As I’ve been whining about for some time, at end of life solar panels and wind turbines need to be recycled and/or disposed of and that is far from easy. The urgency for that is growing as this article at Slate by Maddie Stone points out:
Most solar manufacturers claim their panels will last for about 25 years, and the world didn’t start deploying solar widely until the early 2000s. As a result, a fairly small number of solar panels are being decommissioned today. PV Cycle, a nonprofit dedicated to solar panel takeback and recycling, collects several thousand tons of solar e-waste across the European Union each year, according to director Jan Clyncke. That figure includes solar panels that have reached the end of their life but also those that were decommissioned early because they were damaged during a storm, had some sort of manufacturer defect, or got replaced with a newer, more efficient model.
When solar panels do reach their end of their life today, they face a few possible fates. Under EU law, producers are required to ensure their solar panels are recycled properly. In Japan, India, and Australia, recycling requirements are in the works. In the United States, it’s the Wild West: With the exception of a state law in Washington, the U.S. has no solar recycling mandates whatsoever. Voluntary, industry-led recycling efforts are limited in scope. “Right now, we’re pretty confident the number is around 10 percent of solar panels recycled,†said Sam Vanderhoof, the CEO of Recycle PV Solar, one of the only U.S. companies dedicated to PV recycling. The rest, he says, go to landfills or are exported overseas for reuse in developing countries with weak environmental protections.
Exporting our solid waste does not reduce their toxicity or environmental impact—it just puts them out of sight.
I think that the pressure to deploy more solar and wind power will only get more intense, pretty much regardless of the merits. We can only put off the difficult issue of recycling and disposing of them at end of life for so long. Twenty years ago that was a problem for the future. But it’s the future now.
‘We can only put off the difficult issue of recycling and disposing of them at end of life for so long.’
I have a very easy and simple solution to slow the accumulation of used up solar panels and wind turbine blades.
Stop subsidizing them. Period. That will cause the market for both to collapse, and thus reduce the wastage and the carnage. We will still have the problem of recycling the existing deployments when they are scrapped or reach their end of life, but at least we won’t be adding more waste.
Solar panels have their uses, but until we have much better energy storage capability they’re limited. Wind turbines are a flat-out boondoggle. Both are incredibly bad for the environment, from the extraction of the raw materials all the way to the disposal of used up components. Solar farms require the destruction of vast areas of desert. Wind farms require the destruction of mountaintops and ridges, and worse are an incredible hazard to any winged thing unfortunate enough to fly too close to them.
There are no subsidies for repair or replacement, so broken equipment is generally abandoned in place. Some of the older turbine fields have as many as 20% of the turbines abandoned.
The useful life of a turbine per se is probably 5 years, or so. Solar panels have no moving parts, but they are fully exposed to the elements. A 25-year life span is absurd.
It might be noted that household solar panels and wind turbines do not power the house or building they are attached to. They feed the grid, and the owners get a credit against their electricity purchases from the grid. If the grid shuts down for any reason, the homeowners do not get power from their own turbines and panels.
They should be able to be profitability and safely recycled through an environmental surcharge on area electric bills.
Saving the planet isn’t a job for shirkers.
Contrary to what supporters of wind and solar seem to believe, if your objective is to completely eliminate the use of coal, oil, and natural gas, the only real alternative in the here and now is nuclear. Wind and solar are auxiliary power—they need to be “backed up” by always-on “standby” power of the same capacity. Or people must be willing and able to do without.
There is the California option. Just simply accept unreliable power.
Given California is a trendsetter; that is probably where much of the country will go.
Combined with the proposed wealth tax; they will really are making people pay for the cost of good weather.
Companies like Generac are pushing small, home size generators with accompanying battery pack but they rely on natural gas or propane. Still, for California homeowners affected by the new rolling blackouts they look like the only option.
To me, it’s depressing to see America foregoing the advantages of small nuclear plants out of timidity. You look about for leadership and vision and it’s not there.
If Elon Musk would get interested, it would happen.
So we should reject solar because it has waste disposal issues and accept nuclear, which has no waste disposal issues at all!
Steve
No, we should understand it doesn’t accomplish the stated goal and it has waste disposal problems of its own.
There are only a limited number of ways to stop using coal, oil, and natural gas entirely. We can add nuclear to solar and wind or we can be prepared to do without electricity at all on an unpredictable basis.
I think as long as natural gas remains cheap, that will be the base load power source.
And politically, it’s win-win.
I’m pro nuclear but I just don’t see it going anywhere.
Mostly peaceful protests………MSM won’t report it or they polly parrot the peaceful line. Democrats polly parrot the peaceful line.
And we are talking the obvious issue that nuclear is the only sane high volume choice.
https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2020/08/17/portland-protesters-drag-man-street-beat-unconscious/
Alrighty. And the Clinesmith plea seems to get no attention. Heh.
Qui tacet consentire videtur
And have another round in memory of Reginald Denny, guilty.
Driving while white.