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Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

nature.com

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Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#61

Post by hef19898 »

throwaway60742 wrote: post #37
unglaublich wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Going niclear is such a FUD anti-renewables campaign, it is almost loughable people still fall it. New nuclear plants take decades to build, and are extremely expensive. So no, no significant nuclear capacity increase. All that campaign does, is making it harder for renewables, and thus easier for fossil fuels. Quite ingenious so, if you think about it.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#62

Post by fodkodrasz »

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.

> utilizing or selling "free" energy from fossil fuels? Companies extract these, they often don't pay for the energy (just the cost of extraction)

Is solar or wind energy not "free" in the same sense?

Also: are the balancing costs of the network paid by those people selling the "free" renewable energy? As I see they often don't pay for that (not to mention the pollution that causes, which is still not paid by any energy producer)

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#63

Post by svnt »

lynx23 wrote: post #16
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…

Yeah, its called free will, you know. I dont have to like everything, period.

Most thinking people move beyond this position. An arbitrary position is no position at all.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#64

Post by wkat4242 »

Muromec wrote: post #29
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.

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

And three mile island and Fukushima. Nuclear has some serious concerns that are clearly not addressed enough.

Usually this is when the low death toll is brought up but it's not just about deaths. It's about environmental destruction. And the potential to do so in the far future through its waste.

I don't think we should move away from nuclear altogether but use it as a buffer only for the times when the real green sources are low (eg solar and wind). And we should find a permanent waste solution.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#65

Post by throwaway60722 »

hef19898 wrote: post #61
throwaway60742 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Going niclear is such a FUD anti-renewables campaign, it is almost loughable people still fall it. New nuclear plants take decades to build, and are extremely expensive. So no, no significant nuclear capacity increase. All that campaign does, is making it harder for renewables, and thus easier for fossil fuels. Quite ingenious so, if you think about it.

They take A decade, not decades. You're the one spreading FUD. There are successful new nuclear projects built very quickly in EU.

The only slow thing about nuclear is regulatory approval - hampered by EU that for many years didn't accept nuclear as "green".

Is nuclear more expensive that rebuilding the electrical grid and building enough storage to handle the wind/solar peaks and use the energy later? I don't think it's so clear. The solar/wind power plant itself is not the full cost.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#66

Post by hef19898 »

froh wrote: post #45

oh is this the "infrasound problem" of photovoltaics? (where Bavaria effectively banned wind turbines because of "infrasound emissions" and the paper was later retracted for an off-by-1000 error)

And it gave the 10x height rule for the distance to build new wind turbines. What a great achievement!

I do have the feeling so, as soon as the agricultural base of Bavarian conservatives can make more money per acre installing wind and solar power than by planting crips, they are going to be the first to jump at it.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#67

Post by kemotep »

throwaway60742 wrote: post #52
kemotep wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that if we don’t build solar panels, we won’t have to use electricity generated by gas and coal?

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 cheaper and easier than lithium mining and refining? Could you please share your sources I would like to read about that.

Nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, etc are all better than coal and gas. We need to build more, upgrade infrastructure, not limit ourselves to one solution as our energy needs and decarbonization efforts will evolve over time. But the alternative to solar isn’t nuclear its the status quo of gas and coal.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#68

Post by Detrytus »

kjksf wrote: post #41
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…

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 itself.

>> Storage in particular is so early in the cycle that we can expect the cost will drop at least in half.

Battery costs will be rising for at least the next decade, before they can fall: we need to ramp up lithium production first, before we can do that there will be significant shortages driving the prices up. The more popular EVs will become the worse it will be.

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#69

Post by jeffbee »

Plot twist: the research fueling these concerns was also published in major journals. Maybe the journals should get together and all their editors can decide to not publish research such as whether plants absorb heavy metals if you grow them in a medium shredded solar panels. Because that's obviously misleading bullshit.

"We removed the metal frames, electric cables, and plastic debris (Fig. 1) and then crushed the panel material into small pieces ... We used acid extract to simulate metal leaching toxicity and acidic corrosion, and then buried TFSPs in three types of soils..."

Re: Unfounded concerns about photovoltaic toxicity and waste slowing decarbonization

#70

Post by littlestymaar »

V__ wrote: post #17
stinos wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Is that true for the complete lifetime (which is what matters in the end) of, say, a PV installation in one's home? Or even for the complete PV industry?

It is not, it's not even close. It's better by a factor of 10 to 20. [1] [1] https://energy.utexas.edu/news/nuclear-and-wind-power-estima...

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.
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