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Most of the materials from a panel should be recycleable. The bulk of the panel is an aluminium and glass wrapper over the solar cells. Glass and aluminium are

Most of the materials from a panel should be recycleable. The bulk of the panel is an aluminium and glass wrapper over the solar cells. Glass and aluminium are very recycleable.

vetinari 7y ago
They also contain metals like lead, chromium and cadmium. Recycling solar panels is not that simple or clean, it also involves burning plastic.
- spats1990 7y ago
  Sounds like that thing about the perfect being the enemy of the good to me. This chain of comments is interesting to me because it seems to follow a theme I always see around discussion of mining in Australia. To put it extremely bluntly, it usually goes: "Australia is in an advantageous position for a pivot to solar energy" --> "Well yes but we can't just stop mining, and solar panels aren't perfect by the way!" Related is the (to me) laughable notion that someone who uses products derived from Australian mining or benefited indirectly from that industry (almost unavoidable given Australian rare earth mining, for example, and the size of the mining industry in Australia) is somehow a moral hypocrite. I'm sorry, but by that logic, one is a moral hypocrite if one has criticized politicians but has not personally tried to make a difference in the system by becoming one; or one is a moral hypocrite for criticizing Google while continuing to use Gmail. It has no end. "Oh, you want a greener world, but I see you got on a plane once. Checkmate!!" No one reasonable thinks renewables like solar are a perfect solution. They just don't produce on such a drastic scale things like unlined coal ash dumps that leak into the groundwater.
  - brigandish 7y ago
    Well, if we’re going down the route of fallacies then the post I replied to was cherry picking to produce a false dilemma, but to claim that would be just as unfair as your straw man. They made the choice between “limitless energy raining down on empty desert“ and coal, without mentioning a) how to move the energy, b) how to get the materials for the panels, c) how to clean up / recycle the panels, or d) why nuclear in the desert isn’t a choice. I’d say nuclear seems the good choice here versus a perfect that’s so perfect it’s utopian. It’s not wrong to question utopian visions. By all means, get rid of coal - is anyone arguing on this page arguing against it?

Most of the materials from a panel should be recycleable. The bulk of the panel is an aluminium and glass wrapper over the solar cells. Glass and aluminium are very recycleable.

vetinari 7y ago

They also contain metals like lead, chromium and cadmium. Recycling solar panels is not that simple or clean, it also involves burning plastic.

spats1990 7y ago
Sounds like that thing about the perfect being the enemy of the good to me. This chain of comments is interesting to me because it seems to follow a theme I always see around discussion of mining in Australia. To put it extremely bluntly, it usually goes: "Australia is in an advantageous position for a pivot to solar energy" --> "Well yes but we can't just stop mining, and solar panels aren't perfect by the way!" Related is the (to me) laughable notion that someone who uses products derived from Australian mining or benefited indirectly from that industry (almost unavoidable given Australian rare earth mining, for example, and the size of the mining industry in Australia) is somehow a moral hypocrite. I'm sorry, but by that logic, one is a moral hypocrite if one has criticized politicians but has not personally tried to make a difference in the system by becoming one; or one is a moral hypocrite for criticizing Google while continuing to use Gmail. It has no end. "Oh, you want a greener world, but I see you got on a plane once. Checkmate!!" No one reasonable thinks renewables like solar are a perfect solution. They just don't produce on such a drastic scale things like unlined coal ash dumps that leak into the groundwater.
- brigandish 7y ago
  Well, if we’re going down the route of fallacies then the post I replied to was cherry picking to produce a false dilemma, but to claim that would be just as unfair as your straw man. They made the choice between “limitless energy raining down on empty desert“ and coal, without mentioning a) how to move the energy, b) how to get the materials for the panels, c) how to clean up / recycle the panels, or d) why nuclear in the desert isn’t a choice. I’d say nuclear seems the good choice here versus a perfect that’s so perfect it’s utopian. It’s not wrong to question utopian visions. By all means, get rid of coal - is anyone arguing on this page arguing against it?