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Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026

Does clearing trees for solar panels release more CO2 than the solar panels would prevent?

Sue Bin Park, Skeptical Science
no

Clearing trees to build solar farms does not negate their climate change benefits, because one acre of solar panels prevents far more CO2 emissions than an acre of forest absorbs.

In the U.S., replacing equivalent natural gas power with one acre of solar prevents about 175 to 198 metric tons of CO2 emissions per year.

In contrast, an average acre of forest sequesters less than 1 metric ton of CO2 per year. An acre of solar cuts roughly 200 times more CO2 than an acre of trees.

Cutting forest does release stored carbon, but even if all 304 metric tons of CO2 in a forested acre were emitted during construction, a typical solar farm would offset that within two years of operation.

Only about 4% of U.S. solar projects have been built on forested land.

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