Yeah But… It’s Made With Fossil Fuels

This is the second of my new “Yeah But…” series.

It’s where I unpack lazy excuses used to downplay or delay climate action - often by trolls, bots, or just change-resistent commenters. If you missed the first one - “Yeah But, It’s Made in China” - catch it here.

Today’s entry tackles a close cousin of that argument:

“Yeah but, solar panels / EVs / batteries are made with fossil fuels!”

It’s said with smug satisfaction, as though it’s a mic drop. But spoiler: it’s not.

Yes. That’s the problem we’re trying to fix.

Right now, the global economy is still powered mostly by fossil fuels. That includes mining equipment, cargo ships, smelters, and factories. So yes - most clean technologies today are still made using fossil fuels. But that doesn’t invalidate them. It just means we have to start somewhere.

You don’t clean a dirty floor by waiting until your mop is clean. You start cleaning, and with each pass, things improve. In fact, over the last decade, renewables have gone from eight to 13 per cent of the world’s total energy mix. So we’re moving in the right direction.

Clean energy has a carbon debt - then it pays it back fast

Let’s take solar panels. Even if they’re manufactured in a coal-heavy grid, they “repay” their lifecycle emissions within 1 to 2 years. After that, they produce zero-emissions electricity for 25+ years.

Wind turbines and EVs are similar - they come with upfront emissions, but are far lower than fossil fuel equivalents and are falling over time as manufacturing shifts to renewables.

Fossil fuels have no payback.

When you burn coal or gas or petrol, the emissions go into the atmosphere forever. There’s no payback. No recycling opportunities. No return on emissions. Just pollution.

Clean tech, on the other hand, gets cleaner the more we make and use it. And at the end of its life, it can be recycled. That’s the whole point of the transition.

We need a ‘get it done’ strategy, not purity politics

If you want a world where batteries and solar panels are made using clean energy, we have to build that world. It won’t materialise on its own.

Early wind turbines were made with coal-fired steel. Now, some are made with green hydrogen. That shift is only possible because we invested early and scaled up. Clean energy isn’t “perfect” - it’s progressive.

Bottom line:

Using fossil fuels to build clean tech is not hypocrisy. It’s transition. The faster we scale up

renewables and electrify everything, the faster we can stop needing fossil fuels at all - including in manufacturing. If anything, the “Yeah But, it’s made with fossil fuels” argument is a reason to accelerate, not delay.

Let me know what “Yeah But” you’d like me to tackle next:

• “Yeah But, solar panels all end up in landfill”

• “Yeah But, What about mining?”

• “Yeah But, What about massive emissions from China and India?”

• “Yeah But, the climate has always been changing!”

Drop me a message or a comment if you’ve got a favourite excuse you’d like dismantled.