The Dark Side of Solar Panels

making giant fields of synthetic plates... yeah, that wasn't obviously a bad idea... at least giant fields of towers made of spinning metal is a better one... i hope all of this is covered in that ready, set, green book... or my friends won't think i'm cool anymore.

There's always tradeoffs with whatever energy source we end up using. That's why energy efficiency will always be more important than what we get our energy from. I'm still rooting for solar (and wind), though. There's lots of ways to get energy from the sun. Some will be better than others. The solar industry is still in its infancy. We shouldn't give up on it yet.

If we weren't already at the tipping point with Climate Change which is caused by burning carbon this spin would be a whole lot more important. But we ARE at that tipping point which is why putting as many solar panels into use generating renewable energy right now is most important on the priority list.

But when you lack perspective and you can't prioritize then you aren't much help in solving problems. You're just another cause of delay and distraction when crisis management is called for.

While you're worrying about the rotten food in the galley, the entire ship is now sinking and will be on the bottom soon if you don't start helping us bail water.

The toxic waste side of solar panel production and recycling do need to be dealt with in eco-responsible ways. But that's a strawman issue when weighing solar panels green value.

Replacing as much carbon-based energy production right away is critical with CO2 levels at 384 and climbing every year. The level of urgency scale is completely tilted to the side of using solar panels. If you don't understand that, you don't understand what 99% of the world's scientists are saying.

And that makes you part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Being part of the problem most definitely includes the Los Angeles Times who have run two "solar is not a green product" articles in their Business section in just the last 4 days. What is their agenda with such blatant spin?

They'd have a whole lot more credibility if they hadn't fired so many of their best researchers, fact checkers, field reporters and editors, and if their product hadn't been so downsized and diminished from its own once high standards.

This is terribly true. I think solar thermal will be a bigger ingredient of this mix, because the mechanical power from solar thermal is useful too, at much lower technical thresholds.

Creative,

BRAVO!

I was going to rail on these retards, but you did so in such an eloquent fashion that I don't need to.

The only thing I'll point out, and this is immensely simplistic (though it is directed towards retards after all) it is that...

Anything, no matter how good, done in a bad way, is bad.

Thanks Creative Greenius!

I too, wonder at pulling such nitpicky nonsense at a time like this. The LA Times, I can understand - probably fossilfunded...

All technologies require energy and materials in their manufacture.

Renewable energies tend to not create source pollutants like fossil fuel energy plants.

It is up to governments to ensure manufacturers are managing wastes during production.

Here in sunny Arizona, PV solar generates about 6 hours of energy about 6 days a week. In most parts of the world, you'll be lucky to get a few hours a day a few hours a week.
In the meantime, energy conservation measures are free and the only unintended consequences are that power plants lose income that becomes your savings.
If you really want to stand up for your convictions, put on fleece pullover and turn that thermostat up towards the ambient temperature by 10-15 degrees.

Great comments! You can cut the denial with a knife. Obviously, because solar is good, any attempt to suggest otherwise must be due to ignorance or a "fossilefunded" conspiracy.

I said this in a post yesterday on solar thermal. If we also spent some resources on preventing deforestation, we would create more buffering in climate, reducing weather extremes and consequently, demand for energy.

The only folks in denial are those who won't face up to a CO2 level of 384 ppm and the climate change that comes with that.

I'll trust the Dr. James Hansen on that reality.

So actually, it's the greenhouse gasses you can cut with a knife and no amount of ignorant snark changes that inconvenient truth.

There's a simple solution to this issue: Compare the amount of coal burned, and the amount of solar cells created, generating the same amount of waste products. I'm pretty sure the equivalent number of solar cells, which tend to last 15-20 years, will generate much more energy than the coal, meaning the same amount of waste was created but much more net power was obtained (or, to put another way, much less waste was generated for the same amount of power). If we're generating the same or more power, and going through less raw materials, we are winning the battle.

At any rate, we're early enough in the process of mass-production of solar cells to be able to work out the details of waste reclamation and disposal before they become an issue... which, compared to other technologies at this point, they certainly are NOT.

What's important is the net pollution per unit energy over the lifetime of an install. This is way lower for solar than coal.

The author says toxic materials like "glues used in the conduit". Come on, please have some sense of scale. The amount of glue used in conduits for my system (enough to power my whole house) is less than a tube of tooth paste!

Remember burning coal produces a whole lot of pollution, CO2 and mercury plus more.

What's important is that solar panels net out after about 2 years in service (depending on several variables). After that it is like pollution free energy.

Earth bound solar panels don't really wear out either. Those installed in space do because of the extreme conditions (mostly huge and fast temperature swings). Those on earth installed about 30 years ago are only down about 20% in production. The panels last as long as the glass or air tight seals (if a seal breaks condensation blocks light or shorts out power).

The warranty of panels is typically 20 or 25 years. Expect them to last much longer than that.

I expect my solar panels to out last me!

Joseph,

Did you miss my comment above? Do you have sporadic vision problems or reading comprehension problems? Its gotta be one of those, unless you're just a retard, but I'm assuming you're not.

So let me repeat: anything, no matter how good, if done in a bad way, is bad.

See? Understand? Comprehend? Good. Now you can continue to grow up and stop being a fool.

FYI The silicon in solar cells can be recycled saving much of the energy used to purify the silicon. Until recently there has not been enough solar cells to warrent establishing a recycling system.

China isn't exactly a standard to judge the rest of the industry by. China is the largest consumer of illegal logging for furniture manufacturing, that doesn't mean furniture manufacturers in America utilize the same suppliers.

But if you want to do something about it then get with the World Community Grid's Clean Energy Project which is researching organic materials to be used for solar cells.

Evergreen Solar produces the most environmentally friendly solar panels.

Energy sources for production of an item is usually a misnomer. Photovoltaic's manufacturing is likely to largely be from coal, because that's what grid power comes from. If we replace that with photovoltaics then it'll come from solar. What a silly argument. We can't move forward without expending energy...

The toxic ingredients in photovoltaics sounds like a valid complaint. However, I would think that large solar farms would be more apt to use solar thermal. Photovoltaics seem like a better solution for small scale operations like rooftop power: Where there are already plenty of toxic construction materials to keep track of.

Brookhaven Labs did a study on the lifecycle costs of PV last year. Treehugger covered it.

"Using data compiled from the original records of twelve PV manufacturers, we quantified the emissions from the life cycle of four major commercial photovoltaic technologies and showed that they are insignificant in comparison to the emissions that they replace when introduced in average European and U.S. grids. According to our analysis, replacing grid electricity with central PV systems presents significant environmental benefits, which for CdTe PV amounts to 89–98% reductions of GHG emissions, criteria pollutants, heavy metals, and radioactive species. For roof-top dispersed installations, such pollution reductions are expected to be even greater as the loads on the transmission and distribution networks are reduced, and part of the emissions related to the life cycle of these networks are avoided."

More at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/28/232952/333/722/466075

Of course, there are incidents of silicon tetrachloride pollution around some plants in China and other possible pollutant and toxic releases. However, I would venture to say that the silicon pollution from computer chips is orders of magnitude higher than from PV.

Everything has a cost. We should be working towards zero emissions on all fronts. Pollution from solar is still the least of our worries and is likely to remain so for quite a while yet. Doesn't mean we shouldn't get it right straight from the get-go though.

What the author, like so many others, fails to grasp by saying "Huge amounts of fossil fuels are used in the manufacture of the cells" is that the more renewable-energy producing devices we make, the less fossil fuels need to make them as the energy to make them would become progressively more renewable.

People make computers, TV's and loads of other things that create no energy using fossil fuels, yet the same people suggest renewables are bad because of the amount of energy needed to make these renewables.

Idiots.

Willy Bio:

Your stream of insults aside, my main (if not explictly expressed until now) point is all of the anti-nuclear stuff I hear from the environmental lunatic fringe, if you will forgive the redundancy.

Nuclear power is better than just good, so I shan't expect to ever read you expressing an opinion against it. After all, any concern you or anyone else has can simply be dismissed as "anything, no matter how good, if done in a bad way, is bad".

Or does anything not really mean anything?

I think the big impediment to PV will be the cost, for most of the world, and even in developed countries as energy costs rise. That's why thermal is so exciting. I'm not an engineer but frankly I don't see why these things need huge moncrystalline silicon slabs like ICs have, after all, an oxidized aluminum plate can be turned into a (very poor) pv generator. I don't see why you can't have some kind of flash-coat as the underlying matrix. I'm sure they're working on that. If not, this is my idea and you can send me a check.

PV does cost more to create up-front than simply burning coal, especially now at the early end of PV production. On the other hand, creative financing (like California's new roof-lease system) will allow more homeowners to purchase solar now, save resources, and allow the savings to pay for the cells.

As time goes by, expect PV to become cheap enough that more homeowners will be able to buy panels outright.

We need to perfect organic PV's that are more efficient and made of non-toxic chemicals that can be derived from renewable sources. At Ohio State, there is a student group project in the EE department focusing on flexible organic electronics and photovoltaics, and it looks pretty promising.

It is obvious that solar panels are not the answer at all, but just an illusion to manifest oppression of the citizens by the Elite class. Right now we can all burn hydrogen in any internal combustion engine with an on-board hydrogen generator. Right now I am affiliate marketing for the best company in the business. I use my website to link people to the products so I can make a commission which I can put forth to the non-profit organization that i begun last year. Please help! The least you can do is research the technology...

Thank you,
Matthew
www.peacelovefreedom.org

"an illusion to manifest oppression of the citizens by the Elite class" - yo, is that one out of Marx and Engels? Not sure what that's supposed to mean...

Anyway, I think solar panels, solar energy and renewables are the way to go. They will continue to improve in performance using more friendly materials. We've got a long way to go, but at least we're heading in the right direction.

Thank you for this article. I would have never guessed that solar panels had some drawbacks. I still believe though that with better methods of producing these panels and proper disposal we'll be in a much place.

There are always trade-offs when it comes to technology that is supposed to make our lives better/easier. It's important that we recognize that there are negatives to using solar energy in order to fix those problems. It still stands that the sun is a powerful source of sustainable energy and needs to be harnessed in some way, and we are just at the tip of iceberg. There are already some truly amazing projects in the works that will help us clean up solar energy,make it more practical and truly green.

There was a remarkably similar article that I posted to before. I guess I'll do it again here.

The waste from solar panel manufacturing depends on which company produces them and what country they produce them in. Like anything manufactured in China, solar panels are going to have a worse environmental impact than panels produced in a responsible country like the US or Germany. We used primarily Evergreen Solar modules at the company I worked for and there are no pits of toxic waste in Marlboro Mass. Because of the issues china has with both quality and the carbon/chemical footprint of its products my employer refused to order any product from China.

Cradle-to-Cradle design is important and we should encourage all manufacturers to adopt it, but there is no way I would trade potential pollution form a bad solar cell recycling plan for the immediate pollution caused by burning fossil fuel (and storing its heavy metal laden waste in badly constructed holding ponds). Due to the incredibly long expected life of solar panels (most likely more than 50 years though most warranties go for 25) I imagine more waste is produced by Apple refusing to allow you to replace the battery in an ipod than the scrapping of solar panels.

Simmer down Ladies and gentleman. My impression from this article was realistic ballance. We are in trouble with old tech because we didn't know or didn't care what the side afects were. They ran unchecked until they were out of control. We have been playing catch up every since. We are at the beginning of this one. Why charge forward and repeat bad attitudes only to be the evil power companies of the future. Let us not leave our children in the toxic waste. Keep it clean from the start.
Cars were hailed as a polution fighter over horses. We were in danger of being buried in horse dung. LP, Electris, wind and other cutting edge tech is being hailed as polution fighters as well. This time let us be smart.
Zac

Is that like the dark side of the force?

Human thinking redux. Let's make it now and worry about the
consequences...later!

It seems we still don't get it.

We are part of a system. Everyone and everything in this system produces
waste. Some of it is useful, some of it is harmful. If what to do with the
harmful waste left by the upstream production of solar panels is not
included in seeking solutions to our energy dilemma now, not so many years
on we will be confronting more toxic monsters that we will more than likely
bury underground (from where they might leak into water sources, be
absorbed by plants and vegetables, then ingested by animals and,
eventually, ourselves), warehouse (the # of reused nuclear reactor rods vs
the # stored is pathetic) or clandestinely dump into oceans, rivers and
lakes (don't get me started). We will have our "clean" energy but, the 800
pound gorilla will still be with us.

I am not against the production of solar power for our enegy needs. I would
just like to see it produced in ways that will provide the most long term
benefits possible sans many of the disastrous outcomes caused by our
current methods.

Referrals to any forums where waste management and disposal are being
discussed would be appreciated.

good job!