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If Solar Panels Are So Clean, Why Do They Produce So Much Toxic Waste?
- baybal2 8y agoAll and every semiconductor manufacturing produces tons and tons of toxic waste. If people are so inclined, they are free to surrender all modern conveniences.
- melling 8y ago“If people are so inclined, they are free to surrender all modern conveniences” Not really an acceptable response.
- TomMarius 8y agoNo one says that semiconductors are clean.
- ThomPete 8y agoThat's not really the proper way to think about this. Computers with electricity and access to cheap and plentiful energy are a baseline for everything else in modern society. Solar has a bunch of advantages but the idea that it together with wind is going to be able to solve our energy needs is simply misguided and thus it has to undergo the same Cost/Benefit analysis as everything else does.
- crdoconnor 8y agoBack in the old days before the economics favored green energy the default assumption was that The Market Should Decide. It seems now that the market is deciding that there is a flurry of media going "now hold on a minute"
- emj 8y agoYou do have to think about externalities that hurt the earth; it is often thought of as a political question what externalities to include in cost/benefit analysis. We do not care about things that do not affect our current beliefs (see climate change deniers, profit maximizers). Just because something is a baseline in your life does not mean it is exempt from a complete cost/benefit analysis.
- ThomPete 8y agoYou also have to think about externalities that improve human life and a bunch of other things. So yes you have to make the cost benefit analysis. I have yet to see someone make a cost benefit analysis that would make solar and wind come out on top.
- throw-far-away 8y agoReads suspiciously like a "clean coal" anti-climate-change FUD propaganda article to me.
- peter_retief 8y agoI once tried to have this conversation with people who were keen on clean solar power, I suggested the evidence supports nuclear energy as the cleanest option we have to date. Needless to say I was vilified and insulted. (The sun is nuclear anyway :) )
- pjc50 8y agoCleanest if and only if nobody makes a mistake. Otherwise you end up with unfixable messes. And decommissioning is hardly a solved or cheap problem.
- AngryData 8y agoThere might not be many mistakes if we weren't forced to use reactors designed in the 50s and built in the 60s when we barely understood nuclear chemistry, but rather modern designs using advanced nuclear chemistry and advanced materials and design improvements. If nuclear power was equated to cars then arguing about nuclear safety using our current examples of failure would be like arguing about automobile safety risks using a Model A.
- Teknoman117 8y agoThe largest sticking point for me with nuclear is the whole bigger is better mentality. I'm all for it if we're going with passively safe designs. In theory this could help the whole decentralized grid ideas along. I think it would go a long way to ease public fear if we actually built reactors that can't melt down under any circumstance. I'm just scared of the big reactors. Nothing on this Earth is going to passively remove 1.5 GW of heat coming from something the volume of a hot water heater. We also need to be recycling our waste like the other nations which use nuclear power, not just chuck what's still 90% useful material in a holding tank for eternity.
- ThomPete 8y agoPeople think about this completely upsides down IMO. Nature is killing more people every year than have been killed by nuclear in all its time. The sun is killing more people than dies of nuclear (Melanomas and skin cancer) I could go on. Nuclear isn't as dangerous as it's been claimed and with never reactors the actual security procedure is physical. On top of that investments into thorium and fusion could have gotten us much further. It's not that bigger is better it's that bigger is safer from a number of perspectives. Nuclear is by far the safest, greenest, most scalable, reliable energy source we know how to use and it's many times safer than the very mother nature everyone seems to want to save. Nature doesn't give us a safe, friendly environment we then make unsafe it gives us a hostile and dangerous environment which we then make safe. Funny how disagreement in this always gets met with downvotes rather than at least argument or reasoned disagreement. Why is it so hard for people to disagree about this without it turning into a downvote competition?
- pjc50 8y agoIt would be nice to distinguish between different panel chemistry: it's not news that CdTe or CIGS cells contain cadmium, but do crystalline ones? Also, a sense of perspective; lots of roofs have either lead flashing (toxic heavy metal) or bitumen (carcinogen) on them already.
- baybal2 8y agoNo, plain silicon solar cells making 99% of the market do not contain cadmium.
- baybal2 8y agoMoreover, the article also mentions Arsenic. Arsenic is not used in production of PV cells today for exactly that reason, and also because it is much slower diffusing bulk dopant in comparison to Phosphorus. The only reason Arenic was used in first generation of solar cells (eighties) is because of technology commonality with the microelectronics industry. Bulk manufactured cells never used Arsenic dopants.
- dragonwriter 8y agoAnswered (obliquely) in the article (which for some—presumably ideological, given the source—reasons tries to not acknowledge this fact): because environmental costs of disposal are a non-internalized externality which, if internalized, would promote recycling except in certain disaster cases where this became impractical, and eliminate most of the toxic waste.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoA question I'd like to see answered: are solar panels net energy producers? I.e. over their lifetime, do they generate more electricity than combined energy that went into manufacturing, transporting and deploying them, including the marginal energy costs of mining the necessary substances they're made of? Because if not, then they're a net waste. I'd like to see a similar analysis on emissions instead of raw energy too. It's not that I think solar is bad; it's just I don't understand why discussions about energy and emissions never include end-to-end accounting of energy costs & emissions. -- EDIT: Yes, I am lazy; in the Christmas fever I forgot about the term "EROI", though I still see it discussed too rarely. But yay, thanks people for jumping to conclusions and accusing me of motivated reasoning and/or sowing disinformation. -.-
- quonn 8y agoIt‘s called EROI and information is widely available.
- pjc50 8y agoEROEI calculations are hard to do and even harder to compare accurately, because you have to decide what second and third order effects "count". Most reliable ones I've seen put the lifetime output at 5x to 10x the input. This is actually better than some of the unconventional oil extraction methods.
- pfdietz 8y agoAnd those calculations are done assuming the PV modules are made in the same place they are installed, like, say, Germany. But there are places in the world where the solar resource is 2x better. In those places, the EROI would be even better. This does lead to an interesting observation: in a solar-powered world, heavy industry is going to move away from places with less sunlight. Good for the low latitude countries, not so good for Europe.
- llukas 8y agohttps://phys.org/news/2016-12-solar-panels-repay-energy-debt.html https://phys.org/news/2016-12-solar-panels-repay-energy-debt...
- Someone 8y ago”they are not easy to recycle.” doesn’t mean they are impossible to recycle. There already are companies working on it, since solar cell recycling will be a huge market. It likely won’t be possible to fully recycle solar cells, but what _can_ we recycle fully? At least, it will decrease the amount of left over stuff significantly (https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/2017/10/the-opportunities-of-solar-panel-recycling https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/2017/10/the-opportunities-...) One would hope most countries would introduce legislation requiring solar panel recycling. The EU already has that, because solar panels fall under theme waste directive (http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/weee/legis_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/weee/legis_en.htm)
- WalterBright 8y agoI'm not sure why they need to be recycled. Aren't they mostly just silicon? Silicon is sand? Aren't there a lot of other things that are more productively recyclable?
- lolc 8y agoAs the article notes a large portion of the material in a solar cell is glass that contains cadmium. Edit: I see other people disagree with the author of the article that Cadmium use is widespread.
- dtech 8y agoHave you read the article? The main problem seems to be heavy metals like lead and cadmium. They don't need to be recycled per se, but those do need to be extracted. Heavy metals are notorious for contaminating ground and groundwater if left on landfills.
- _ph_ 8y agoOne should be using the correct terminology then. Sounds like disposal of used solar cells is not a huge problem, if the toxic components can be separated from the silicon and glass (which again is mostly silicon). Then its a matter of efficiency, whether it makes sense to recycle the silicon and glass or just grind and dump it.
- bambax 8y agoExcept when they are destroyed by a storm, etc., what makes a solar panel go bad? Is there a chemical reaction inside that consumes something (that could maybe be refilled) or is it just the fact that they are exposed to the elements (and so maybe they should be made stronger)?
- Someone 8y agohttps://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2017/06/causes-solar-panel-degradation/ https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2017/06/causes-solar-p...: ”According to NREL, modules can fail because of unavoidable elements like thermal cycling, damp heat, humidity freeze and UV exposure. Thermal cycling can cause solder bond failures and cracks in solar cells. Damp heat has been associated with delamination of encapsulants and corrosion of cells. Humidity freezing can cause junction box adhesion to fail. UV exposure contributes to discoloration and backsheet degradation.”
- ginko 8y agoSeems like quite a few of these could be avoided by regular maintenance.
- baybal2 8y agoNo, the biggest killer of PV cells is natural degradation Photons and other energetic particles knock Silicon atoms out of lattice, and tear the junction layer. There is no 100% efficient trick against that so far in any common semiconductor. Lithium dopant was once used in space PV cells. It almost halves the decay rate, but even that was not considered enough to warrant using it over simply having bigger area of less durable, but more efficient cells.
- jplayer01 8y agoElectronic devices undergo decay like anything else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_of_electronic_components https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_of_electronic_componen... It's unavoidable.
- solarkraft 8y agoIt's becoming boring to read these "But is x really clean? Ha, got 'em" articles. Surely your coal powerplant doesn't produce any toxic waste.
- ju-st 8y agoIt's better to ignore these kinds of threads and not post troll comments.
- bad_user 8y agoThe alternative isn't coal, the alternative is nuclear.
- SquareWheel 8y agoBoth are alternatives. They serve different uses. It is likely we will need both nuclear and solar to finally get off coal.
- phyzome 8y agoGood thing nuclear plants don't produce any toxic waste either.
- wbl 8y agoIt's all about quantity. The quantity of radioactive waste a nuclear reactor produces is small. It also quickly becomes comparatively harmless.
- adjkant 8y agoI'm not a nuclear expert or anything but can you cite this? Isn't a big negative of nuclear exactly that the waste lasts for so long? What exactly does "relatively harmless" mean?
- kemayo 8y agoI'm too lazy to find a really good source, but here's a quick summary. The spent fuel of a nuclear power plant is a mix of various isotopes, which will decay at different rates. Nuclear decay occurs when radiation is emitted from a nucleus. Thus the more dangerously radioactive stuff decays a lot quicker. Idea is that something which is actively pumping out heat and deadly levels of radiation might become safe(-er) within a few months to years. Getting to the point of "you won't die if you spend an hour in the room with it" is still decades of waiting away, though. And the entire spent fuel mix would take thousands of years to get back to the radiation levels of the original ore we fed into the plant. All that said, a fun-ish comparison I've seen is that coal ash contains fairly high levels of heavy metals like lead and cadmium, which genuinely never become "safe". We have something like 1,500 ash disposal sites in the US which are toxic hellscapes at risk of leaking into the surrounding areas.
- baybal2 8y ago> Author: Michael Shellenberger That is already telling. A registered lobbyist... The two claims he makes: 1. PV modules are made of Cadmium Cadmium cells make less than 1% of the market, and they are a failed, dying technology. CdTe cells were made in hopes of making cells cheaper by not using a "microchip grade" silicon, but the people behind the startup making them were completely wrong about economics of the process — the truth is completely the opposite. It is silicon cells' process commonality with the rest of semiconductor industry that makes them so cheap. Hey, but thanks to those joke dudes called "venture capitalists" for spinning them up. 2. PV modules are made of Arsenic No, only first generation of cells made in electronic fabs were made with Arsenic as N dopant. No commercial process ever used it. PV cells are N doped with Phosphorus exactly for the reason that it is non-toxic, and because Phosphorus is simply better as a bulk dopant. It is much faster diffusing, and requires lower temperatures for dopant activation.
- MrBuddyCasino 8y agoGuy is a pro-nuclear activist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger#Position_on_renewable_energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger#Position... Doesn’t mean he is a sellout, but certainly not neutral.
- ThomPete 8y agoAnd neither a lobbyist unless that definition has lost all meaning.
- DonHopkins 8y agoThe late David MacKay's book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" is available free online: http://www.withouthotair.com/ http://www.withouthotair.com/ Here's the chapter about solar energy: http://www.withouthotair.com/c6/page_38.shtml http://www.withouthotair.com/c6/page_38.shtml Here's a 100 word synopsis he wrote for his talk to the House of Lords: http://www.inference.org.uk/sustainable/book/SUMMARY http://www.inference.org.uk/sustainable/book/SUMMARY David MacKay also invented the Dasher text input system: http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/ http://www.inference.org.uk/dasher/
- llukas 8y agoVery good book but tech went lot further than David expected in many places (ie. solar power efficiency vs price). This page tried to keep it updated: https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2017/3/30/l6qcqgoedse1wmjjz87t09usoq6jva https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2017/3/30/l6qcqgoedse1...
- DonHopkins 8y agoThanks -- that's a pleasant surprise (both that technology has advanced further than he expected, and that people are keeping his book up to date)!
- yazr 8y agoAmazingly, LCOE prices of utility size PVs have dropped another 30% - 40% just since this update alone. And this is not some cherry picking. 2-3c/kwh in the US, India, Chile, Middle East, etc..
- dane-pgp 8y agoDavid MacKay has done some great work, but I feel I need to present some of the criticism he has received, for balance. In particular, there is a perception that he is biased towards nuclear energy (understating its drawbacks, while also being unnecessarily dismissive of renewables). People can consider these articles for themselves: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/professor-david-mackay-britain-must-go-nuclear-to-control-climate-bgtjk0j6wh9 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/professor-david-mackay-br... "Professor David MacKay: Britain ‘must go nuclear’ to control climate" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/03/idea-of-renewables-powering-uk-is-an-appalling-delusion-david-mackay https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/03/idea-of-... "Idea of renewables powering UK is an 'appalling delusion' – David MacKay" The latter, from 2016, includes the line: "There is this appalling delusion that people have that we can take this thing that is currently producing 1% of our electricity and we can just scale it up..." For reference, according to: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/wind-solar-overtake-nuclear-electricity-source-uk-first-time-renewable-energy-a8281656.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/wind-solar-overtak... "Renewables’ share of electricity generation shot up to 29 per cent, while nuclear sources accounted for around 21 per cent."
- agumonkey 8y agoThere are few questions: - photovoltaic cell degradation (which, beside external breakage, is the cause of recycling): so far it seems that cells degrade very slowly, 30 years and still 80% original power - manufacturing: if everything is melted/glue/fused .. it's hard to recycle. Maybe that's not a physical necessity but just old practice - silicon purification is said to be a energy hog, and uses lots of various Cl based acids. Some say these acids are handled properly nowadays (quite plausible). The energy side .. I wonder when we'll see a solar farm powering a PV cell plant. e^e What about other PV substrate? are perovskite toxic ?
- xte 8y agoThe problem is not only cleanness but also scale and sustainability: we need continuous power so if we go for solar panels we need to imaging a earth-wide electrical network with veeeeeery small losses. IMVHO solar panel are interested in modern houses (well insulated) as thermal source to heat both sanitary water to head the house itself with a good ventilation system. Photovoltaic may be interested a small scale local backup for low power devices like emergency illumination, communications and perhaps as a companion to thermo-solar for small pumps to make water circulation and perhaps home ventilation. Nothing more.
- isoprophlex 8y agoYour opinion is poorly informed. In the future we will still need high-exergy energy sources. PV provides this; thermal tech doesn't. Also, storage solutions for electricity exist, and these are not fringe/academic technology. For example, electrical vehicles exist today. Once everyone has an EV, that'll add ~50 kWh of storage capacity per EV to the grid.
- dontreact 8y agoHow is that calculation done? The storage capacity is needed at very specific times and is not generally available. I imagine most people will try to charge their cars at night.
- xte 8y agoThinking li-ion battery as a solution for PV electricity storage means confuse marketing bullshit with technology. Today's EV battery in 5/6 years will be good to augment African's and Asian's waste cargo business. Nothing more. You are right saying that we need and we will need more electricity, not because of EV BTW, but PV is NOT an answers being an inconstant and low efficiency power source. And I speak not basing my assumption on someone else unverified publication but due a semi-direct experience (few friends of mine in the recent past transform their roofs for PV, myself having recently build my new house I choose solar thermal to heat the house via a MCV and for sanitary water production with a 1000l + 800l cumulus. I have few friends/relatives that bought few EV, including two with a Tesla model S and I see how satisfy they are(n't) and how they'r EV range decrease in a very short time.
- dd36 8y agoCompared to what? Extracting fossil fuels requires bringing toxins to surface and combusting them endlessly.
- vemv 8y agoWhat if photovoltaic technology just isn't actually ready for showtime? i.e. it may need more research, so there's a clear recycling plan for each unit. We've seen this sort of thing before - being too quick to proclaim X is ready to take over the world, without thinking of the consequences first. See autonomous cars.
- CptFribble 8y agoWhen you consider the whole life cycle start to finish, nuclear power is the second safest in terms of deaths per terawatt-hour produced, only following hydroelectric power. That also includes every nuclear disaster ever. Solar energy is great, we need more of it, and I think the long-term future of power includes a microwave transmission solar station at one of the Lagrange points. However, when you look at the total externalities, nuclear is actually the safest and cleanest form of power that we could use in the medium term. Except that everyone is afraid of it, and no one wants to spend the money.
- spiritcat 8y ago"That also includes every nuclear disaster ever." Assuming there won't be any disasters worse than what has already occurred. Presumably any new nuclear capacity would use safer designs, but still, the tail end single event worst case scenario is a lot scarier.
- tabtab 8y agoThe P/R angle of it is the problem. It's just politically easier to sell something to the public that has a gradual and constant risk and death rate rather than something that bunches them.
- sjwright 8y agoNuclear disasters are almost exclusively the result of astonishing human incompetence which is almost unheard of in any comparable industry. Airlines have shown that it is possible to manage big risks. (Before you say Fukushima, remember the carnage and death was caused by an insanely catastrophic tsunami. Despite massive incompetence and disastrous consequences, it has resulted in a grand total of 1 death so far, with perhaps a few dozen over the lifetime of all people in the area. Not nothing, but it shows just how safe this stuff is when you extricate paranoia from the equation.)
- spiritcat 8y agoI was thinking more along the lines of, solar flare coinciding with massive earthquake causes multiple simultaneous Chernobyl's type thing.
- deevolution 8y agoRecycling the panels costs more than the value of the salvaged materials - but the alternative is expensive environmental damage and danger to people. Recycling is surely less expensive than the alternative.
- Nasrudith 8y agoThere is a third option - safe stockpiling of the old panels until they become economical to harvest. They are pretty inert - just a concrete floor and a roof overhead could prevent it.
- noufalibrahim 8y agoIsn't concentrated solar power (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power) an alternative way to harness solar energy and convert it into something usable? While not useful for installations like a home roof, I thought it made sense for generators and such.
- pfdietz 8y agoIt's largely not competitive with photovoltaics.
- therealdrag0 8y agoIt seems to still be competitive in some regions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power#Costs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power#Costs But, ya PV prices have fallen so much they're breaking people's expectations; and they work without direct sunlight.
- Nasrudith 8y agoThe advantage of concentrated thermal solar is that it can provide pure base-load 24-7 with its thermal capacity. The disadvantages are the expense, glare, and on a smaller note that they ironically need fuel to start up and get the salt molten again - when it must be down for maintenance. Not technically zero carbon because of that - at least until it becomes viable to generate sufficient heat electrically with a grid.