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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

#91

Post by hef19898 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #50
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.

The not-so-tiny negative that some professionals here in CZ mention is disreputable Chinese vendors. "Oh yeah, we will give you 10 years warranty for your panels, buy! Cheap!" Only the necessary seals are shoddy and the panel dies much sooner from water incursion. At which moment you find out that the producer has gone out of business, so no recourse. This is not a fault of the technology per se, rather of humanity a…

The list of top ten solar pnel vendors / brands is one online search away, e.g. here:

https://solarpowernerd.com/top-solar-panel-manufacturers/

Buy from a "bankable" brand, and you are good to go. Bankable, as in bank are willing ot finance GWp sized utility projects using modules from those manufacturers. And as you see, those big ones are around for quite a while.

Sure, I have never seen an industry as plagued by shady people and practices as solar module importers in the EU (they literally smuggled them at scale sometimes to circumvent import tariffs and taxes), but the big mabufacturers are, and have to be, serious and reliable. Otherwise they'd be out of the GW scale project market, which is where they make their money and sales volumes.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#92

Post by hef19898 »

stinos wrote: post #76
littlestymaar wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your figures have nothing to do with deploying solar panels in northern US / Europe. These are average numbers, that includes the panels deployed in Arizona or Australia. Solar is a good idea when you put in it the right place (like a desert), but not when you put in in the British Isles or in Denmark, that's the point I'm making.

Fair enough perhaps, but in any case: please you point us to the numbers for that? Seeing the annual output of a typcial rather small 5kW peak home PV installation in Western Europe or even Denmark, it just seems unlikely that it would not offset whatever emissions it takes during its mining/production/shipment/installation during its lifetime.

Helsinki is around, judging from looking at a chart on a phone screen, 20-30% more expensive than Munich per kWh produced using solar.. And still, Helsinki still is cheaper by a factor of roughly 2 than the average spot market kWh prices in 2022.

I linked to the source in one of my other comments. Also, Finland installed a ton of solar lasr year, so I guess if someone is doing sometjing someone else claims is impossible, it is possible regardless of what people say and believe.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#93

Post by aziaziazi »

hef19898 wrote: post #44
lbriner wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That everybody has a vote is actually a strength, and not a weakness. And banning ICE vehicles is not up for discussion anymore, is it? Legislature or not, no company will be able to sell you a new one come 2035 anyway. A more general thought so, one that troubles me, is that both "sides" of the public opinion cobflicts we see in the west today seem to be totally fine with using authoritarian measures for the greater…

What makes you troubled in an authoritarian measure for the greater good ? There’s already plenty of it and most are ok with it: speed limits, parking laws, violence, sex with children, art (graph) on public/private infrastructure… the list goes on.

Law must always adapt to the society greater good and that means adding new one and removing the obsoletes.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#94

Post by fsflover »

pydry wrote: post #38
lbriner wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nigh…

> pro nuclear propaganda

Here are a couple of good pieces of such propaganda for you:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673987

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29278996

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#95

Post by natmaka »

hbossy wrote: post #81
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…

I think it's just coming from experience. They remember how every past attempt at making cars eco-friendly eventually resulted in worse personal experience via taxes, prices and worse repairability, so any new one gets a "no" by default.

This. And this is generic: since the first oil shock (50 years ago) many Western nations were nearly always bathing into some economic crisis, therefore many think that experience shows that any attempt, on any front, leads to a new downturn.

It also seems true when it comes to innovation: an innovation today becomes/creates a problem tomorrow.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#96

Post by hef19898 »

jacquesm wrote: post #89
hef19898 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, sun and wind aren't free. In terms of energy markets (too lazy to look up the up to dtae details, so it might have changed in the last 5 years), only the variable costs for producing one kWh of electricity are taking into account (so basically fuel plus CO2 certificates, over simplified a bit). In that sense, sun and wind are free. Don't ask me why fix costs aren't considered... Grid stabilization is priced in,…

Yes, consumer flexibility will be a huge part of the solution. You can already see this with power intensive industries operating when power is cheap (or even on surplus power) and reducing or even stopping their output when power is expensive. Obviously not all industries have this option, sometimes energy is only a small fraction of their expenses. But it is good to see at least this part of the market aspect of en…

Lucky you, we lookes at PV when we built our house. But back then, well, we just didn't have the necessary 15k left for an installation. As soon as we get an EV, for now the required size for four people is just to expensive, there will be PV installed alongside a wall box. Our roof is large enough, albeit propably tricky (almost flat, but not completely, covered by bitumen). But we'll see!

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#97

Post by jacquesm »

hef19898 wrote: post #96
jacquesm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, consumer flexibility will be a huge part of the solution. You can already see this with power intensive industries operating when power is cheap (or even on surplus power) and reducing or even stopping their output when power is expensive. Obviously not all industries have this option, sometimes energy is only a small fraction of their expenses. But it is good to see at least this part of the market aspect of en…

Lucky you, we lookes at PV when we built our house. But back then, well, we just didn't have the necessary 15k left for an installation. As soon as we get an EV, for now the required size for four people is just to expensive, there will be PV installed alongside a wall box. Our roof is large enough, albeit propably tricky (almost flat, but not completely, covered by bitumen). But we'll see!

Flat roof is very doable, I have 34 out of 50 panels here on less than 10 degree slope on a flat roof. What's nice about it is that even though it isn't optimal when the sun is out it works very well when the sky is overcast, sometimes even better than the panels that are oriented towards the sun.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#98

Post by hef19898 »

aziaziazi wrote: post #93
hef19898 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That everybody has a vote is actually a strength, and not a weakness. And banning ICE vehicles is not up for discussion anymore, is it? Legislature or not, no company will be able to sell you a new one come 2035 anyway. A more general thought so, one that troubles me, is that both "sides" of the public opinion cobflicts we see in the west today seem to be totally fine with using authoritarian measures for the greater…

What makes you troubled in an authoritarian measure for the greater good ? There’s already plenty of it and most are ok with it: speed limits, parking laws, violence, sex with children, art (graph) on public/private infrastructure… the list goes on. Law must always adapt to the society greater good and that means adding new one and removing the obsoletes.

You think a speed limit is authoritarian? Man, read some history...

The people who scare me moat, are tjose convinced to be right and morally superior. They can justify any atrocity by claiming to do it for the "greater good". The path to hell is covered by good intentions, and if I dare say so, we marched as a species already more than once.

By the way, if you want to get broad, public support for measures to fight climate change, argueing fro draconian enforxement is exaclty what people are affraid of. And what populists use to get support. In the end, you will achieve the opposite of what you want.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#99

Post by matthewdgreen »

Detrytus wrote: post #68
kjksf wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the reason then those people are misinformed. Coal and gas plants are closing because they cannot compete on price with solar/wind + battery storage. The cost advantage is not true everywhere but the future is clear. Coal and gas will not become cheaper. Solar and wind is most expensive today it'll ever be. Storage in particular is so early in the cycle that we can expect the cost will drop at least in half…

>> Coal and gas plants are closing because they cannot compete on price with solar/wind + battery storage. First of all, I'm not aware of any large scale battery storage facilities anywhere, they are prohibitively expensive. Second, coal and gas plant's main cost, at least in EU, is carbon tax. So the fact that they can't compete on price is a result of political decision, not of any shortcomings of the technology it…

Then we'll ramp up production over the next few years. It's already happening at a phenomenal rate [0]. The world does not need vast amounts of storage in 2023: the goal for the next decade should be to build out renewables from 1% to ~50% of production everywhere, and to use storage mostly to smooth out the demand curve (which is currently highly profitable and happening quickly in places like CA [1].)

[0] https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/lithium-ion-b... [1] https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/batteries/chart-the-rem...

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#100

Post by hef19898 »

jacquesm wrote: post #97
hef19898 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lucky you, we lookes at PV when we built our house. But back then, well, we just didn't have the necessary 15k left for an installation. As soon as we get an EV, for now the required size for four people is just to expensive, there will be PV installed alongside a wall box. Our roof is large enough, albeit propably tricky (almost flat, but not completely, covered by bitumen). But we'll see!

Flat roof is very doable, I have 34 out of 50 panels here on less than 10 degree slope on a flat roof. What's nice about it is that even though it isn't optimal when the sun is out it works very well when the sky is overcast, sometimes even better than the panels that are oriented towards the sun.

Good news! And since our house is pretty much running north-south, with an unobstructed view of the sun until around, say, mid-afternoon, the aide of our roof facing east should be quite suitable (to get more sun on it, we'd have to remove all the trees, moat of which are 30+ years old, something we don't want to do). One day, there will panels on that roof!
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