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Is this $60 disposal sustainable? I mean, if we're concerned about using a renewable energy source, shouldn't we be concerned that its materials are also renew
by rmbyrro 5y ago
Is this $60 disposal sustainable?
I mean, if we're concerned about using a renewable energy source, shouldn't we be concerned that its materials are also renewable?
How much does it cost to renew that $4000/kg solar panel so that it can continue to be used?
I bet renewing will cost more than $4000/kg. If that's true, we're taking a 50-75% discount on the expense of future generations, as I said. Solar is more expensive than we are lead to think it is. This should be accounted in decision and policy making.
Just my person opinion.
- ncmncm 5y agoThe cheapest PV panels today are cadmium-telluride, with 8g/m^2 of cadmium. That will be valuable reclaimed. Anyway you don't want it in your landfill. My main worry about the cadmium is whether a house fire makes your neighborhood a superfund site.
- pfdietz 5y agoOf course it's sustainable. The notion that landfilling somehow isn't sustainable is based mostly on silly aesthetics. About the only concern with sustainability in PV is silver for contact wires, but that can be substituted for. It's being used now because it's marginally cheaper.
- rmbyrro 5y agoTo clarify: not the landfill in itself, but the materials are finite. If we don't reuse them, we'll run out of them eventually. Future generations will have to dig through our landfills to recycle them. And that will be quite expensive. That's the future bill I'm mostly concerned about.
- pfdietz 5y agoSo, exactly which material for PV were you concerned about? This also goes against your original expression about lifecycle cost. Later shortage of some critical material doesn't affect the lifecycle cost of PV built now.