California went big on rooftop solar. Now that's a problem for landfills

Yahoo ^ | July 14, 2022 | Rachel Kisela

[DoughtyOne]

Sooner or later it will be a problem I suppose.

You know, how hard will it be to find something they can
do with these panels, even if it is to mix the pulverized
things into asphalt, and pave our streets with it

Aluminum can be recycled. Other parts can probably be
recycled in some manner.

[Drago]

No problem...the vast majority of rooftop solar installed in the last 10-15 years, but I remember some being installed as early as the early 1990’s in the Fresno, CA area. (A residential PV solar company called “Unlimited Energy” was located across from my workplace in the ‘90’s).

[DoughtyOne]

I hadn’t thought of industrial use back then.

[BobL]

EASY SOLUTION: Open more landfills. No need to Save the Earth, when you’re SAVING THE PLANET, which is far more important.

...or something like that, I think. I guess.

[minnesota_bound]

Spend $15,000+ to buy and install the panels. They do not last as advertised and the money saved = 0. You divide the cost vs the .10 cents a kw and you saved nothing.
In Calif. everyone else is subsidizing the solar electricity by paying .20 cents to .25 cents per kw vs .10 cents most places in the USA.

Excerpts: $2 to $4 worth of materials are recovered from each panel.
It costs roughly $20 to $30 to recycle a panel versus $1 to $2 to send it to a landfill.

It is like buying a $11,000 2014 Ford electric car and finding out it costs $14,000 to replace the battery plus installation costs as a Florida family recently found out.

[bakeneko]

50000 years from now the pyramids will have crumbled into dust.

But the bits and pieces of the Green Agenda will still be cluttering up the wasteland.

[gunsequalfreedom]

Yes, but $1.85 electric bills are great! Seriously.

[Kozy]

California is offering new tax incentives. Do it over again and make money,

[gunsequalfreedom]

Huge savings with the solar panels.

Pay $20,000 to put them in. They last 20 years. That’s $1,000 per year cost of the panels. The savings per year on electricity is way more than that.

Two months of electric bills and the amortized cost of the panels is covered. The rest of the year it is electric bills of $1.85 or during heavy usage, $5.00 a month.

How do you figure they don’t pay? Not following you.

[Mr. Jeeves]

I was quoted $72,000 to put them in (admittedly, my house is not small) and told that at best they could run one A/C unit for a few hours - and the Tesla batteries are back ordered for over a year. With the predicted savings it would have taken about twenty years to break even - when it would be time to start over.

I don’t think the math works very well unless homebuilders start including solar in new builds.

[VanShuyten]

Hire Illegals to separate the waste.
No longer a problem.

[Nifster]

In California they were early adopters. Started putting solar panels on homes ( mostly for heating water) thirty to forty years ago. So some of the earliest ones are now useless

[the_Watchman]

The timeframe may be a bit early, but are you willing to wait until groundwater is polluted before anyone raises an alarm?

I hung up on a solar pitch last week and pointed out to my wife that the environmental problems associated with the way they are disposed makes solar panels immoral!

[JParris]

Only been around 15 years or so....

So, how could anyone accurately predict a life span of 25 - 30 years.

I offer there was never a 25 year life, it was sold as such to justify the installation expense over time.

So, recalculate return on investment numbers based on 15 yr life and see if it was as economically appealing to begin with.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Ship them to China so they can throw them in the ocean. Maybe they'll have enough to make another island or two in the China Sea. They can eventually create a land bridge to Taiwan.

Go green!

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Let's say you bought panels 15 years ago and now find out that even though your panels still work, that the new ones are twice as efficient and it now makes sense to toss the old ones for the new ones.

Which is what's going to happen with EV's as well.

[metmom]

A lack of consumer awareness about the toxicity of materials in some panels and how to dispose of them is part of the problem

Which is not the consumers fault.

Blame the lying greenies and media for deceiving people about how clean “green” energy really is.

[DoughtyOne]

I purchased solar panels and electric generators. I charge them up with the panels. I don’t go out every day, so I should be able to charge my car over a
day or two.

I have two eBikes I charge with my panels, ranges 40 and 60 miles plus.

I have plans to build my own camping trailer, and possibly a tiny house too.

I have all the equipment I need to go solar off the grid.

The costs are not bad the way I’m doing it.

I should be pretty self-contained.

[Organic Panic]

Every brand I have tried the past 10 years or so have had a lifespan of about 2 years. Consumer level panels are junk. Even the good ones don’t last more than 5 for peak efficiency. The technology works for my situation, off grid, but just downright stupid for large scale use. What will really be fun is when the Hawaiian panels start hitting the waste stream. Hawaii went all in and many suckers believed the hype.

[Organic Panic]

On Big Island there are crews that maintain windmills so they keep spinning. They produce zero electricity and spill toxic oils from the gear box but they keep them spinning cuz, muh green enrgies.