Solar panel waste may not be as bad as we thought • Hacker News Board

Re: Solar panel waste may not be as bad as we thought

#111

Post by hwillis » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 10:42 PM UTC

Archelaos wrote: post #43

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #16

It's mostly silicon, how bad could the waste be?

Solar modules contain lead for soldering and some contain cadmium telluride (CdTe).[1] If handled and recycled correctly, the risk of exposure of lead and cadmium into the environment is minimal. However, there is a possibility that such materials are released by accident (fire, cracks) or improper disposal. That is why there are demands that solar modules containing CdTe should be basically abandoned, as there exist…

> Solar modules contain lead for soldering

Not all of them, and lead is also non-essential. Most solder in other contexts is already lead-free. It's also pretty minor compared to the other sources of lead in our lives already.

> some contain cadmium telluride (CdTe)

only "thin film" cells, which are virtually obsolete- they're the flexible kind that you get in "cell charging" backpacks and stuff. Price decreases in silicon in large-scale use, so they have absolutely no bearing on renewable energy. They're not worth mentioning- a 100x increase in solar power will not increase the amount of cadmium cells at all.

Re: Solar panel waste may not be as bad as we thought

#112

Post by Archelaos » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 10:43 PM UTC

Schroedingersat wrote: post #50

Archelaos wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar modules contain lead for soldering and some contain cadmium telluride (CdTe).[1] If handled and recycled correctly, the risk of exposure of lead and cadmium into the environment is minimal. However, there is a possibility that such materials are released by accident (fire, cracks) or improper disposal. That is why there are demands that solar modules containing CdTe should be basically abandoned, as there exist…

They've been completely abandoned for a while now. If you stack the small portion of CdTe ones neatly somewhere, someone will want the Te soon enough. Lead is already mostly phased out.

This does not seem to be the case. I googled "cdte cells market share" and immediately found a couple of Web-sites that say otherwise (although their numbers differ quite considerably):

https://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/cadmium-te...

https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/587880725/cadmium-telluride-...

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/as-demand-rises-exp...

Re: Solar panel waste may not be as bad as we thought

#113

Post by IndrekR » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 10:44 PM UTC

bityard wrote: post #38

ilyt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - electric cars are still burning fossil fuels cause powerplants burn fossil fuels (yeah, but electric cars go ~2 times further on 1 liter of fuel even if all our power came from fossil fuels which it doesn't) So do hybrids. Burning fuel at power station isn't 2x as efficient as burning it in ICE engine; most of the savings come from not wasting power while braking

I love my Prius, but over my years of driving it my suspicion is that the regen braking contributes VERY little power to the battery, and I try to brake using regen as much as possible. I would guess that most Prius drivers (who drive the car like a normal car, which is even what Toyota says to do) get back a truly trivial amount of energy out of regen braking. It wouldn't surprise me if full EV regen braking is much…

My EV reports 18 kWh/100km for driving and 4 kWh/100km gained from recuperation. That is significant.

Re: Solar panel waste may not be as bad as we thought

#114

Post by 3D30497420 » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 10:47 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #106

nostromo wrote: post #33

Aren’t they mostly silicon and recyclable metals? If so, who cares about the waste? It depends on what’s in the waste that matters, not its raw volume. The materials used in solar panels are both highly recyclable and environmentally benign, a great combination.

Indeed. Compared to other the garbage that people put in landfills right now, this is nothing. Of course this article is a clever bit of FUD in disguise. By taking the problem seriously and then presenting a solution to the problem that never was real to begin with: ‘We’re gonna have (tens of millions) of metric tons of waste from PV. We’re all gonna die,’” Actual quote from the article to convince us that there appa…

I think this is taking an overly critical view of the article. I did a very quick search and this HBR article, which makes it sound like solar panel waste is expected to be a significant problem, was the top result: https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power

So clearly some people, including presumably some prominent ones, are saying this will be a problem. So I'd say it is good that there is data to address this criticism.

Re: Solar panel waste may not be as bad as we thought

#115

Post by prawn » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 10:49 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #80

chadcmulligan wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an older fairly conservative friend of mine said when I was trying to talk him into some new tech thing - I just don't want anything to change. Seems a lot of people are like that, and just knee jerk to any change.

Yup. IMO, it’s a sign of being overwhelmed. When folks get older, a lot of things stop working as well as they did, including old learned behaviors and physical things too, so it happens more easily and more often. But this isn’t just an old person thing right now.

I've long figured that a lot of political tensions stem from the perceived pace of change: in technology, social norms, etc. It must be hard going from feeling like the master of your domain to frustrated that you don't know how to watch streaming TV or might put your foot in it saying something that was unremarkable 20 years ago (e.g., joke books in the 80s were full of stereotypes).

Re: Solar panel waste may not be as bad as we thought

#116

Post by hwillis » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

thrown_22 wrote: post #21

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #16

It's mostly silicon, how bad could the waste be?

Cyanide is just carbon and nitrogen. How could it be possibly toxic?

Elements and chemicals are very different things. Silicon is the #2 most common element on earth and if you smash a bunch of solar panels, they turn into sand when they get wet. Or if you just wait.

Even pure silicon metal is totally benign, even in large amounts. Certainly safer than iron, which can kill you in relatively small amounts if it's in a bioavailable form. Silicon is already literally everywhere, in every form it will reasonably be transformed into.

Even the boron and phosphorus that make up a tiny percent of cells are extremely benign. The biggest issues are the tin fingers and solder, and probably the lead that is often present. But lead is also far from necessary. And unfortunately, the human race is going to be dealing with lead dust for a while already, just from how it used to be in gasoline.

Re: Solar panel waste may not be as bad as we thought

#117

Post by aperson_hello » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 10:51 PM UTC

__pache__ wrote: post #74

colordrops wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also last at least 25 years. There's no way that the waste from the panels is worse than 25 years of CO2 emissions.

wait, why are CO2 emissions "bad?" it might even literally take 20-25 years to "pay off the CO2" used to make, deliver, and install the solar panels... to me it seems like our CO2 emissions are not bad and the effects on climate are very minor. this is playing out in real time as we make dire predictions that never seem to come to fruition. the world is ending in 12 years, said someone popular in ~2016. Well, halfway…

Making and installing solar panels doesn't cost anywhere that much CO2. Best numbers I see suggest payback in ~3 years assuming they're produced with coal power (and the numbers are better if they're produced with cleaner power, though electricity is fungible, so I'm not sure if that really makes sense to do). As a quick gut check, look at unsubsidized solar install costs - they're significantly lower than the cost of the electricity they generate in the 5-10 year range in almost all lower and middle latitude places...

Also, idiots stating unscientific garbage (like the world ending in 2028) doesn't mean that there's no science behind it... Just that there was an idiot making up BS.

Edit: it was a 2019 quote, not a 2016 quote. So we have all the way until 2031 until the world "ends"... Still an idiotic quote

Re: Solar panel waste may not be as bad as we thought

#118

Post by Archelaos » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

hwillis wrote: post #111

Archelaos wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar modules contain lead for soldering and some contain cadmium telluride (CdTe).[1] If handled and recycled correctly, the risk of exposure of lead and cadmium into the environment is minimal. However, there is a possibility that such materials are released by accident (fire, cracks) or improper disposal. That is why there are demands that solar modules containing CdTe should be basically abandoned, as there exist…

> Solar modules contain lead for soldering Not all of them, and lead is also non-essential. Most solder in other contexts is already lead-free. It's also pretty minor compared to the other sources of lead in our lives already. > some contain cadmium telluride (CdTe) only "thin film" cells, which are virtually obsolete- they're the flexible kind that you get in "cell charging" backpacks and stuff. Price decreases in s…

The reports I quoted in reply to another comment here claimed a rather high market share for CdTe cells and predicted massively increasing volumns in the future. So even if they might become obsolete for "classic" flat panels, they seem to remain with us for "flexible" solutions, arn't they?

Re: Solar panel waste may not be as bad as we thought

#119

Post by hwillis » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 11:00 PM UTC

tpxl wrote: post #20

ajuc wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reasons is that a lot of these downsides are overplayed, based on long-obsolete data or false altogether. For some examples: - electric cars are still burning fossil fuels cause powerplants burn fossil fuels (yeah, but electric cars go ~2 times further on 1 liter of fuel even if all our power came from fossil fuels which it doesn't) - rare earth minerals are limited which means we can't have everybody driv…

> lithium is more common than lead on Earth Lithium isn't a rare earth mineral.

I'll note that neodymium is, and is used in very small amounts (much less even than lithium) in most EV electric motors (specifically, the reluctance types that are currently most popular). It's not essential, but it does increase range by a few percent.

Neodymium is also one of the most abundant REEs- there are basically two groups of REEs, some of which are rare and some of which are >10x more abundant. Neodymium is in the latter. It's also not that supply is restricted (eg, how it all comes from china)- the demand is so low that the cost means it is not mined even where it is easy to harvest. There are large mines in the US and elsewhere that are shut down because China just does it cheaper.

Re: Solar panel waste may not be as bad as we thought

#120

Post by hwillis » Sun, Nov 13, 2022, 11:07 PM UTC

Archelaos wrote: post #112

Schroedingersat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been completely abandoned for a while now. If you stack the small portion of CdTe ones neatly somewhere, someone will want the Te soon enough. Lead is already mostly phased out.

This does not seem to be the case. I googled "cdte cells market share" and immediately found a couple of Web-sites that say otherwise (although their numbers differ quite considerably): https://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/cadmium-te... https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/587880725/cadmium-telluride-... https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/as-demand-rises-exp...

6 billion in 2028 works out to https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2022/07/14/247...