It did, but it does not any longer. Lifecycle estimates vary from 5x worse than nuclear to 50x better for solar and 5x worse to 5x better for wind.
At 30c/W, even if the only activity required to make a solar panel were dumping anthracite on the ground as you mine it and setting fire to it you would still get more energy per kg of CO2 than gas.
The raw materials are sand, are copper and silver for current PV tech with trace amounts (milligrams per kw) or dopants. The amount of silver per panel is decreasing faster than the rate of panel production is increasing. Copper is mainly for wiring up and can be exchanged for aluminium if scarcity and thus cost is an issue, and inverters require substantial amounts of exotic materials (but less per capita than a phone or laptop).
A nuclear reactor requires more steel than PV requires silicon, and commensurable amounts of exotic materials.
Wind turbines require about the same amount of steel as nuclear but substantially more concrete.
At 30c/W, even if the only activity required to make a solar panel were dumping anthracite on the ground as you mine it and setting fire to it you would still get more energy per kg of CO2 than gas.
The raw materials are sand, are copper and silver for current PV tech with trace amounts (milligrams per kw) or dopants. The amount of silver per panel is decreasing faster than the rate of panel production is increasing. Copper is mainly for wiring up and can be exchanged for aluminium if scarcity and thus cost is an issue, and inverters require substantial amounts of exotic materials (but less per capita than a phone or laptop).
A nuclear reactor requires more steel than PV requires silicon, and commensurable amounts of exotic materials.
Wind turbines require about the same amount of steel as nuclear but substantially more concrete.