The unfortunate reality is that battery and solar panel manufacturing processes are dirty chemical affairs, even with exploding batteries aside. Just look at th

The unfortunate reality is that battery and solar panel manufacturing processes are dirty chemical affairs, even with exploding batteries aside. Just look at the process for solar panel manufacturing...... ------------ 1. Solar panels are made in China, Malaysia, the Phllippines, and Taiwan. (I think around 40% comes from China) 2. Solar panels are made from Quartz. 3. Quartz comes from mines, is abundant, can be found everywhere, and causes silicosis for miners. 4. Quartz is turned into silicon. —metallic grade silicon. We use this to harden steel. (requires a lot of heat) output = CO2 and Sulfur Dioxide. — not too bad. ;) 5. To purify the silicon into polysilicon you end up mixing hydrochloric acid with metalic-grade silicon = trichlorosilanes. 6. The trichlorosilanes mix with hydrogen that you add to the process. 7. Then bam, you get your polysilicon, and as well some nasty stuff called silicon tetrachloride. 8. For every 1 pound of polysilicon you make, you make 4 pounds of the nasty stuff-silicon tetrachloride. 10. Okay, so some green fanatics might tell you that you can just recycle this silicon tetrachloride stuff into new polysilicon because it requires less energy, but that’s unlikely because it costs a lot to do so. 11. If you’re a prudent manufacturer, you say “Fuck it.” and you just dump the silicon tetrachloride in an oil well. 12. It acidifies the soil and demolishes any water nearby. 13. Maybe one day we’ll manufacture the solar panels with ethanol instead of chlorine-compounds. — this would forego the nasty stuff — silicon tetrachloride. 14. That’s just the process to get polysilicon, there’s still a ton more to do and a ton of risks afterwards. But anyhow, let’s progress. 15. There’s got to be a better way, right? 16. Well there is, or so the hippies will proclaim. 17. There’s thin-film solar cells. 18. Most thin film cells are made from cadmium telluride and copper indium gallium selenide — often called CIGS 19. Usually you’ll layer these and splice in some cadmium sulfide. 20. Cadmium is carcinogenic. 21. You don’t want to be dumping cadmium all over junk yards, but that’s what happens to post-consumer waste. ----------- I'd even go as far as to say the nuclear disposal waste risks are an order of magnitude safer than a Solar future marked by silicon tetrachloride toxicity. If there are any ChemE's in here, I'd love to hear their take on it. I'm polymer & Systems engr, so I don't go deep enough into the mfg process.