Solar Panels Are Starting to Die. What Will We Do With The Megatons Of Toxic Trash? By Isaac Orr.
Most people seem to believe that wind and solar panels produce no waste and have no negative environmental impacts. Unfortunately, these people are wrong. …
A recent article in Grist warns of a looming onslaught of solar waste as solar panels in the United States begin to reach the end of their 25 year lifetimes …:
“Solar panels are … complex pieces of technology that become big, bulky sheets of electronic waste at the end of their lives — and right now, most of the world doesn’t have a plan for dealing with that.” …
Even without hail, they only last 25 years
Nuclear plants can run for 80 years, as can coal plants with proper maintenance and upkeep, but even the best wind turbines and solar panels will last for just 25 years, creating staggering amounts of waste products.
Solar panels are expected to generate 866 times more [tonnes of] waste in the next 30 years than nuclear power has generated in the last 50. And unlike nuclear waste, which is safely stored on site, nobody knows what will happen to these solar panels at the end of their useful lifetime because solar panels are not easily recycled. …
Not only are solar panels not required to be recycled, their disposal can lead to potential environmental problems. If broken panels in landfills can leach lead or other heavy metals, it stands to reason that other broken panels at solar arrays could potentially result in similar contamination. However, we won’t know if that happens because solar panels are not held to the same environmental standards as other projects.
Solar panels require no baseline water testing or soil sampling to measure metal levels in the soil before the panels are installed. These baseline tests will give us a “before” photo of the environment, and allow us to determine if solar panels have damaged the environment during their useful lifetimes. …
One reason so few solar panels are recycled is because it isn’t cost effective. According to Grist:
“Tao and his colleagues estimate that a recycler taking apart a standard, 60-cell silicon panel can get about $3 for the recovered aluminum, copper, and glass. Vanderhoof, meanwhile, says that the cost of recycling that panel in the U.S. is anywhere between $12 and $25 — after transportation costs, which “oftentimes equal the cost to recycle.” At the same time, in states that allow it, it typically costs less than a dollar to dump a solar panel in a solid waste landfill.”
Solar panels are a poor solution to the politically-created “problem” of global warming. Oh, and by the way, a lot of people in the “green” industry make a great deal of money from solar panels. The goal is global bureaucratic rule, and if a few eggs get broken to make that omelette…
