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What will we do with all those solar panels when their useful life is over?-2018
- yesbut 5y agoDo we have a method of mass producing solor cells that doesn't require coal and is in widespread use?
- smorgusofborg 5y agoSolar has or is reaching wholesale grid price parity in many markets so it has in essence bootstrapped and the energy that goes into new solar panel production should increasingly be from existing solar panels.
- yesbut 5y agoI haven't seen any news about mass produced solar cell production that uses solar smelting. Any links that discuss large scale adoption? https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we_burn_coal_and_trees_to_make_solar_panels https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we...
- dublin 5y agoThis is a really good question, especially since a substantial fraction of the cheap Chinese solar panels produced in the past decade are not even lasting long enough to fully pay for themselves. Lower-tier Chinese panels are now frequently seen to be delaminating after just 6 or 7 years. At that point, they begin leaching toxic heavy metals into the environment. Recycling them makes no economic or energy sense, so most will wind up in landfills, poisoning the ground for centuries to come.
- mixmastamyk 5y agoMined elements poisoning the ground you say?
- jazzyjackson 5y agoPoison is a matter of degree, and mining is the process of taking huge volumes of ore and concentrating the metals, so yes you can poison groundwater with material that was previously distributed in the ground
- mixmastamyk 5y agoSolar panels evenly distributed in landfills are not the threat you’re looking for. Not a good place for wells either.
- iseanstevens 5y agoFirst I am hearing of delaminating panels.
- imtringued 5y ago"Toxic heavy metals" aka lead in solder which has been banned a long time ago. Sure, old panels still have lead in their solder.
- sunstone 5y agoJust like clothes, sell them to Africa.
- toomuchtodo 5y agoRecycle them. They are almost entirely recyclable, and facilities are actively operating today that perform this recycling. Veolia’s plant in France has been operating since 2018 [1]. Lotus Energy in Australia went live this year [2], recycling 100 percent of the input without using hazardous chemicals. First Solar is providing recycling services (90% recovery) in the US, Germany, and Malaysia [3]. As long as government requires recycling to create a market for this work to be done (instead of dumping in a landfill), it’s mostly solved (logistically speaking, you’re going to want facilities on every occupied continent so you’re not shipping or dumping panels elsewhere). [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-solar-recycling-idUSKBN1JL28Z https://www.reuters.com/article/us-solar-recycling-idUSKBN1J... [2] https://interestingengineering.com/australias-first-working-solar-panel-recycling-plant-is-up-and-running https://interestingengineering.com/australias-first-working-... [3] https://www.firstsolar.com/en/Modules/Recycling https://www.firstsolar.com/en/Modules/Recycling (Post is from 2018 and is stale)
- 8bitsrule 5y agoAlready developing products address the question. Below is a post from June 2021, followed by one for the paper it discusses - regarding the 'benefits to recycling perovskite** solar panels, though they are still in the commercial development stage...' https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/06/recycling-next-generation-solar-panels-fosters-green-planet https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/06/recycling-next-gene... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00737-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-021-00737-z ** ' a family of crystalline materials with structures like the natural mineral calcium titanate'
- SrslyJosh 5y ago> In order to make sure they’re ready, though, the solar industry is creating programs to train commercial recycling companies to understand what’s in manufacturers’ products and how to break them down, It seems to me like recycling should be part of the design process for these products. Instead of hoping that recyclers are able to do something with them, we should require that manufacturers account for the entire lifecycle of the product up-front.
- Andys 5y agoLack of focus on recycling is a big sign that government "green" programs are not all they purport to be.
- whoomp12342 5y agoyou mean, a politician lied to suit their own agenda? say it aint so!
- whoomp12342 5y agois it possible to refurbish them when their life is done?
- K0balt 5y agoWith the exception of truly defective panels, this is a pretty long range issue. Panels just degrade fairly linearly over a very long period of time. In 20 years they may still produce 75 percent of their rated output…. I’m pretty sure they will find homes where space is not at a premium for another 20 to 40 years after that. Then, yes, most will need to be recycled.
- rapjr9 5y agoSolar panels are still useful after "end of life". They may only output 80% of the power they used to, but that can still be of value to someone. Maybe the time when they actually need to be scrapped is more like 50-75 years, not sure we actually know yet.