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What waste does a solar panel generate? Or are you talking about the manufacturing process? So you’re saying building nuclear plants generates less waste than b

What waste does a solar panel generate? Or are you talking about the manufacturing process? So you’re saying building nuclear plants generates less waste than building solar farms? That’s unintuitive

kgabis 3y ago
Of course nuclear generates less waste than intermittent sources like solar or wind. Nuclear occupies orders of magnitude less land, requires less concrete, steel, copper, aluminium. And it's still comparing apples to oranges since nuclear is not intermittent and doesn't require building extra storage and grid infrastructure to account for variability.
- onethought 3y ago
  Oh, you are saying something that is used productively is waste. So nuclear plants waste heaps of water. By your measure.
littlestymaar 3y ago
> What waste does a solar panel generate? Or are you talking about the manufacturing process? I'm talking about the panels themselves after they reached their end of life. > So you’re saying building nuclear plants generates less waste than building solar farms? That’s unintuitive Nuclear power density is incredibly high: you build 1 concrete bunker and 3 supporting buildings and you have more than a gigawatt of power. For solar you need a square kilometer of solar panels to get 0.1GW. Compare those two places next to where I live: - the nuclear plant: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/47.7311/2.5188 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/47.7311/2.5188 - the solar farm: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/47.7229/2.6665 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/47.7229/2.6665 Roughly the same area. The solar farm has 55MW of power. The nuclear plant has 3.6GW, 65 times higher. And the nuclear plant's life will be 60 years at least, which means that over its lifetime the panels would need to be changed 3 times. And that's if there's no hail to damage them… And this calculation only counts Power, if you did the same calculation for actual energy produced the difference would be around ten time worse.
- onethought 3y ago
  Panels need to be changed every 20 years? 20 years is their minimum. What over time causes a panel to fail? I think counting a nuclear plant specifically without also counting the uranium mine required to support it is not completely honest. And also the storage facility for the waste should be counted as well. Uranium is typically huge open pit mines.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    > What over time causes a panel to fail? During a thunderstorm this spring, the solar farm I'm talking about above suffered significant damage from hailstones, losing around 10% of the panels (the farm had only opened in summer 22). That's one anecdotal example. > I think counting a nuclear plant specifically without also counting the uranium mine required to support it is not completely honest. You're vastly underestimating the energy density of Uranium: France, which produces close to 80% of its energy with nuclear imports less than 10 000T of Uranium each year. That's one kilo for 44 MWh of nuclear energy. (And most of it, the U238 part, isn't actually being used, but instead stored until the advent of breeder reactors). A solar panel weights a few dozens of kilograms per MWh/year (let say 20kg/Mwh/year, conservatively, even though from a quick search it's likely more) so you'd need to have your solar panel for 44x20 = 880 years for the mass of the solar panel to be of the same order of magnitude as the same mass of Uranium. > And also the storage facility for the waste should be counted as well. As mentioned earlier, there will be hundreds of time more waste from Solar panels than from nuclear. Solar panel's waste are actually toxic wastes[1], full of heavy metals, BTW. (And unlike nuclear radioactive wastes, heavy metals have an infinite half-life: they don't live from hundred of years, they remain toxic forever) > Uranium is typically huge open pit mines. Only 12% of Uranium mining actually happen in open pits mines[2]. Also, do you think Silicon grows in trees? France alone extracts 12 times more silicon that what we import of Uranium. [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if-solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Mining_techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Mining_techniqu...

kgabis 3y ago

Of course nuclear generates less waste than intermittent sources like solar or wind. Nuclear occupies orders of magnitude less land, requires less concrete, steel, copper, aluminium. And it's still comparing apples to oranges since nuclear is not intermittent and doesn't require building extra storage and grid infrastructure to account for variability.

onethought 3y ago
Oh, you are saying something that is used productively is waste. So nuclear plants waste heaps of water. By your measure.

littlestymaar 3y ago

> What waste does a solar panel generate? Or are you talking about the manufacturing process? I'm talking about the panels themselves after they reached their end of life. > So you’re saying building nuclear plants generates less waste than building solar farms? That’s unintuitive Nuclear power density is incredibly high: you build 1 concrete bunker and 3 supporting buildings and you have more than a gigawatt of power. For solar you need a square kilometer of solar panels to get 0.1GW. Compare those two places next to where I live: - the nuclear plant: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/47.7311/2.5188 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/47.7311/2.5188 - the solar farm: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/47.7229/2.6665 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/47.7229/2.6665 Roughly the same area. The solar farm has 55MW of power. The nuclear plant has 3.6GW, 65 times higher. And the nuclear plant's life will be 60 years at least, which means that over its lifetime the panels would need to be changed 3 times. And that's if there's no hail to damage them… And this calculation only counts Power, if you did the same calculation for actual energy produced the difference would be around ten time worse.

onethought 3y ago
Panels need to be changed every 20 years? 20 years is their minimum. What over time causes a panel to fail? I think counting a nuclear plant specifically without also counting the uranium mine required to support it is not completely honest. And also the storage facility for the waste should be counted as well. Uranium is typically huge open pit mines.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  > What over time causes a panel to fail? During a thunderstorm this spring, the solar farm I'm talking about above suffered significant damage from hailstones, losing around 10% of the panels (the farm had only opened in summer 22). That's one anecdotal example. > I think counting a nuclear plant specifically without also counting the uranium mine required to support it is not completely honest. You're vastly underestimating the energy density of Uranium: France, which produces close to 80% of its energy with nuclear imports less than 10 000T of Uranium each year. That's one kilo for 44 MWh of nuclear energy. (And most of it, the U238 part, isn't actually being used, but instead stored until the advent of breeder reactors). A solar panel weights a few dozens of kilograms per MWh/year (let say 20kg/Mwh/year, conservatively, even though from a quick search it's likely more) so you'd need to have your solar panel for 44x20 = 880 years for the mass of the solar panel to be of the same order of magnitude as the same mass of Uranium. > And also the storage facility for the waste should be counted as well. As mentioned earlier, there will be hundreds of time more waste from Solar panels than from nuclear. Solar panel's waste are actually toxic wastes[1], full of heavy metals, BTW. (And unlike nuclear radioactive wastes, heavy metals have an infinite half-life: they don't live from hundred of years, they remain toxic forever) > Uranium is typically huge open pit mines. Only 12% of Uranium mining actually happen in open pits mines[2]. Also, do you think Silicon grows in trees? France alone extracts 12 times more silicon that what we import of Uranium. [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if-solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Mining_techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Mining_techniqu...