LostSnail,
what does it feel like to have LOST the ARGUMENT like all Greeny types do ?
You are just like some other Greeny types that came here and tried and failed to push their Global Warming dribble.
No Global Warming for 19 years now.
What will the Greeny Types do with all their Renewable Rubbish TOXIC WASTE ?
The evil Greenies are poisoning the planet with their Renewable Rubbish TOXIC WASTE!!!
Can’t slip old solar panels into the compost heap. A toxic cadmium, lead headache coming?So having some solar waste panels lying around is not exactly like having a second-hand nuclear fuel rod in the basement, but there will be Gigatons-to-Go, the volume is spectacular, and we can’t eat cadmium for breakfast. There will literally be a mountain of toxic garbage — and only Europe, apparently, has a rule about solar manufacturers having to collect and figure out what to do with the solar waste. (And with a 25 year lifespan, how much, exactly, is even that worth? Just say “Solyndra“.)A new study from a group called Environmental Progress shows that solar panels make 300 times more volume of toxic waste/megajoule as nukes do. All estimates like these are based on assumptions and guesses, so perhaps it’s not that bad. The study might be exaggerated, and maybe solar panels are only 100 times larger in volume than nukes eh? Where’s the Green outcry.
Materials, throughput for solar versus nuclear, waste, toxic, graph.
Study: Solar panels a looming toxic ‘crisis’Discarded solar panels, piling up around the world, are detrimental to the environment, according to a new study by Environmental Progress.
And carcinogenic.
And teratogenic.
While environmentalist have warned for decades of the hazard of nuclear power, solar panels produce 300 times more toxic waste per unity of energy than nuclear power plants, warns Berkeley, California-based EP.
Discarded solar panels not only contain lead, but chromium and cadmium – both of which are carcinogenic.
The Study comes from Environmental Progress:Last November, Japan’s Environment Ministry issued a stark warning: the amount of solar panel waste Japan produces every year will rise from 10,000 to 800,000 tons by 2040, and the nation has no plan for safely disposing of it.
A recent report found that it would take 19 years for Toshiba Environmental Solutions to finish recycling all of the solar waste Japan produced by 2020. By 2034, the annual waste production will be 70 – 80 times larger than that of 2020.
Environmental Progress investigated the problem to see how the problem compared to the much more high-profile issue of nuclear waste.
We found:Solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than do nuclear power plants.
If solar and nuclear produce the same amount of electricity over the next 25 years that nuclear produced in 2016, and the wastes are stacked on football fields, the nuclear waste would reach the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (52 meters), while the solar waste would reach the height of two Mt. Everests (16 km).
In countries like China, India, and Ghana, communities living near e-waste dumps often burn the waste in order to salvage the valuable copper wires for resale. Since this process requires burning off the plastic, the resulting smoke contains toxic fumes that are carcinogenic and teratogenic (birth defect-causing) when inhaled.
If you wonder about the validity of the assumptions (fair enough) check out the Environmental Progress blog. There are some pretty aggressive critics, and some very informed replies (and more in that chain). Look for responses from Michael Shellenberger and Jemin Desai and Mark Nelson (the latter two are the authors).
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/07/cant-slip-old-solar-panels-into-the-compost-hea...Some of the 61 comments to Can’t slip old solar panels into the compost heap. A toxic cadmium, lead headache coming?bemused July 3, 2017 at 8:18 am
Always the unintended consequences, just like fluorescent light bulbs. That is, they are rarely considered.
sophocles July 3, 2017 at 1:25 pm
An unreliable electricity supply, as in SA, is going to turn recycling all those PV cells into a right song and dance. Japan is already aware of the looming problem, because, as pointed out, they can’t be just stacked up and left, nor can they be smashed into small pieces and buried in a land fill. No way.
Toshiba Environmental Solutions, based in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo, also has technology that can separate solar cells from glass. It has recycled about 30,000 solar panels so far and can handle about 3,500 panels per month, or about 44 tons by weight.
And that’s just a drop in the bucket, with 800,000 tons of panels per month forecast for disposal in Japan by 2040.
Toshiba Environmental Solutions’ method grinds the cells into a fine powder, whereas NPC’s leaves behind a sheet of cells.
“The powdered cells have a high silver content and smelting companies buy it at high prices,” said Shinji Takeda, vice president of Toshiba Environmental Solutions. “Because it is a dry process, and the technology uses neither solvents nor heat, the environmental burden is also low.”