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Posted on 02/19/2016 3:03:03 PM PST by Libloather
Solar panels contain toxic, hazardous materials and there are no regulations in North Carolina on how to dispose of them. Also, there are no plans in place to deal with what could happen if a storm destroyed a solar facility.
The Environmental Review Commission met last week and began a discussion about the toxic materials in solar panels, what to do with expired solar panels and what to do in the event of an accident or natural disaster involving a solar facility.
Chaired by Sen. Trudy Wade (R-Guilford), the commission heard from Tom Reeder, NC Department of Environmental Quality assistant secretary of the environment, who said there are 250 million pounds of solar panels in North Carolina.
(Excerpt) Read more at rhinotimes.com ...
Environmentalists will kill us all.
Better call Barone Sanitation.
Same issue with those composite wind turbine blades. Can’t burn, ‘em, can’t put them in anything but a hazardous waste landfill, only a fraction of them can be marketed as a pavement additive, and the only place in world that can recycle them is in Germany.
It’s estimated that Denmark will have 225,000 tonnes of blade waste by 2035.
I worked at inventing sputtered thin film cadmium silicon diarsenide back in the late ‘70s. recovering the elements in thin films and conductors, and recycling the metals to make new solar cells ought not to be rocket science. The substrates and structural frames ought not to be dangerous. Somebody is determined to chicken-little this issue and terrorize chemical ignoramuses here.
Why not just pile it all up. That is what they do with the waist from the nuclear power plants.
Got to get it back, someday
Got to get it back, and soon now
For tomorrow maybe you and me
We're movin', we're movin', movin' to the Moon now
It's up to us to make a choice
We know what it's worth to save the Earth
Come raise your voice
Save the Earth! (save the Earth)
Save the Earth! (save the Earth)
See the evil problem around us
Save the Earth! (save the Earth)
Save the Earth! (save the Earth)
And the Solution: stop pollution
--"Save the Earth", song from Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, 1971
We just converted our house to solar. It makes sense here with 300+ days of sunshine and very high electric rates. If solar panels can be made to with stand the typhoons here then they should withstand a hurricane, or so I would think.
Chicken Little indeed.
What percentage of your project was paid for with subsidies?
Panels lose efficiency yearly. They make some sense for very rural, low load situations. They certainly aren’t a panacea at this point. Without subsidies and emotions, solar is very disappointing.
I don’t actually know.
The company owns the panels and I pay them a fixed monthly fee. They guarantee that the panels will provide the power for the house and do all the maintenance.
Note: Electricity prices on Guam are three to four times more than than average in the US. So it is not a normal market and makes solar cheaper by comparison. If we used AC in the whole house (1800 square feet)the power bill would be easily $400 to $500 a month.
Plus the power here is unreliable thanks to a power plant burning down so we have rolling black outs across the island.
It is not unusual for power to be out a couple of days after a typhoon so having the panels is useful then as well
This is not a normal place
We looked at large arrays, 2x3x4 tracking panel systems. With the subsidies it almost made sense. But we saved 25000 by not biting. Solar makes sense in low-load, rural situations.
Where did the cadmium and tellurium come from?
Duh. The stuff was already here.
How much tax have you paid in your lifetime? Want some back?
I’ll be installing a permitted and inspected system without any subsidy for a house soon. Without a “professional” installation, it will be well worth it.
Oh, please, may I?
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