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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

#141

Post by marssaxman »

littlestymaar wrote: post #117
hef19898 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You zave no idea about energy consumption along a supply chain, if you actually believe any of this.

> You zave no idea about energy consumption along a supply chain, if you actually believe any of this. This has nothing to to with supply chain, but with the fact that the Nederlands and Seattle aren't especially sunny places…

And yet, the solar panels I installed on my Seattle house a decade ago generated enough power to pay for themselves in six years. Solar works great here. Overcast skies are not a problem: solar panels don't care which direction the photons come from, and they work more efficiently at cooler temperatures.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#142

Post by tpm »

robertlagrant wrote: post #136
tpm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions? The number of daily non-compliant cars entering the ULEZ zone went from 36k in March 2019 to 12k in December 2020 according to Wikipedia. I seriously doubt the expansion did hit millions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_Low_Emission_Zone

> The number of daily non-compliant cars entering the ULEZ zone went from 36k in March 2019 to 12k in December 2020 according to Wikipedia. I seriously doubt the expansion did hit millions. ULEZ was a tiny central part of London. New ULEZ is...all of London[0]. [0] https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone/ule... - the map shows the red outlined congestion charge zone (old ULEZ) vs the new blue area (n…

Yes I know, and the point is? Still no trace of millions of drivers.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#143

Post by PawgerZ »

hef19898 wrote: post #137
universa1 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The time is now, you just are not allowed to convert most agricultural into solar farms...

Ah, yes. Land usage classifications. I never heard of a farmer sellong land, not even a square meter, to anyone. As farmland that is, the second it is reclassified as housing the same farmers part with the land without hesitation!

In Iowa, usually farmers rent the land to wind turbine companies for X amount of years. Some do sell, but that's usually just on the edge of their farming areas.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#144

Post by robertlagrant »

tpm wrote: post #142
robertlagrant wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The number of daily non-compliant cars entering the ULEZ zone went from 36k in March 2019 to 12k in December 2020 according to Wikipedia. I seriously doubt the expansion did hit millions. ULEZ was a tiny central part of London. New ULEZ is...all of London[0]. [0] https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission-zone/ule... - the map shows the red outlined congestion charge zone (old ULEZ) vs the new blue area (n…

Yes I know, and the point is? Still no trace of millions of drivers.

The point is the study you cite is on that tiny inner bit, compared to the giant outer bit.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#145

Post by lstodd »

hef19898 wrote: post #77
svnt wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is mostly a confusion of identity. We are used to the people pushing against technological progress being someone other than older and somewhat tech-capable men. These people have been holding out and formed their arguments back when they first learned about renewables, which was twenty or more years ago. Technology has continued to progress but their positions ossified early. Now that the future they deni…

I read a comment lately along the lines of "80% of conservative outrage is caused by understanding how things work fornthe very first time". There is some truth to it.

Which is as insightful as "80% of progressive outrage is caused by not understanding how things work at all". The is some truth to this too.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#146

Post by throwaway60742 »

hef19898 wrote: post #58
throwaway60742 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because instead of wind/solar+storage+grid capable of handling the peaks, we would be building nuclear. Using much less concrete and much less diesel for construction trucks.

You actually believe, that producing a solar panel, transporting it to the installation site on the other side of the planet, and maintaining it consumes more energy than the module will produce? Where do you get your numbers from, the back of a cereal box bought from Wish?

I seriously believe that this is not the full story if we're talking about utility-scale energy.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#147

Post by littlestymaar »

hef19898 wrote: post #130
littlestymaar wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As is intentionally misunderstanding the fact that electricity out of coal produces CO2, while PV does not. You're making a fallacy here, that it's either coal or PV. It's not. In tropical and subtropical places, solar make sense, else where you're better off with anything else that's not fossil. In fact, PV is not even a good substitute for coal, because coal plants can't be turned on and off easily twice a day (u…

Institutional investeros investing in long-term projects, here PV, are devidedly not the same category of people investing in NFTs... God, this truely is somewhat pointless. Summary: You say PV in Finland isn't feasible. People building PV, and profiting from it, disagree. Those people put their money where their mouth is. Same goes for the Netherlands. I'll stop now, if you want the sky to be red and clouds be purpl…

> Institutional investeros investing in long-term projects, here PV, are devidedly not the same category of people investing in NFTs...

I think you missed the memo: institutional investors definitely invested in NFTs during the peak fad in 2021.

> Summary: You say PV in Finland isn't feasible.

Nope, I said building PV there is possible, albeit nonsensical. People put their money where their mouth is, and sometime it doesn't make sense and they get burned. If you think markets are always right, I have some tulips to sell you.

And again, as I said at the very beginning of the thread, there's no link between economic performance and CO2 footprint, something can be a very profitable endeavor even if it's completely counter-productive in terms of climate change, or even electricity production.

> I linked to a comprehensive report on solar in Europe elsewhere, all you do is moving goal posts and repeating false claims...

“Please check my gigantic comment history if you care about facts, I promise it's totally related to the current discussion”. Yeah sure.

Funny how you at the same time write in a very confident way (one could even say “arrogant”), and at the same time only respond to very small portions of my messages (“California”, “NFT”), putting the annoying parts under the rug.

We're losing the climate battle by a large margin, but shills like you are in full “this is fine” mode “solar will save us”, this is so depressing…

Like solar? Want to invest in it? Then finance solar panels where it make sense, in the middle East, in India, in Africa, in South America, and stop wasting them in Finland or Canada… Otherwise it's as stupid as Germany that got rid of its perfectly working nuclear plants before spending a decade trying to catch-up in terms of CO2 emissions (it's still has among the most CO2-heavy electricity mix in the EU to date), wasting hundred of billions in the process (while increasing its dependency to Russian gas, which their economy has now been paying a dire price since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine: play stupid games, win stupid price…)

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#148

Post by littlestymaar »

hef19898 wrote: post #121
littlestymaar wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You zave no idea about energy consumption along a supply chain, if you actually believe any of this. This has nothing to to with supply chain, but with the fact that the Nederlands and Seattle aren't especially sunny places…

Then you shoupd tell the goverment in the Netherlands, they seem to believe they got 14% of their electricity from solar in 2022: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/the-netherlan...

Public subsidies work, I'm not doubting that.

USSR used to grow orange in Siberia too, that a state program can do it doesn't mean it's efficient in any way…

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#149

Post by littlestymaar »

kemotep wrote: post #67
throwaway60742 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because instead of wind/solar+storage+grid capable of handling the peaks, we would be building nuclear. Using much less concrete and much less diesel for construction trucks.

Currently the alternative to solar and wind, is coal and gas. Your argument that solar panels cost more in electricity to build and deploy could also be made about nuclear. I agree that we should build more nuclear power plants but do you have evidence that they require less infrastructure than solar? A nuclear power plant seems more expensive to build than a field full of panels. Uranium mining and refining is cheap…

> Currently the alternative to solar and wind, is coal and gas.

No, and this vision is the problem. Hydro, geothermal, nuclear, are other options that can make sense depending on the context (of course you don't want to start a nuclear program from scratch, but if you already have a nuclear industry and you're in northern Europe, then it makes much more sense than solar).

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#150

Post by littlestymaar »

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.

> Full solar lifecycle emissions are around an order of magnitude lower than fossil fuels.

This is nonsense. First of all, “fossil fuel” doesn't mean much as depending on the technology involved the CO2 amount per kWh varies a lot (GTCC vs dumb lignite plant, that's more than a 2x ratio). Then, when you're adding a solar panel you can't compare its output to the same amount of energy produced by “fossil fuel”, you must compare it to the energy mix of the country you're deploying it into (to take the most extreme example: if you're adding a solar panel in France, you're basically replacing nuclear with solar, so you're just adding CO2 emissions). Overall, with the very low solar yields we have in most Europe (everywhere but the Mediterranean) and the fact that in many country the electricity mix is multiple time less carbon-heavy than what coal gives you, your “order of magnitude” is gone.

And I'm not even talking about the substitution effect here, where one Euro invested in solar in Europe is one Euro that doesn't get invested in a better decarbonation project (solar being financed elsewhere, wind, geothermal, nuclear), but that's also something to consider when advocating for a technology.

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