Building green energy facilities may produce substantial carbon emissions, says study

A new study says that moving the world energy system away from fossil fuels and into renewable sources will generate carbon emissions by itself, as construction of wind turbines, solar panels and other new infrastructure consumes energy — some of it necessarily coming from the fossil fuels we are trying to get rid of. But if this infrastructure can be put on line quickly, the study asserts, those emissions would dramatically decrease, because far more renewable energy early on will mean far less fossil fuel needed to power the changeover.