My guess for the missing word is money .

They are not producing 1 cent coins any more, so they are printing mostly paper currency which is green.

Or another idiomatic use of the word green refers to inexperience.

Members of the Trump staff could be said to be green.

"Energy Capacity."

Alec of Technology Connections recently published an excellent video (probably his best video yet) about exactly this subject:

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Basically, he completely obliterates the misinformation and lies continuously spread, either by ignorance or malice, by people like you. And he has the numbers to prove it. It's rather long, but very indepth and frankly quite easy to watch. Of course, I know full well that you won't watch it, because it contradicts your beliefs, and we can't have that now, can we ? But I hope it will be useful and interesting to other people here, and to those, liberals and conservatives, who are actually interested in reality.

In the last half of his video, he goes into a very well written and extremely heartfelt rant about the state of things in the U.S. right now. No doubt it will completely infuriate your average Trump cult member, but it will profoundly touch every human being that actually has a heart. Well worth a listen. If you can, forward this to every person you know. Videos like this just might be what's needed for your country to avoid devolving into another civil war.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM

Waste is fine, you can store, process, or convert it. Pumping carbon from under ground to send into the atmosphere with no intention of pumping it back. And the massive chemical industry around processing that creates waste and serious environmental disaster from time to time.

Look, nobody cares if your cargo ship hauling turbine blades tips into the ocean. Sure, there will be micro plastics and localized clutter or even toxic leeching. But it's a far more serious problem when it's a tanker full of crude. And those tankers transport many times more frequently than windmill parts and solar panels.

The claim that renewables like solar and wind are "far from being green" due to short lifespans, waste generation, and production-related devastation and pollution is a common criticism, but it doesn't hold up when examining the full lifecycle impacts compared to alternatives like fossil fuels.

Solar panels typically last **25-35 years** (with many manufacturers warranting 25+ years and real-world data showing even longer operational life in many cases). Wind turbines generally last around 20-30 years. While not eternal, this is comparable to or longer than many other infrastructure components, and during operation, they produce near-zero emissions.

Production does involve mining (e.g., silicon, silver, copper for solar; steel, concrete, and sometimes rare earths for wind magnets) and manufacturing, which can cause habitat disruption, water use, pollution from chemicals, and energy-intensive processes. For solar, this includes quartz mining and purification (often in energy-heavy facilities), plus hazardous materials like hydrofluoric acid or trace toxics (cadmium in some thin-film types). For wind, rare earth mining (e.g., neodymium) has raised concerns about radioactive waste, heavy metals, and water contamination in extraction regions.

End-of-life waste is a valid issue: Projections estimate millions of tons of solar panel waste by 2050 globally (e.g., up to 78 million tons cumulatively), with some panels containing lead or cadmium that require careful handling to avoid soil/water contamination if landfilled. Recycling rates are improving but not yet universal or cheap everywhere.

However, these downsides are **substantially outweighed** by the benefits when viewed through lifecycle assessments (cradle-to-grave analyses from mining to decommissioning):

Lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions for solar are typically 28-100 g COeq/kWh (median around 40-50 g), and for wind 7-38 g COeq/kWh.

In contrast, coal is around 820-1,000 g COeq/kWh, natural gas 490-650 g, and oil higher still.

Renewables offset their production emissions (energy payback time) in 1-4 years for solar and often less for wind, then provide decades of low-emission power.

Fossil fuels require **continuous** fuel extraction (coal mining, oil/gas drilling), which causes far more ongoing devastation: habitat loss, air/water pollution, and massive waste streams like coal ash (hundreds of millions of tons annually in the US alone, dwarfing projected solar waste).

Mining for renewables is more "up-front" and one-time per installation, while fossil fuels involve perpetual extraction and burning. Per unit of energy produced over time, renewables require significantly less mining overall than coal or gas when factoring in fuel needs.

Improvements are ongoing: better recycling (recovering silver, silicon, glass), cleaner manufacturing (some factories now run on renewables), designs avoiding rare earths in some wind turbines, and regulations for responsible sourcing/mining.

Renewables aren't perfect or impact-free—no energy source is—but calling them "as green as the mines they require" overlooks that fossil fuel reliance means **far more mining, pollution, and waste** overall, plus direct emissions driving climate change. The data shows renewables deliver a massive net environmental benefit for decarbonization.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Interesting site, but I'm not sure what the point is of linking to information about power generation by the Bonneville Power Authority (BPA), which is a mostly hydroelectric powered system in the not-very-sunny Northwest. This really isn't particularly applicable to the US as a whole, which doesn't have that much hydro available.

But, yes, if you're looking for an example of part of the US that is powered almost entirely by renewable energy, this is an example.