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Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

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Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#31

Post by ZeroGravitas »

hannob wrote: post #8
Gasp0de wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

A 5 whys analysis will likely get to "people benefiting from fossil fuel pollution not being costed in" one or two steps back from that guy who doesn't even know why he objects to wind power.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#32

Post by unglaublich »

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.

The irony: we borrow money against our future selfs assuming endless economical growth. But when we extract finite natural resources and use up a finite pollution buffer, we do not pay our future selfs the opportunity costs.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#33

Post by Muromec »

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.…

Also driving a bicycle is polluting, because bicycles don't grow on trees, but are produced by industry. Yeah, yeah.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#34

Post by throwaway60742 »

hannob wrote: post #10
littlestymaar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> 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. That is an urban legend and not supported by any evidence. Full solar lifecycle emissions are around an order of magnitude lower than fossil fuels.

Does "full solar lifecycle emissions" include the gas and coal powerplant you use because you couldn't build energy storage and your electric grid can't handle the peak power? Does it include the reconstruction of the grid it necessitated?

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#35

Post by orwell_bruh »

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.

If I did see CO2 as a problem I'd still be against wind and solar and all the other harebrained schemes that are mathematically proven to be unable to even make a dent in climate change. However, they are guranteed to lower our standard of living substantially.

And a prediction that you'll be able to observe in the coming decades: a lot of those "minor" and "invented" concerns will be front and center once we all have EVs and solar in order to nudge us onto the next thousands of dollars spending or to tax us or simply to keep the eco spirituality of "humans bad" alive.

Technological solutions simply aren't wanted by "your" side and so, eventually, all technology will be attacked just as fossil fuel based ones are now.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#36

Post by unglaublich »

lbriner wrote: post #28
hkwerf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

People are more concerned about they car they drive tomorrow than the pollution and ecological effects they experience in the future; and not concerned at all by the issues they cause for future generations.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#37

Post by throwaway60742 »

unglaublich wrote: post #27
throwaway60742 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not everyone does. Maybe people in the US, but most EU countries don't have any fossil fuel industry to subsidize.

Where I live people are against solar/wind because they want to go nuclear.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#38

Post by pydry »

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…

Those armchair experts are typically being fed by carbon lobby or pro nuclear propaganda.

The propaganda is motivated by profit (carbon lobby, nuclear lobby) and the demands of the military (the nuclear-military industrial complex needs a civilian nuclear-industrial ecosystem to keep a lid on costs).

The propaganda tries to tap into that innate ego you referenced though. "Well, actually, the sun doesn't shine at night", "what do we do when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing? Not use power?", "but geography for pumped storage is very rare isn't it?", "wind farms are very bad for birds!", "nuclear power may be expensive but it's very stable!", "enough batteries to cover solar/wind would be prohibitively expensive", "germany is trying to decarbonize completely the wrong way it's so stupid!" etc. All of these things are in line with the above money flows, are quite wrong, but plausible. They are carefully positioned as being the smart person's take on a complex issue.

There are 30-40 regular talking points, many of which appear regularly on hacker news. I think I've had to post the same academic study about how pumped storage geography is actually very common at least 15 times, for instance. You don't get such specific mass misconceptions on such a large scale without some level of money behind the message. It typically filters through from lobby group -> mass media -> average citizen -> hacker news comments.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#39

Post by unglaublich »

Muromec wrote: post #33
littlestymaar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Also driving a bicycle is polluting, because bicycles don't grow on trees, but are produced by industry. Yeah, yeah.

And we haven’t even talked about the peanut butter sandwich the cyclist eats in morning!
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