Study Claims Discarded Solar Panels Create More Toxic Waste Than Nuclear Plants (nationalreview.com) 376
Templer421 shares an article from National Review:
A new study by Environmental Progress warns that toxic waste from used solar panels now poses a global environmental threat. The Berkeley-based group found that solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than nuclear-power plants. Discarded solar panels, which contain dangerous elements such as lead, chromium, and cadmium, are piling up around the world, and there's been little done to mitigate their potential danger to the environment. "We talk a lot about the dangers of nuclear waste, but that waste is carefully monitored, regulated, and disposed of," says Michael Shellenberger, founder of Environmental Progress, a nonprofit that advocates for the use of nuclear energy. "But we had no idea there would be so many panels -- an enormous amount -- that could cause this much ecological damage." Solar panels are considered a form of toxic, hazardous electronic or "e-waste," and according to EP researchers Jemin Desai and Mark Nelson, scavengers in developing countries like India and China often "burn the e-waste in order to salvage the valuable copper wires for resale. Since this process requires burning off plastic, the resulting smoke contains toxic fumes that are carcinogenic and teratogenic (birth defect-causing) when inhaled."
A spokesman for the Solar Energy Industries Association argues that the study is incorrect, and that in fact solar panels are "mainly made up of easy-to-recycle materials that can be successfully recovered and reused at the end of their useful life."
A spokesman for the Solar Energy Industries Association argues that the study is incorrect, and that in fact solar panels are "mainly made up of easy-to-recycle materials that can be successfully recovered and reused at the end of their useful life."
You don't say (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh, something distributed across a wide area for which proper recycling facilities may or may not exist is more problematic than something that is concentrated, isolated, and sealed off? Gee, next you'll be telling me that coal smog is also worse than nuclear.
Sarcasm aside, I don't think this is necessarily an argument against solar per se, so much as it is that we need to consider the whole life cycle, from mining and production to reprocessing, when it comes to solar. Nuclear gets so much scrutiny, while it seems like a lot of people assume that solar is without environmental cost. This is clearly not the case. In the rush to promote solar and wind over the nuclear power that we should have been running years ago (thanks for the climate change, you greenie assholes), it seems like the entirety of the systems are not often considered, like we do with nuclear.
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FTS:
"a nonprofit that advocates for the use of nuclear energy. "
So, not biased then, I'm sure they didn't go looking for 30 years old technology in a cherry picking manner. Never mind that 30 years ago, hardly anyone had solar, most solar isn't even installed yet, it'll be installed in the next couple of decades as the price continues to plummet and as battery storage finally becomes affordable which is happening right now.
Article and summary are pure flame bait.
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Discarded solar panels, which contain dangerous elements such as lead, chromium, and cadmium, are piling up around the world
What a bullshit article.
In their defense, they did find a Cadbury chocolate wrapper stuck to one of the solar panels, and it is an easy mistake to make when the words are that big.
Also, every panels has multiple leads. That means it is leaded, right?
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Ok, I have PV solar at home. However, it contains none of the bad things described in the report.
Apparently, it does [wikipedia.org]. And the higher performing cells (like Gallium Arsenide [wikipedia.org]) have even more bad stuff in them...
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Actually, no.
Gallium Arsenide cells, e.g. have the Arsen inside of the 'gallium glass', there is no real way for it to get out.
OTOH you simply can/should recycle them instead of depositing them somewhere.
Your Wikipedia article is a summary about various technologies. The main technology used is Silicium, so: no again, no dangerous materials included. Considering that they are basically 'glass' everything 'inside' can not really get out easily anyway.
So that leaves CdTe (Cadmium Tellerium) based thin film ce
Re:You don't say (Score:4, Informative)
Environmental Progress is almost certainly not affiliated with Koch brothers or big oil.
Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine "Hero of the Environment" and Green Book Award-winning author and policy expert. For a quarter-century he has advocated solutions to lift all people out of poverty while protecting the natural environment.
Michael is coauthor of visionary books and essays including "The Death of Environmentalism," Break Through, An Ecomodernist Manifesto, "Evolve," and Love Your Monsters. He writes for publications including Scientific American, The New York Times, and the Washington Post.
His research, writings and talks challenge the idea that rising energy consumption is bad for the environment. Michael has made the intertwined moral and scientific case for energy and environmental justice in "An Ecomodernist Manifesto," written with 17 other leading scholars and scientists, in "Why Energy Transitions are the Key to Environmental Progress," coauthored with Rachel Pritzker, and a TEDx talk, "How Humans Save Nature."
Michael is a leading pro-nuclear environmentalist. Michael was featured in "Pandora's Promise," an award-winning film about environmentalists who changed their minds about nuclear. He appeared on "The Colbert Report," and has debated nuclear on CNN "Crossfire" with Ralph Nader, and at UCLA with Mark Jacobsen. His 2016 TED talk is on "How Fear of Nuclear Hurts the Environment."
Michael's 2007 book with Ted Nordhaus, Break Through, was called "prescient" by Time and "the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring" by Wired. Michael is co-founder and Senior Fellow at Breakthrough Institute where he was president from 2003 - 2015 and advisor to MIT's "Future of Nuclear Energy" task force.
Michael has been profiled in the New York Times, Wired, the San Francisco Chronicle, the National Review, The New Republic, and on NPR. His research and writing have appeared in The Harvard Law and Policy Review, Democracy Journal, the PLOS Biology, The New Republic the Wall Street Journal; and cited by the New York Times, Slate, USA Today, Washington Post, New York Daily News, The New Republic.
Michael has been an environmental and social justice advocate for over 25 years. In the 1990s Michael helped save an old-growth redwood forest, and helped force Nike to improve factory conditions in Asia. In the 2000s, Michael advocated for and helped realize an expansion of federal investment in renewables and energy efficiency.
The two authors from Environmental Progress of the article cited from the OP's National Review article:
Mark Nelson, Senior Analyst
Mark Nelson, Senior Analyst, oversees EP's ground-breaking Energy Progress Tracker, the most comprehensive review of nuclear power plants planned, under construction, and at-risk of premature closure.
Mark's research into the environmental impacts of nuclear closures in Germany and California has been cited in the New York Times and other publications.
Mark completed his graduate work in nuclear engineering at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Tony Roulstone, and studied aerospace and mechanical engineering at Oklahoma State University. Mark is a competitive runner, musician and photographer.
Jemin Desai, EP Fellow
Jemin Desai is a student studying electrical engineering and computer sciences, and nuclear engineering at the University of California, Berkeley where he is a staff member for the introductory computer science course. He will receive both B.S. degrees in 2020. He was born in Mumbai, India, and raised in Singapore, Vancouver, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
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TL;DR ... (Score:2, Insightful)
... stopped at:
... a nonprofit that advocates for the use of nuclear energy ...
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Since you didn't spend more than two seconds on the topic, let's explore:
Are you against nuclear energy?
Are you against nonprofits?
Are you against nonprofits that advocate for nuclear energy?
Or is there a brain tumor that is causing you to spend no time thinking about an issue before commenting?
My guess - you stopped because your Facebook app let you know someone liked your post on Jello and you couldn't be bothered to read an article to advance your knowledge.
Solar Panel Not Equal to Spent Fuel (Score:5, Informative)
The "300 times more toxic waste than nuclear power" requires considering one kilogram of solar panel as being toxic waste equivalent to one kilogram of spent reactor fuel. This is a preposterous comparison.
Furthermore it treats all solar panels as being as being the same source of hazard. Cadmium telluride panels are a special concern for disposal, but they are 2.5% of the global market and only used in special situations, whereas 95% of production is silicon panel and not toxic at all.
The disposal of solar panels is a valid concern that must be addressed, like the disposal of all electronics, and solid waste generally, but this framing is wildly deceptive.
Re:Solar Panel Not Equal to Spent Fuel (Score:4, Informative)
The "300 times more toxic waste than nuclear power" requires considering one kilogram of solar panel as being toxic waste equivalent to one kilogram of spent reactor fuel. This is a preposterous comparison.
It is preposterous. Good thing that is not what they compared. From the article:
To make these calculations, EP estimated the total number of operational solar panels in 2016 and assumed they would all be retired in 25 years â" the average lifespan of a solar panel. EP then estimated the total amount of spent nuclear fuel assemblies that would be generated over a 25 year period. EP then divided both estimates by the quantity of electricity they produced to come up with the waste per unit of energy measure.
So, you say that they equated 1kg of solar panel to 1kg of nuclear fuel. They say they equated the solar panels it took to create x GW of electricity to the amount of nuclear fuel it took to create y GW of electricity. Based on what their stated methodology, it would work out to something like "300 kg of nuclear fuel can be used to generated 300 GW of electricity over 25 years, but 300 kg of solar panels can only be used to generate 1 GW of electricity over 25 years." Or something like that.
Now, you could argue that the analysis was incomplete because it does not account for the impact refining the nuclear fuel or manufacturing the solar panels, building the reactors, or installing/maintaining the solar panels. You could even argue that their methodology for estimating quantities of solar panels and nuclear fuel was flawed or that they don't account for the differing impact of handling spent nuclear fuel versus old solar panels (I can stack old panels out in the open, but that is not a good idea with nuclear fuel). But those are different matters altogether.
Re:Solar Panel Not Equal to Spent Fuel (Score:4, Informative)
"300 kg of nuclear fuel can be used to generated 300 GW of electricity over 25 years, but 300 kg of solar panels can only be used to generate 1 GW of electricity over 25 years."
It still equates 1 kg of nuclear waste with 1 kg of solar panel waste in terms of environmental impact. That's crazy, since most of the solar panel waste is from the glass front panel and the frame, which are harmless materials.
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That is pretty funny, as 1kg of burnt nuclear fuel is enough to make a city like New York uninhabitable for a few 1000 years, while 300kg of old solar panels are pretty harmless as all the "bad" metals are fused in the silicon and it is minuscule amounts in addition. Unless you, you know, put them in a river for the water to grind down over a few decades, that is exactly where these metals will stay.
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Well, while I agree there are problems with the article, in fairness 1kg of "spent" nuclear fuel won't magically develop wings and spread it self out to make a city the size of New York uninhabitable either. (And spent fuel isn't that [wikipedia.org] dangerous to begin with. )
If you leave it alone, it will pretty much leave you alone as well. And a 1kg cube of spent fuel just sitting there won't be that dangerous. We store them in pools in our plants for the shortest lived, most active daughters to decay before sending t
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It is still wrong, because they only compare actual nuclear fuel as in Uranium. Not the whole rods, that are much larger. Not the control rods that have to be replaced regularly because they get irradiated.
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assumed they would all be retired in 25 years Ã" the average lifespan
Odd assumption considering that the standard warranty is 25 years, with quality brands like Sharp and LG now at 30 years.
The panels are pretty simple devices really. They just need to be sealed properly and made of reasonably durable materials, and fortunately we have figured out how to make building materials that last more than 30 years quite reliably.
Oh, and of course you have to add in the reduction in wear on the roof.
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assumed they would all be retired in 25 years Ã" the average lifespan
Odd assumption considering that the standard warranty is 25 years, with quality brands like Sharp and LG now at 30 years.
The solar panels we bought 30 years ago still give us enough power to warrant being mounted on our roof, I have no idea what the warranty was then or how the quality has changed since then..
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Solar panels typically degrade at 0.5% per year from their original rated power. By their nature, they are exposed to solar UV all their lives. The high energy photons damage the relatively thin semiconductor junction layers in the cell. Other parts of the panel, like the aluminum frame, are likely to degrade faster than the cells themselves, and once the panel is no longer weather-tight, they can fail fairly fast. But then, so do houses, once the roof isn't weather-tight any more.
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Other parts of the panel, like the aluminum frame, are likely to degrade faster than the cells themselves, and once the panel is no longer weather-tight, they can fail fairly fast.
The aluminum frame will outlast the panel by far if it's actually Aluminum. Unfortunately, most frames I've seen have used steel screws. They need to be welded or riveted. Hopefully that's how it's done now. Aluminum forms a protective oxide layer, which is why it lasts so long in the elements. But if you mix it with steel, you'll get galvanic corrosion. You can use tin or zinc as an intermediate layer to prevent it, but that never works perfectly.
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Slanted Article is Slanted (Score:5, Informative)
While solar panels do pollute a little if not properly disposed of, as far as I know, lead, cadmium and chromium are all pretty easy to recover by melting down the panels. If you are stupid enough to burn plastic, you get what you get, but as a kid we burned plastic from time to time and we didn't suffer any ill effects.
The problem with these articles is they assume the worst case for the disposal of panels while assuming the best case for nuclear waste. It is relatively trivial to recycle lead, cadmium and chromium into new solar panels, and they require no more than respirators and proper gloves and ventilation/filtration to work with, whereas spent nuclear fuel is quite difficult and dangerous to work with and there is no real east way to recycle spent nuclear waste. Alternatively, you could bury the worlds entire supply of solar panels in a landfill and it would be pretty harmless, assuming the landfill was modern and properly lined and isolated from the ground water (the lead, cadmium and other heavy metals are usually laminated between layers of glass, so even breaking the panels only exposes a small fraction of the total heavy metal content).
As first world societies, if we are really concerned for the environment, we should slap a recycle fee onto every panel sold and then require that they be recycled in a first world country with felony prison time for exporting un-recycled e-waste to the third world (we already do this more or less for many other things that need to be recycled).
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FTFY.
We all need to be aware that big money interests are using every means at their disposal, including fake think tanks, to fool the public into supporting them. This is just another example of that. In this case, the bias and factual misrepresentation are quite obvious for anyone who is slightly skeptical, but still, many people will be fooled.
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So a new iPhone every year produces less e-waste than my 8-year old Garmin GPS?
I don't think so.
My 8 year old iPod Touch says you are an idiot for buying a new iDevice every year.
After I cracked the screen on my iPod, ran my old cell phone through the wash, and my Tom Tom died I finally decided to get an iPhone 7. I expect this to last nearly 8 years. This should not be too much to ask given how long my last iDevice lasted, I got a rubber case for it, and the screen is much stronger. If the waterproof claims are true it might even survive an accidental washing.
Oh, and when one of my alarm clocks di
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Note, by the by, that melting down nuclear fuel rods isn't actually that difficult either. Or wouldn't be if not for the NIMBY's who wet themselves when they hear the word "nuclear". Note that we were doing it in 1945 with what passed for technology at the time....
And you might want to be aware, when considering the long half-life of so
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One extra cancer at age 50 out of a hundred home-alone firebrand toddlers cosplaying Legoland Nero counts as an "ill effect" in my ledger.
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whereas spent nuclear fuel is quite difficult and dangerous to work with and there is no real east way to recycle spent nuclear waste.
Well, it usually is recycled into anti tank rounds for the A10 Gatling gun, or anti tank ammunition for hu hom, tanks.
In Germany we use Wolfram instead.
Re: Slanted Article is Slanted (Score:2)
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ROHS compliance just means that if thrown in a hole the stuff won't leach hazardous chemicals into the ground. It does not mean it is recyclable. We'd still have to deal the the pile of trash PV creates.
With nuclear waste we can vitrify it keep it from leaching stuff and throw it in a hole for 300 years. After that we can dig it up and recycle the now radiologically inert elements. We might be able to toss PV cells in a hole and dig it up 300 years later after we figure out how to recycle it but that pi
Push study. (Score:2, Insightful)
Read it. Makes lots of really bad assumptions, all designed to push a specific political agenda.
1) Assumes they have a really short lifespan. Basically they are using manufacturer's estimated lifespan of 25 years, when in truth, these things do not stop working. No moving parts, hermetically sealed so no water, insects, or even air gets in, low electrical voltage. The most common cause of destruction is something hitting them - lightning bolts, hail, baseballs. They can theoretically last for centur
Re:Push study. (Score:5, Informative)
Chalk up an own goal! Voyagers 1 and 2 are powered by RTGs [nasa.gov], not solar panels. Nothing that is destined to operate much beyond Mars orbit is powered by solar panels. Inverse square law of solar radiation intensity and all.
And with that your credibility is gone. Thank you for playing the "I don't know what I'm talking about but will push my agenda anyway" game.
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And with that your credibility is gone.
And with that is yours. You have just now decided to discredit statements based entirely on the source without analysis of the statement itself. Just because he said one stupid thing (a subset of one point mind you) doesn't invalidate the rest of his points, or even the point he was originally making.
Focus on the discussion, not the people.
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Focus on the discussion, not the people.
Sure, when discussing the durability of solar panels one would expect an example that contained actual solar panels. We don't know how long solar panels will actually last because we have not been using them long enough to get good estimates. Claiming a potential operational lifespan of PV cells in the centuries cannot be backed with actual evidence.
What we do have a lot of data on is the life of a nuclear reactor because we've been doing that for over six decades. Claiming an operational life of 50 year
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Claiming a potential operational lifespan of PV cells in the centuries cannot be backed with actual evidence.
That is why we have laws of physic.
For most things in life you don't need any evidence but simply an understanding how physics work.
PC cells hold basically indefinitely after they have degraded to their 'settled efficiency'.
Everyone but you knows that, so you need evidence and we facepalm about you.
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Nothing that is destined to operate much beyond Mars orbit is powered by solar panels.
Well, to be pedantic, Juno [nasa.gov] is a solar powered orbiter at Jupiter. The average distance to the sun for Mars is 1.5 AU, whereas it is 5.4 AU for Jupiter. But that's pushing the limits of the technology. There's an informative article [airspacemag.com] on the topic from Smithsonian's Air and Space Magazine. You can get a sense of the size of the panels from this video [youtube.com].
Re:Push study. (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. Silicon plate panels, i.e., the ones nobody wants to purchase anymore because they're ungodly expensive in comparison to alternatives, degrade at 0.5-0.7% of power capacity per year.
Thin film panels, i.e., the ones everyone is currently buying due to cost advantages, degrade at 1-1.5% of power capacity per year.
After you've lost 20% of your capacity and can no longer satisfy your design load, you're not going to be happily touting how you can still get power out of your panels.
Who says? The NREL [nrel.gov], based upon about 1700 data points (Fig. 2 of linked report).
Don't sell me bullshit either.
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Yes you can. Ever heard of MOX fuel?
As much as 90% of the fuel can be reused. It just that the rest is actinides which poison the nuclear reaction and don't allow the reaction to occur any more. Much of the U-238 in the original fuel is transmuted into PLUTONIUM which is fissile so you need less U-235 because Plutonium can replace it.
The alternative is to use a nuclear reactor which works regardless of the actinides being there or not. Namely the Generation IV fast reactors that I mentioned above.
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RTFL.
CANDU reactors do not need 5-6% fissionable uranium. 1% is enough.
They use heavy water as a moderator. Of course you could have read my link above but noooo.
You go back to school you dolt.
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We did not talk about CANDU reactors to that point.
That was a different post of yours.
And perhaps you want to check the GP.
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https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/09/lost-in-bonkers-the-latest-episode-in-pro-nuclear-quackery/ [counterpunch.org]
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1) Assumes they have a really short lifespan.
Voyager? Go read a book.
They also assume that nuclear technology will not advance. There are nuclear reactor designs being worked on that can "burn" the waste from previous reactors. These reactors can also produce plutonium-238, for more deep space probes like Voyager.
Solar? On Voyager? I can't even...
2) When they do stop working, it assumes they will be recycled, rather than land filled (not a guarantee), and that they will be recycled in the cheapest, most environmentally horrible method - burning. Yes, that is the most common method for ewaste, but we are more likely to bury than to recycle them
If it is not recycled then it is buried, either way we'd have a huge pile of stuff to deal with.
3) They compared it with nuclear rather than coal or petroleum.
Yes, they compare it with nuclear. This is because unlike a lot of environmental advocacy groups they offe
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No. Works on a different principle.
Would you like ketchup on that? (Score:2)
In the immortal words of Van Jones....."This story is a nothing burger"
mdsolar's not going to like this... (Score:2)
mdsolar's not going to like this...
"Can Be" =/= "Will Be" (Score:3)
Last I heard, the major problem with 'e-Waste' recycling was that, to put it bluntly, on a good day it is just 'shipped to the 3rd world to be burned for the copper'--and apparently the heavy metals also can be leeched out of the panels by rainwater & end up in the soil, which has its own problems because not all solar farms are on land actually owned by the people running the solar farm. (Good damn luck figuring out who's legally responsible for the hazmat site!)
Really, I'm not going to trust anybody in the solar panel industry telling me that I basically shouldn't worry my little head about these problems, expecting honesty from them on potential environmental harm from solar panels. They've got a vested interest in denying everything, because the main selling point for solar power is that it's 'environmentally friendly.' This is an essential problem with any product where its key selling point is how (allegedly) environmentally-friendly it is--there is simply too much incentive for those profiting off the whole green movement for them to cover up any hint that their products might not be 100% harmless to the environment.
No more from nationalreview.com (Score:2)
nationalreview.com makes extremely disingenuous arguments and I'm not talking about just this article. Please no more from nationalreview.com.
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Would you prefer it if you read about this problem on HuffPo?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]
That's an article from 2014, so this is not new or the rantings of only "right wing nutjobs".
This is the more general problem of e-waste (Score:2)
There is no need to single out solar panels. This is the same problem as recycling computers, phones, tablets, and everything else electronic. Shipping this stuff to the People's Republic of Onga-Bonga to be vainly pulled apart by starving children is a worse solution than just letting it pile up locally. We need to develop specific technology for separating the exotic metals that make up e-waste. We will need those materials again to make new devices.
We are as gods, and had better get good at it.
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There is no need to single out solar panels.
I'll respectfully disagree, and I'll explain.
In my house I have a lot of electronics. If I were to have solar panels on my roof and tore them off and put them on a pile and then took all my electronics and put that on a pile the solar panel pile would be much larger. People don't have much to replace the electronics they use everyday and so we can't just exactly chose to not use them and keep our standard of living. We don't have to use solar power, we can use something else and still live like we do. T
It's a load of rubbish. (Score:2)
Environmental Review is a front. It's a pro-solar pressure group, and their concern for accurate science is secondary to that aim.
Not that nuclear power is a bad thing - it's clean, it's dependable, it's free of troublesome political dependencies. But Environmental Review take it too far - just look through their website. It's nothing but glowing praise of nuclear power and total condemnation without exception of everything else.
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Nuclear is "clean"? Apparently you are completely unaware that one reliably way to improve on "toxic" is "toxic and radioactive".
E waste from Nuclear plants? (Score:2)
Did they account for all the waste from nuclear plants. They have a awful lot of control systems and plumbing systems. Many moving parts.
These guys are just another front group (Score:2)
They always like to say "located in Berkeley" because it gives the impression that they're somehow leftist and edgy. They are neither of those things. They're an advocacy group for nuclear energy.
I'm not anti-nuclear, by the way. I just tend to be suspicious when an advocacy group goes to such lengths to pretend they're something else.
Nuclear waste is "carefully monitored" now... (Score:2)
But what about in 10'000 years? Or in 100'000? Or the few 100 Million years that anything containing Plutonium will take to become somewhat less dangerous?
I know the study's suspect (Score:2)
freaking weasel (Score:2)
How is "mainly made up of easy-to-recycle materials" in any way informative? No one said they were 50%+ cadmium.
Ok so let me get this straight (Score:2)
I understand that solar panels don't match up to nuclear. I also think I understand that nuclear would be one of our (if not THE) cleanest [known] way to produce the energy needs we have today, and that this is fairly common knowledge among those who care to educate themselves.
Solar hasn't even taken over as the main source of power. So why is it being directly compared against nuclear like this? Like it's something bad and we should just keep mainly sucking up oil. It baffles me. I mean maybe a few nuclear
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It's also hard to compare different types of waste, and that includes how easy it's to recycle the stuff - and how much any non-recycleable parts of it has to be contained when deposited.
Re:those fucking plastic bottles (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is precisely what this "study" does. Their graph simply compares cubic meters to cubic meters.
I put "study" in quotes because as far as I can tell there actually isn't a peer-reviewed study. [explainxkcd.com] Please correct me (with a link) if I'm mistaken.
Re:those fucking plastic bottles (Score:5, Insightful)
These kinds of studies are almost never peer reviewed. They don't explore scientific questions, all they do is accumulate a series of facts and present them. The important question is whether the data used is true, and peer review doesn't even attempt to answer that, it only looks for methodological errors in experiments, observations, or calculations. Pointing out that it isn't peer reviewed is meaningless, because you wouldn't expect it to be peer reviewed, any more than you'd expect this comment to be peer reviewed.
Re:those fucking plastic bottles (Score:5, Insightful)
And in the absence of peer review, let's look to the poor monopolistic electric utility companies, who are the ostensible direct beneficiaries of the study, just like Kellogg and Post sponsored studies on sugar and carbohydrates.
Not many solar panels have been taken out of service, to start with, and more installed each and every day. They have a pretty long life, and so the pool of "spent" solar panels seems mysterious to me. Comparing them to nuclear waste, volume for volume, is designed to evoke horrors in those that believe that somehow, solar panels will kill for thousands of years, and they won't.
YES, e-waste needs great attention, but this is far more a hatchet job designed to slow down the implementation rate of solar panels. Do you smell the Koch Bros, AES, or Duke Energy in this one? I'm just not sure, only to follow the money.
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Lol really, different things are different?! IC chips containing precious metals can't possibly be different than solar panels. Surely they would just burn anything that says "e-waste" on it, and huff the fumes hoping precious metals will fall from the sky? No?
Re:those fucking plastic bottles (Score:4, Insightful)
Everything about this is baffling. What makes them think solar panels contain even trace amounts of plastic apart from the wiring (which you wouldn't replace when you replace the panels)?
AFAIK, all real-world solar panels are basically doped silicon covered with glass. The plastic-coated solar cells are exclusively used in cheap solar calculators and maybe the rolled panels they use on satellites. Plastic-covered panels likely wouldn't survive a year in direct sunlight, and that's not even considering the efficiency losses from rain pock-marking the surface.
This is basically the scientific version of "fake news".
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A couple points:
1) Glass solar panels use EVA plastic film for the lamination, and over the back for encapsulation. If they're using something more expensive, it is a plastic resin of some sort. The silicon cells are very very fragile, you have to have encapsulation, and that means plastic.
2) The plastic film is UV resistant and that is what they would use to protect the cell even if they weren't already using it in the lamination.
The one thing they do have is lots of chrome wire. Chrome is bad, don't eat t
Unmitigated bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate to say it, but this is (1) not a "study"-- it's an opinion article, and
(2) the opinion expressed is unmitigated bullshit.
From the purported "study": "Solar panels contain toxic metals like lead, which can damage the nervous system, as well as chromium and cadmium, known carcinogens.
Notice that weasel word--materials "like" lead. Solar panels don't contain lead. Period. But the "study" didn't actually say they contained lead, did it? It said they contain materials "like" lead. What does that actually mean? Uh, I don't think it actually means anything whatsoever.
Likewise, solar panels don't contain chromium (you'd think this guy would go after cars, wouldn't he? They actually do use chromium.). And, while one type of panel does use cadmium (albeit in micron thicknesses)-- the vast majority of low cost solar panels sold are silicon solar cells, which do not contain cadmium.
Overall conclusion: this is not a "study," this is bullshit, pure and simple,
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Solar panels don't contain lead.
However, lead and other toxic heavy metals may be necessary to be released during the overall production processes used to create the solar panels, so the production process can be said to include or contain these waste materials.
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Re:Unmitigated bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Notice that weasel word--materials "like" lead. Solar panels don't contain lead. Period.
Actually, uh, yeah, they can. They're called Perovskite solar cells [wikipedia.org]. They can also contain chromium.
Re:Unmitigated bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Perovskite panels aren't "piling up around the world" like the study says, because none of them have reached commercial use. Their operating life is too short, so they are still an item of research. For that matter, silicon solar panels, the most common type by far, are not piling up anywhere, either (except maybe warehouses and solar farms). That's because they have a useful life of ~30 years, and practically no solar panels are that old yet. Silicon panels contain silicon, obviously, and aluminum (the frame), glass (cover sheet), usually plastic for the back sheet, copper (wiring) and trace amounts of silver (electrical contacts on the cell itself). All of that is eminently recyclable and none of it is dangerous.
Solar *farms* as opposed to just the panels, also contain concrete and steel (the panel mounting structures), more wiring, and transformers at the point where the power goes to the transmission lines. But those are no different than what you find at any other power plant.
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"Solar panels don't contain lead."
The ones made in the 80s used lead solder at their electrical connections.
"Likewise, solar panels don't contain chromium "
Flexible perovskite solar cells most certainly contain a layer of chromium oxide.
Study shows butt-hurt coal miners (Score:2)
Make shit up about solar panels which are stealing their jobs.
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"If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization".
Are you Jerry Weinberg? No, I thought not.Otherwise you would have got the quotation right:
"If builders built houses the way programmers write programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization".
You might at least acknowledge Weinberg as the author.
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>> I was told my panels and batteries would pay off in about 20 years
There's your problem. Why storage and a 'ROI of 20 Years, when you can have a ROI of 8 Years without storage and battery hassle?
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Nothing 3 way switches couldn't take care of by switching on/off the grid I guess...
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Rooftop solar is not a typical backup solution, but it can be. Rooftop solar and a battery pack, which is what the GPP said he had, is a backup solution. This is is fact what Tesla has been selling with their PowerWall systems, something that can keep the lights on in a power outage. Pair that PowerWall with solar and it can keep a person with lights and such indefinitely. It's not quite an off grid system yet since the costs would be prohibitive to be large enough to run air conditioners and large appl
Re: And this is why Republicans... (Score:2)
Re:Oh if only someone could have anticipated this (Score:4, Insightful)
You seem very eager to believe a bullshit article.
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The technology uses toxic materials by the boatload. Nothing leaves the environment unless it's shot into space.
So you ignore the conservation laws, basic common sense, handwave away the article with ad hominem.
Be willing to bet you think you are open minded and rational as well.
Not all toxic waste is equal (Score:5, Insightful)
Try Recyling Nuclear waste. The stupid article simply says 300 times as much toxic waste as a nuclear power energy unit. In what units? volume, molarity, mass, rads, toxicity, ease of neutralization?
the article is Right wing rubbish.
No it's not like there isn't a grain for truth to be gleaned here but such glib quantifications are . give away that this article itself is utter crap
Re:Not all toxic waste is equal (Score:4, Insightful)
One can go further and ask what format is the waste in? for example chromium in nitric acid solution from, say, nuclear waste or something is much more mobile in the soil or aquifers than lead fixed in some glass matrix. Indeed one of the treatments for mobile wastes is to convert them to a fixed form. It's not like the process of making a solar panel created lead atoms. Thos atoms came from the environment, were concentrate for some use-- though in the case of lead the ore is usuall extremely concentrated to begin with-- and now they are back in the environment usually in some very fixed format in an alloy, not going any where and in rather small qualities in mixed waste. These waste scrap yards are an excellent short term storage format unlikely to do a lot of damage while we wait for the materials to become worth reclaiming. Cadmium and lead may be toxic but if you are not running them up an incinerator or letting them leach in to an aquifer then they are not actually toxic to anything.
Quantifying what is worse pollution is somewhat tricky here. this article doesn't even specify units let alone format.
Re: Not all toxic waste is equal (Score:2)
Re:Not all toxic waste is equal (Score:5, Interesting)
> In what units?
If I read the article propely, it's volume (cubic meter per TWh).
So, it compares nuclear waste that are ultra dangerous and takes thousand years to become riskless, with lead, chromium, cadmium.
This comparizon is obviously entirely useless (and somehow stupid), unless it intend to mislead readers.
Having said that, recycling solar panel will soon be a challenge. Within next 10 years, we will have to replace a huge amount of panels that reached end of life.
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Even at "End of life" they will likely still work, just not as well. Before recycling I'd think repurposing would be a fairly large market.
For a fraction of the price you can get a solar panel that's maybe 75% of its rated output. That's still usable power, and perhaps a good choice for some low-importance applications.
=Smidge=
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Try Recyling Nuclear waste.
Most nuclear waste could be and should have been reprocessed safely, but federal rules say No.
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>Try Recyling Nuclear waste.
Try googling it before spouting off nonsense.
https://whatisnuclear.com/arti... [whatisnuclear.com]
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I think I failed if that's your interpretation
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It wasn't you. If you wanted him to like you, you'd have had to blame some libraals for the problems with the story. There is nothing honest you could have said to get a more a honest response.
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Someone (OP?) should research the author -- Environmental Progress. They are (were) founded by Shellenberger; and he and Environmental Progress have/are advocating Nuclear power.
So what you're saying is they are sane environmentalists, who understand everything is a compromise?
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....references of this that is will raise the question of impartiality of the article.
Per chance you might want to read my comment before reply.
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However, this research was not funded by "persons of dubious character".
But all bitcoins are welcome.
Re:Then I guess (Score:4, Informative)
The "bad" stuff is made of stuff we dug out of the ground and made into often unstable molecules to make the PV panels. When exposed to UV rays, moisture, and the glass or plastic is damaged (like from hail or an errant baseball) these unstable molecules can leach out. These molecules can leach into the water where it can be a cancer causing agent. Had it been left in the ground like it's been for billions of years, it's in a stable state from natural processes, it can harm no one.
Some PV panels are more likely to create these carcinogenic molecules than others. Those containing lead, cadmium, and arsenic are the most likely to create these compounds when left to the elements.
So, yes, "bad stuff" is created in these PV cells when they do not exist in the ground. This is not debated much, but what is debated is the rate these molecules are produced and leach into where it can harm people. If PV cells are produced in a quantity to where it can replace coal then it will be a problem. Just how much of a problem is something that no one is quite sure of, as far as I know anyway.
You can be snarky about the problem but that does not make it go away.
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It's both and more.
E-waste has been a problem for a long time now which has only been addressed around the edges in the past few years. Manufacturers of cellphones, coffeepots, and on and on have caved to pressure from consumers and regulators and created products that use less lead, mercury, and other heavy metals but solar panels do not work without some heavy metals in them. The cases of these small electronics, household appliances, and more now usually have recyclable cases made of plastic, glass, an
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It's adding to the problem of small electronics many times over because the non-recyclable parts in a cell phone is small compared to the rest but with a solar panel the non-recyclable portion is large.
If we can extract lead and cadmium from rocks, then why not from old solar panels ?
Re:is it the panels or... (Score:5, Informative)
If we can extract lead and cadmium from rocks, then why not from old solar panels ?
I'm not an expert here, just taking an educated guess based on what I know of how semiconductors are made and a quick reading on how cadmium and similar metals are refined. The problem is that they are different chemical processes. Cadmium in the environment exists mostly attached to a sulfur atom. Cadmium in a PV cell is attached to tellurium. Separating the two would involve a different chemical process, one that no one has figured out how to do yet at a price lower than digging up from the ground.
Turning old PV cells into new PV cells is not trivial either since the stuff must be deposited down in layers. If the PV cells are just crushed and melted down then you get a mess. It's like taking a peanut butter sandwich, putting it in blender and trying to pick out the pieces of bread from the peanut butter to make another sandwich.
Re:is it the panels or... (Score:5, Interesting)
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If the study has even a hint of being true then it would seem to me that nuclear power advocacy is also advocacy for the environment. I like lobby groups that say "yes" once in a while. Those environmental groups that just go around saying no to nuclear (because the make BOMBS!), no to coal (OMG the SMOG!), no to windmills (think of the BIRDS!), no to burning wood (you can't chop down a TREE! they have feelings too!), or solar power far from the city centers where no one even knows they are there (the TUR
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Indeed. Also, the toxic metals in solar panels are in the silicon, they are no just being washed out by rain or something. This stuff is in fact better contained that most radioactive waste.
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This is a far cry from a 5000 year half-life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
There are no fission products with a 5000 year half-life. There are short lived products and long lived products. The short lived stuff will be effectively gone in 300 years, and we know how to build structures (physical and political) to keep such things safe. Long lived products are not considered a radiation hazard, they are still heavy metals so gloves, goggles, and the like are still called for but this is nothing beyond what would be needed to recycle batteries and