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Study Claims Discarded Solar Panels Create More Toxic Waste Than Nuclear Plants (nationalreview.com)
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."
> 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.
Nothing that is destined to operate much beyond Mars orbit is powered by solar panels.
Well, to be pedantic, Juno 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 on the topic from Smithsonian's Air and Space Magazine. You can get a sense of the size of the panels from this video.
This is a normal e-waste issue. The original post comparing it to nuclear waste is just badly reasoned sensationalism. The e-waste problem is easily solved. In fact it is much easier to solve than the energy supply problem that solar PV is attempting to address. The solution is to require recycling costs to be included in the purchase price. The cost of recycling silicon solar PV panels is a tiny fraction of the purchase price. (CdTe panels are a different issue...and maybe a bad idea because of the recycling problem just like nuclear power is a bad idea because of nuclear waste.) If suppliers have to include recycling costs in what they charge, then they will start making even more easily recyclable panels But including recycling costs in the purchase price requires planning 20 or 30 years into the future and writing careful regulations. Most governments around the world seem to be inept at planning and regulating, largely because many voters seem to believe that the future is not their problem. But no matter what governments do, I can assure you that coal and petrochemical pollution will still be a much bigger problem than unrecycled solar panels and even nuclear wastes for at least the next 100 or 200 years. The real problem is that these poorly reasoned articles confuse people and keep them from making the switch to renewable energy that humanity has to make it we intend to keep 7 to 10 billion people living with modern comforts on planet earth over the next 100 years.