Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization • Hacker News Board

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#21

Post by lbriner » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 9:38 AM UTC

weevil wrote: post #3

I'm honestly at a loss as to why some people (and organizations) are hell-bent on hampering attempts to decarbonize, and amplifying whatever tiny negatives they can whether they're real or not, as though nothing less than 100% perfect is worth replacing the awful status quo.

My guess is that it is 2 things.

Firstly, as stated by others, accepting these things requires us to accept that our lifestyles are not sustainable, even if we can afford them financially, so we make excuses.

Secondly, I think there probably is an amount of ego involved where the armchair experts honestly think that they have thought of something that "the politicians" or the "experts" have missed. You see people on forums/TV saying with no irony or doubt that "Electric cars are not environmentally friendly because of Lithium batteries", or whatever, without actually having any figures to back this up.

I agree that doing something, even if not perfect, is better than nothing but I did a Penn and Teller show where their logic was "do nothing now because it is expensive. Wait until we have better/cheaper technology and do it later". Again, seems illogical but people do believe that.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#22

Post by sanxiyn » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 9:40 AM UTC

littlestymaar wrote: post #7

weevil wrote: post #3

I'm honestly at a loss as to why some people (and organizations) are hell-bent on hampering attempts to decarbonize, and amplifying whatever tiny negatives they can whether they're real or not, as though nothing less than 100% perfect is worth replacing the awful status quo.

I'll bite: the problem is that renewable in itself doesn't mean decarbonation: if you're importing solar panels built with Chinese coal and deploy them in Europe / Northern US, you're not actually decarboning anything, and instead you're increasing the carbon footprint but move it abroad. So there are things that are not just “not perfect” but actually harmful, and you can't just blindly deploy “not perfect” things.…

> The western world's energy and resource consumption isn't sustainable

If god wanted us to have infinite energy and resources he would have put a gigantic fusion reactor in the sky. (OH on Twitter)

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#23

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 9:40 AM UTC

weevil wrote: post #3

I'm honestly at a loss as to why some people (and organizations) are hell-bent on hampering attempts to decarbonize, and amplifying whatever tiny negatives they can whether they're real or not, as though nothing less than 100% perfect is worth replacing the awful status quo.

In a single word: money.

A bit longer: there are a ton of vested interests that couldn't care less about destroying the world for future generations as long as they get theirs now. This sort of selfishness is institutionalized to a degree that I'm not sure if we'll be able to deal with it short of a total system collapse and even then it might be resurrected.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#24

Post by newyankee » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 9:41 AM UTC

lbriner wrote: post #21

weevil wrote: post #3

I'm honestly at a loss as to why some people (and organizations) are hell-bent on hampering attempts to decarbonize, and amplifying whatever tiny negatives they can whether they're real or not, as though nothing less than 100% perfect is worth replacing the awful status quo.

My guess is that it is 2 things. Firstly, as stated by others, accepting these things requires us to accept that our lifestyles are not sustainable, even if we can afford them financially, so we make excuses. Secondly, I think there probably is an amount of ego involved where the armchair experts honestly think that they have thought of something that "the politicians" or the "experts" have missed. You see people on…

The cheap and better technology only happens because people invest and buy the expensive and novel technology upfront. If Tesla Roadster and Model S didn't have a market, getting a model 3 out would've been quite difficult.

It is more like a side effect of equally treating all voices as important and not giving weight to peer review scientific literature or critically analyzing the talking points.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#25

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 9:41 AM UTC

littlestymaar wrote: post #7

weevil wrote: post #3

I'm honestly at a loss as to why some people (and organizations) are hell-bent on hampering attempts to decarbonize, and amplifying whatever tiny negatives they can whether they're real or not, as though nothing less than 100% perfect is worth replacing the awful status quo.

I'll bite: the problem is that renewable in itself doesn't mean decarbonation: if you're importing solar panels built with Chinese coal and deploy them in Europe / Northern US, you're not actually decarboning anything, and instead you're increasing the carbon footprint but move it abroad. So there are things that are not just “not perfect” but actually harmful, and you can't just blindly deploy “not perfect” things.…

This is exactly what TFA addresses.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#26

Post by Tade0 » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 9:42 AM UTC

baq wrote: post #4

Should've focused on grid capacity, grid scale storage and copper mining which are real problems instead of inventing fake ones :/

Copper mining is the odd one out here, since a typical PV system will have as much copper as a car.

Cars are everywhere and few people spare a thought for how much copper they use.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#27

Post by unglaublich » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 9:43 AM UTC

throwaway60742 wrote: post #18

hannob wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is certainly true, but it's not a full explanation. I recently was at an information event from our local electricity provider about wind energy projects. And there are those people... There was a conversation going on like: "The people I talked to don't want these things." Event moderator: "What are the reasons?" Guy: "They simply don't want them." And I am pretty sure that was no fossil fuel lobbyist. It was j…

People don't want to pay for it. The cost of the wind/solar project itself is not the full story - you also need energy storage, and that's very expensive. You also need to rebuild the electrical grid to handle the peak power output to be able to store it. In EU countries, at least part of these very significant costs are paid for by everyone - not just the company operating the wind/solar projects who profit from it…

People pay billions in subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, so we can just move those and leave taxes as they are.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#28

Post by lbriner » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 9:43 AM UTC

hkwerf wrote: post #6

weevil wrote: post #3

I'm honestly at a loss as to why some people (and organizations) are hell-bent on hampering attempts to decarbonize, and amplifying whatever tiny negatives they can whether they're real or not, as though nothing less than 100% perfect is worth replacing the awful status quo.

Regarding people, I'd guess that this is mostly caused by cognitive dissonance between the size of the own carbon footprint and the need to decarbonize. Resolving that dissonance would require either to accept that decarbonization is necessary and therefore a lifestyle change or that decarbonization is not necessary and therefore the current lifestyle is okay. Regarding organizations: They're probably either driven b…

The problem that Western governments have is that everyone in the country has a vote and people don't like inconvenience. If you want to "do the right thing" and e.g. ban ICE vehicles, you get a massive backlash, so instead you water it down, kick the can down the road, pretend other less contraversial measures are just as effective or (in the case of the UK), "we are already ahead of other countries so we don't need to inconvenience ourselves too much".

Sad really because the green economy could provides lots of jobs, great opportunities to export etc. It's not a coincidence that the UK imports a lot of high-efficiency building products from Germany and Scandinavia, it is because those countries have invested in the tech and are reaping the rewards.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#29

Post by Muromec » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 9:44 AM UTC

Gasp0de wrote: post #5

weevil wrote: post #3

I'm honestly at a loss as to why some people (and organizations) are hell-bent on hampering attempts to decarbonize, and amplifying whatever tiny negatives they can whether they're real or not, as though nothing less than 100% perfect is worth replacing the awful status quo.

Because some people make billions by utilizing or selling "free" energy from fossil fuels? Companies extract these, they often don't pay for the energy (just the cost of extraction) and can sell them at huge profits. The cost of pollution is then also not paid by them.

There is that and then there is Greenpeace campaining against nuclear non-stop because Choronobyl'.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#30

Post by rob74 » Tue, Oct 17, 2023, 9:44 AM UTC

mathieuh wrote: post #12

weevil wrote: post #3

I'm honestly at a loss as to why some people (and organizations) are hell-bent on hampering attempts to decarbonize, and amplifying whatever tiny negatives they can whether they're real or not, as though nothing less than 100% perfect is worth replacing the awful status quo.

It's become a culture war issue. In the UK London introduced a so-called Ultra-Low Emissions Zone recently, and Wales has dropped 30 mph speed limits down to 20, which prompted the right-wing populist government to come out as being "on the side of drivers" and to call decarbonisation schemes "tyrannical". They've now gone full swivel-eyed loon and are rowing back many climate change commitments. It seems to me that,…

It's the same here too... before the recent state-level elections here in Bavaria is was basically "everyone against the Green party", the right-wing government (CSU and Freie Wähler) trying to out-populist the far-right populists from the AfD while trying to not sound too much like them - with the result that the AfD gained 4.4 % points compared to the last elections, FW gained 4,2%, CSU lost 0,2% (looks like they weren't populist enough) and the Greens lost 3,2%, losing the status of largest opposition party to the AfD.