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Solar panel waste may not be as bad as we thought

fastcompany.com

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

#131

Post by pfdietz »

Scoundreller wrote: post #93
Schroedingersat wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Al, Si and trace amounts of silver have no health or environmental hazard, and the silver is the valuable bit. Please stop gas lighting based on obsolete technology that was only briefly popular in one country.

Inhaling solid $anything dust is a health and environment hazard. Si dust probably isn't asbestos bad, but wouldn't want to breathe it in either.

I'm pretty sure the dust from the 2 BILLION TONNES of steel the world makes every year, or the 32 TO 50 BILLION TONNES of sand and gravel that are mined globally every year, will be just a tad more serious of a problem.

But I know, that dust is off in mines and mills, while PV recycling will be performed in preschools.

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

#132

Post by PaulHoule »

reilly3000 wrote: post #84
googlryas wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, at this point in our hyperpartisan world, I expect monsterous FUD about pretty much anything. There was just a small scale war in my city about a proposal to slightly modify the way our library is funded. If that gets people riled up, then one can only imagine what multi trillion dollar industries can stir up.

Public Relations won. Advertising won. Weaponized Infighting is winning. Say the first thing that comes to mind when you think “Coca Cola.” Say it out loud, don’t edit. If you said something about nostalgia or polar bears you would be like most humans around the globe for the past 50+ years. I submit that as my evidence that PR and Advertising are remarkably potent. If you really said something to the effect of “depr…

High Fructose Corn Syrup

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

#133

Post by goodpoint »

derriz wrote: post #108
__pache__ wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your argument...? Are you admitting "being intermittent is bad," while ignoring Solar is intermittent like 70% of the time vs 10% of the time for Nuclear? ...great argument? https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37252 doesn't seem like you interpreted this correctly, seems bad faith for sure. > A scheduled shutdown of a nuclear power plant is generally timed to coincide with the plant’s refueling cy…

I though my argument was clear - that you need back-up for nuclear power also? You accuse me of bad faith for quoting a number which includes both unscheduled and scheduled shutdowns by comparing with a number which only include the latter. And I don't even understand where this is supposed to be going because even if plants never had unscheduled stoppages, you'd still need back-up. But anyway, I find your tone overl…

Don't feed the trolls.

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

#134

Post by hardolaf »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #128
__pache__ wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any. Solar/Wind, for example, are not reliable. Nuclear, for example, is reliable. Instead of having Solar/Wind with batteries and all this nonsense, along with Nuclear for its stability, just skip the nonsense and go straight to Nuclear. Solar/Wind are terrible...

There are roughly 40 million kgs of accessible, usable fissile material (U235 and Pu239) on Earth. Each kg produces 30-80TJ with maybe another 20 if you spend even more money to scavenge the last little bit via reprocessing. Newer reactors hold about 6 years of fuel and cycle some of it every couple of years. World energy consumption is approximately 550EJ. How are you proposing to fuel your reactors more than once?

This number is based on existing mines (active and inactive) only. There's a lot more fissile material available than just the 40 Gg of usable fissile material. And that's assuming we only use U-235 and Pu-239. We also have viable LWR designs for Th-232 and are in the process of creating the first 5 Th-232 SMR test reactors at grid-scale right now.

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

#135

Post by TedShiller »

monero-xmr wrote: post #7
api wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One should expect monstrous amounts of FUD about anything that replaces fossil fuels.

On HN I find it precisely the opposite - if you point out flaws with solar, electric cars, wind, self driving cars, etc. you take a lot of downvotes

My favorite is the guy that's 100% for nuclear, until you ask him if we can store the nuclear waste in his backyard. Then he looks all confused and starts calling you names.

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

#136

Post by vidarh »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #125
delecti wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's less an inherent problem with extending the reactors' lifespans, and more a problem with all of the reactors being old. They built a bunch of reactors, and then stopped, so now they're all on the same maintenance schedule. If instead they had kept building over time, then they'd have a bunch of new ones, and advance warning to tackle problems those reactors might face eventually . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…

This is equivalent to asserting that they have a much shorter useful lifetime and low reliability. If you have to build as many reactors as you already have every 10 years in order to keep the old ones then you're going to run out of concrete or wires to hook them to fairly quickly. It also has little to do with the shutdowns which skew towards newer plants.

That's not at all what they said. The point is France have a bunch of reactors approaching the same level of wear, and by building a few more and staggering the maintenance,they'd spread the maintenance out and avoid this problem for the future.

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

#137

Post by hardolaf »

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…

Lead solder is still preferred by many governments as its use is far safer for workers compared to lead-free solders. It's a constant fight between the manufacturing nations trying to protect their workers whereas the EU wants ROHS to make end-of-life recycling easier.

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

#138

Post by hardolaf »

roughly wrote: post #34

Interesting - assuming the panels last twice as long also drops the per-watt price pretty dramatically, which changes the economics on solar panels pretty favorably.

It doesn't change the per-watt price at all and it might even increase the per-watt price as the average efficiency will likely decrease over its lifespan. It does drop the per-joule price though as it will produce more energy due to having a longer lifespan.

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

#139

Post by _carbyau_ »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #77
nicoburns wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in the UK (and I believe most of Europe), they’re planning to ban sales of new ICE cars in I believe 2030. As such, 100% uptake (or close enough, perhaps there will some exceptions for specialised use cases) is almost guaranteed.

I'm in the UK too. I think the 2030 date is unrealistic. I'm pro-electric cars but we're still a long way away from it being the only option. At the very least we need widespread on street charging for the half of people who don't have the option to charge at home. Rapid charging is ok but not suitable for exclusive use.

builtInThe70's apartment building. I can't convince the management body to take this seriously.

I don't want to install chargers everywhere. I just want a thought out plan.

IE have a planned build for the electric backbone sometime in the future, and each owner can build their part and be connected when they wish.

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

#140

Post by sircastor »

The old saying “The great is the enemy of the good” applies. I had a coworker once who seemed to be one-step short of saying that we should all just lay down and die so we would stop affecting the environment. Even as I think about that, I realize that human bodies contain some toxic materials, and “laying down and dying” would still be troublesome.

There are no zero-cost solutions. “Chasing the 9s” of no-impact is a fools errand. Do what you can. Correct where you can.

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