Waste From Solar Panels: 300 Times That of Nuclear Power

wattsupwiththat.com ^ | 6/29/2017 | David Middleton

[rktman]

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.

Neither does California, a world leader in deploying solar panels. Only Europe requires solar panel makers to collect and dispose of solar waste at the end of their lives.

All of which begs the question: just how big of a problem is solar waste?

Environmental Progress investigated the problem to see how the problem compared to the much more high-profile issue of nuclear waste.

[rktman]

🤔🙉🙈🙊. Sure doesn't hold them and the claims of "zero emissions" vehicles back. Yeah, right.

[Makana]

I just returned from a week in Madrid/Toledo.

I saw just TWO solar panel installations and they were on condos.

[HotHunt]

Like I said, he's a liberal I used to play golf with when I lived in Arizona.

But I'm retired now and live in Florida. I don't go out of my way to commiserate with liberals anymore. So I have no idea.

[vette6387]

“The footprint of those Windmills is massive, those things are hundreds of feet high. I can’t imagine what happens when one of them breaks.”

Here in CA down in the Central Valley they were going to put in a solar array power plant. To generate the equivalent energy of a power plant that covered a small number of acres, the solar site would have needed to be several square miles of panels. The other thing they’ve done here down on I-15 just short of the Nevada border near Las Vegas is build the Ivanpah Solar Energy Plant (it’s actually three co-located plants each with acres of mirrors that focus the sun’s energy on an elevated sphere that contains some sort of synthetic heat transfer liquid that circulates into a power generation station. The funny thing is that they have an “auxiliary” fossil-fueled power plant that is supposed to be a “backup” for when Ivanpah isn’t running, and it supplies most of the energy that is produced at the site. Go Google Ivanpah and look at this monstrosity. Driving by it, you wonder if Star Wars is real. Take a look: http://www.brightsourceenergy.com/ivanpah-solar-project#.WVfRGsbMxBw

[arthurus]

Solar panel waste, toxic as it may be, is Good waste. Nuclear waste is Bad waste. Henry Hazlitt discussed the mindset that produces these insanities in Economics in One Lesson decades ago. It is a highly readable book that is available at several internet locations to read or to download and is cheap at Amazon and other sellers. It is a book that should be given to every child to read once in middle school and once in high school. Read and understand it (neither difficult) and it is impossible ever again to be snowed by politicians' promises involving solving promises.

[T Ruth]

Minor peeve, but this is not "begging the question".

Ditto that.

[hawg-farmer - FR..October 1998]

Solar panel waste can be recycled, Nuclear waste can not. SHEESH,

[beaversmom]

Hope you had a great time in Denver with your family.

[politicianslie]

you know there is something to it when my local scrap yard gives me 5 bucks for a lead acid.

O'Reilly Auto Parts out in Tillamook, Oregon gave me a $10 gift card last week. I used it to buy some wax for the car I pull behind the RV. Last summer did Yellowstone, Glacier and Yosemite Nat. Parks, this year the Oregon/Washington state and NP's.

I have several flexible solar panels for the RV. I only use them when I am going to be off grid for a few days. The flexible panels do not seem to hold up real well to long term UV exposure so mine will be essentially brand new for a long time as they are kept in storage (about 4 pounds for a 120 watt panel).