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

Quote:California has been a pioneer in pushing for rooftop solar power, building up the largest solar market in the U.S. More than 20 years and 1.3 million rooftops later, the bill is coming due.

Beginning in 2006, the state, focused on how to incentivize people to take up solar power, showered subsidies on homeowners who installed photovoltaic panels but had no comprehensive plan to dispose of them. Now, panels purchased under those programs are nearing the end of their typical 25-to-30-year life cycle.

Many are already winding up in landfills, where in some cases, they could potentially contaminate groundwater with toxic heavy metals such as lead, selenium and cadmium.

Sam Vanderhoof, a solar industry expert and chief executive of Recycle PV Solar, says that only 1 in 10 panels are actually recycled, according to estimates drawn from International Renewable Energy Agency data on decommissioned panels and from industry leaders.

The looming challenge over how to handle truckloads of waste, some of it contaminated, illustrates how cutting-edge environmental policy can create unforeseen problems down the road.

“The industry is supposed to be green,” Vanderhoof said. “But in reality, it’s all about the money.”

Why not recycle? Turns out there are issues there, too.

Quote:But as California barreled ahead on its renewable-energy program, focusing on rebates and — more recently — a proposed solar tax, questions about how to handle the waste that would accrue years later were never fully addressed. Now, both regulators and panel manufacturers are realizing that they don’t have the capacity to handle what comes next.

“This trash is probably going to arrive sooner than we expected and it is going to be a huge amount of waste,” said Serasu Duran, an assistant professor at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business in Canada. “But while all the focus has been on building this renewable capacity, not much consideration has been put on the end of life of these technologies.”

Quote:Although 80% of a typical photovoltaic panel is made of recyclable materials, disassembling them and recovering the glass, silver and silicon is extremely difficult.

“There’s no doubt that there will be an increase in the solar panels entering the waste stream in the next decade or so,” said AJ Orben, vice president of We Recycle Solar, a Phoenix-based company that breaks down panels and extracts the valuable metals while disposing of toxic elements. “That’s never been a question.”

The vast majority of We Recycle Solar’s business comes from California, but the company has no facilities in the state. Instead, the panels are trucked to a site in Yuma, Ariz. That’s because California’s rigorous permitting system for toxic materials makes it exceedingly difficult to set up shop, Orben said.

Quote:Recycling solar panels isn’t a simple process. Highly specialized equipment and workers are needed to separate the aluminum frame and junction box from the panel without shattering it into glass shards. Specialized furnaces are used to heat panels to recover silicon. In most states, panels are classified as hazardous materials, which require expensive restrictions on packaging, transport and storage. (The vast majority of residential solar arrays in the U.S. are crystalline silicon panels, which can contain lead, although it’s less prevalent in newer panels. Thin-film solar panels, which contain cadmium and selenium, are primarily used in utility-grade applications.)

Orben said the economics of the process don’t make a compelling case for recycling.

Only about $2 to $4 worth of materials are recovered from each panel. The majority of processing costs are tied to labor, and Orben said even recycling panels at scale would not be more economical.

Most research on photovoltaic panels is focused on recovering solar-grade silicon to make recycling economically viable.

That skews the economic incentives against recycling. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that it costs roughly $20 to $30 to recycle a panel versus $1 to $2 to send it to a landfill.

While not toxic like solar panels, when a wind turbine is decommissioned and torn down, the blades wind up in landfills - there is no way to recycle them, given current technology.

All the talk about renewables is on the front end, with little thought given to what happens when that tech is at the end of its lifespan.

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fww...ing-danger

"let's not learn from previous missteps ... let's continue to scorch the grid along with the soil." - Cali/Wile E Pluribus enema

we've inherited dumbfk-land at the cost of many by a handful....

nope ... never saw this cummin' off a gold toof...


















suckers

Jettison that crap into outer space.

Start advertising the environmental damages caused by “going green”. For instance, start promoting with picture and images of those big ass holes in the ground required to mine minerals for all those batteries

We usually just ship our waste to poor countries and let them suffer the ill effects. That’s standard procedure no matter what side of the climate change debate you fall on.

(07-17-2022 09:30 AM)MileHighBronco Wrote:  California went big on rooftop solar. Now that’s a problem for landfills

Quote:California has been a pioneer in pushing for rooftop solar power, building up the largest solar market in the U.S. More than 20 years and 1.3 million rooftops later, the bill is coming due.

Beginning in 2006, the state, focused on how to incentivize people to take up solar power, showered subsidies on homeowners who installed photovoltaic panels but had no comprehensive plan to dispose of them. Now, panels purchased under those programs are nearing the end of their typical 25-to-30-year life cycle.

Many are already winding up in landfills, where in some cases, they could potentially contaminate groundwater with toxic heavy metals such as lead, selenium and cadmium.

Sam Vanderhoof, a solar industry expert and chief executive of Recycle PV Solar, says that only 1 in 10 panels are actually recycled, according to estimates drawn from International Renewable Energy Agency data on decommissioned panels and from industry leaders.

The looming challenge over how to handle truckloads of waste, some of it contaminated, illustrates how cutting-edge environmental policy can create unforeseen problems down the road.

“The industry is supposed to be green,” Vanderhoof said. “But in reality, it’s all about the money.”

Why not recycle? Turns out there are issues there, too.

Quote:But as California barreled ahead on its renewable-energy program, focusing on rebates and — more recently — a proposed solar tax, questions about how to handle the waste that would accrue years later were never fully addressed. Now, both regulators and panel manufacturers are realizing that they don’t have the capacity to handle what comes next.

“This trash is probably going to arrive sooner than we expected and it is going to be a huge amount of waste,” said Serasu Duran, an assistant professor at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business in Canada. “But while all the focus has been on building this renewable capacity, not much consideration has been put on the end of life of these technologies.”

Quote:Although 80% of a typical photovoltaic panel is made of recyclable materials, disassembling them and recovering the glass, silver and silicon is extremely difficult.

“There’s no doubt that there will be an increase in the solar panels entering the waste stream in the next decade or so,” said AJ Orben, vice president of We Recycle Solar, a Phoenix-based company that breaks down panels and extracts the valuable metals while disposing of toxic elements. “That’s never been a question.”

The vast majority of We Recycle Solar’s business comes from California, but the company has no facilities in the state. Instead, the panels are trucked to a site in Yuma, Ariz. That’s because California’s rigorous permitting system for toxic materials makes it exceedingly difficult to set up shop, Orben said.

Quote:Recycling solar panels isn’t a simple process. Highly specialized equipment and workers are needed to separate the aluminum frame and junction box from the panel without shattering it into glass shards. Specialized furnaces are used to heat panels to recover silicon. In most states, panels are classified as hazardous materials, which require expensive restrictions on packaging, transport and storage. (The vast majority of residential solar arrays in the U.S. are crystalline silicon panels, which can contain lead, although it’s less prevalent in newer panels. Thin-film solar panels, which contain cadmium and selenium, are primarily used in utility-grade applications.)

Orben said the economics of the process don’t make a compelling case for recycling.

Only about $2 to $4 worth of materials are recovered from each panel. The majority of processing costs are tied to labor, and Orben said even recycling panels at scale would not be more economical.

Most research on photovoltaic panels is focused on recovering solar-grade silicon to make recycling economically viable.

That skews the economic incentives against recycling. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that it costs roughly $20 to $30 to recycle a panel versus $1 to $2 to send it to a landfill.

While not toxic like solar panels, when a wind turbine is decommissioned and torn down, the blades wind up in landfills - there is no way to recycle them, given current technology.

All the talk about renewables is on the front end, with little thought given to what happens when that tech is at the end of its lifespan.

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fww...ing-danger

Uhhhh,

And what exactly is “renewable”? Lead? Silver? Lithium? Cadmium?!?

Errrrt, no. This is loonie-speak. Bury it all and hope it reproduces or something?

This is the thoughts of ideologues and simply science deniers.

We’ll simply destroy this planet, wrecking it one strip mine after another to fulfill this idiotic “carbon zero” utopia.

Course all them Cat diesels will be doing the real work.

Dumb de Dumb Dumb.






Y’all starting to figure this out yet?!?









Suckers

Hate to say it...gotta pay a recycling fee when you replace them.

Unintended consequences of the Gore's get rich plan.

(07-17-2022 05:36 PM)Todor Wrote:  We usually just ship our waste to poor countries and let them suffer the ill effects. That’s standard procedure no matter what side of the climate change debate you fall on.

Yea, except they just dump the schit, like all the plastics into the oceans.

Problem solved for them.

This is Zackly what were doing now with these idjits by begging Vz. or Saudi to produce more oil for us instead of doing it ourselves.

Anyone think they give fat schit about the environment when they do this?

Well, of course not sillies.

SMFH

(07-17-2022 05:54 PM)JMUDunk Wrote:  

(07-17-2022 05:36 PM)Todor Wrote:  We usually just ship our waste to poor countries and let them suffer the ill effects. That’s standard procedure no matter what side of the climate change debate you fall on.

Yea, except they just dump the schit, like all the plastics into the oceans.

Problem solved for them.

This is Zackly what were doing now with these idjits by begging Vz. or Saudi to produce more oil for us instead of doing it ourselves.

Anyone think they give fat schit about the environment when they do this?

Well, of course not sillies.

SMFH

Yep. It's all just another big power grab for the left thinly disguised as "we care about Mother Earth!" to rope the rabid environmentals into a cult-like frenzy. What's sad is the same rabid environmentals eat everything they say up like it's the Gospel.

If it started in 2006 and they have a 25-30 year lifespan, how are many of them already winding up in landfills?

But yeah, many of these green energy implementations leave a considerable amount of waste for landfills in the end.

(07-17-2022 07:13 PM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  

(07-17-2022 05:54 PM)JMUDunk Wrote:  

(07-17-2022 05:36 PM)Todor Wrote:  We usually just ship our waste to poor countries and let them suffer the ill effects. That’s standard procedure no matter what side of the climate change debate you fall on.

Yea, except they just dump the schit, like all the plastics into the oceans.

Problem solved for them.

This is Zackly what were doing now with these idjits by begging Vz. or Saudi to produce more oil for us instead of doing it ourselves.

Anyone think they give fat schit about the environment when they do this?

Well, of course not sillies.

SMFH

Yep. It's all just another big power grab for the left thinly disguised as "we care about Mother Earth!" to rope the rabid environmentals into a cult-like frenzy. What's sad is the same rabid environmentals eat everything they say up like it's the Gospel.

Yea,

You wanna see an open air garbage dump?

Show up the day after an “Earth Day” rally.
More trash lying around all over than another dim city downtown.

I’ve been to several, they just assume the “little people” will clean up for them. Fvcking pigs

(07-17-2022 09:30 AM)MileHighBronco Wrote:  While not toxic like solar panels, when a wind turbine is decommissioned and torn down, the blades wind up in landfills - there is no way to recycle them, given current technology.

All the talk about renewables is on the front end, with little thought given to what happens when that tech is at the end of its lifespan.

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fww...ing-danger

https://twitter.com/TerryMo1956/status/1...0189679616

https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2022/02/...en-giants/

Graveyard of the green giants: It's the hidden cost of our dash for windpower - thousands of decommissioned blades that are so difficult to recycle, they are just dumped as landfill


While there's growing pressure for this practice to end, in the absence of an effective way of recycling them, the alternative could be something like the hideous sight at Sweetwater



Windmill blades can be longer than a Boeing 747 wing — more than 300ft — and weigh up to eight tons, so these have been sawn into three pieces with a diamond-encrusted industrial saw. Giant Garbage and each blade must be replaced every 9 to 9.5 years or earlier. Unbelievable Environmental Catastrophe.

(07-18-2022 12:45 AM)JMUDunk Wrote:  

(07-17-2022 07:13 PM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  

(07-17-2022 05:54 PM)JMUDunk Wrote:  

(07-17-2022 05:36 PM)Todor Wrote:  We usually just ship our waste to poor countries and let them suffer the ill effects. That’s standard procedure no matter what side of the climate change debate you fall on.

Yea, except they just dump the schit, like all the plastics into the oceans.

Problem solved for them.

This is Zackly what were doing now with these idjits by begging Vz. or Saudi to produce more oil for us instead of doing it ourselves.

Anyone think they give fat schit about the environment when they do this?

Well, of course not sillies.

SMFH

Yep. It's all just another big power grab for the left thinly disguised as "we care about Mother Earth!" to rope the rabid environmentals into a cult-like frenzy. What's sad is the same rabid environmentals eat everything they say up like it's the Gospel.

Yea,

You wanna see an open air garbage dump?

Show up the day after an “Earth Day” rally.
More trash lying around all over than another dim city downtown.

I’ve been to several, they just assume the “little people” will clean up for them. Fvcking pigs

That last statement reminds me of the threads made about the trash left over by the crowd that attended an outdoor speech given by Greta Thunberg (that poor, manipulated girl) about...climate change! Talk about the definition of hypocrisy.

The real answer to our energy issues has been at our finger tips since 1945.

(07-18-2022 10:06 AM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  The real answer to our energy issues has been at our finger tips since 1945.

Sad but true. And eventually the entire planet will have no choice but to embrace it.

(07-18-2022 11:07 AM)CrimsonPhantom Wrote:  

Man, John Kerry doesn't look so good.

(07-18-2022 11:17 AM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  Man, John Kerry doesn't look so good.

If you had all the lies he has told weighing on your mind, you probably wouldn't look good either.

(07-18-2022 11:46 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(07-18-2022 11:17 AM)GeminiCoog Wrote:  Man, John Kerry doesn't look so good.

If you had all the lies he has told weighing on your mind, you probably wouldn't look good either.

Oh, I know. Still, I'm a Christian, and I pray no harm comes to anybody, especially my enemies.