Rs. 3 lakh 39 thousand crore. That is 26 times more than the cost of the two reactors coming up Koodankulam.

The amount of photovoltaic waste generated per one megawatt of peak power, as reported by a study conducted by the German Federal Ministry of the Environment (called the 'Development of the Take Back and Recovery System for Photovoltaic Products', 2007) being 6079.375 tonnes per year (distributed across the planet for the sake of consumption in India), the quantity of waste generated by the year 2020 will be 109,428,750 tonnes. The amount of radioactive nuclear waste generated in the same period in India stands between 3960 tonnes and 5940 tonnes.

Thus, the principle agent owing to which the focus of the media is greater on nuclear energy and lesser on other forms of energy production is radioactivity. If spent nuclear fuel wasn't radioactive, nuclear power plants would make a case for themselves considering they're much cheaper to install, maintain and produce much less waste. That is why it is important to know the processes involved in the manufacture of solar cells and the more-common health hazards posed by those processes: high-efficiency cells contain the mildly-toxic tellurium and indium, and the highly-toxic cadmium and sulfur. Of them, the last three are known to have teratogenic effects.

I'm not trying to build a case against renewable energy resources nor am I trying to build a case for nuclear energy. I'm only making known what the majority do not already see, may not wish to see or simply refuse to see.