A Clean Energy’s Dirty Little Secret

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Discarded solar panels are piling up all over the world, and they represent a major threat to the environment. Clean energy may not be so clean after all. A new study by Environmental Progress (EP) warns that toxic waste from used solar panels now poses a global environmental threat. The Berkeley-based group found that solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of energy than nuclear power plants. Discarded solar panels, which contain dangerous elements such as lead, chromium, and cadmium, are piling up around the world, and there’s been little done to mitigate their potential danger to the environment.

“We talk a lot about the dangers of nuclear waste, but that waste is carefully monitored, regulated, and disposed of,” says Michael Shellenberger, founder of Environmental Progress, a nonprofit that advocates for the use of nuclear energy. “But we had no idea there would be so many panels — an enormous amount — that could cause this much ecological damage.”

 Solar panels are considered a form of toxic, hazardous electronic or “e-waste,” and according to EP researchers Jemin Desai and Mark Nelson, scavengers in developing countries like India and China often “burn the e-waste in order to salvage the valuable copper wires for resale. Since this process requires burning off plastic, the resulting smoke contains toxic fumes that are carcinogenic and teratogenic (birth defect-causing) when inhaled.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449026/solar-panel-waste-environmental-threat-clean-energy

The veil is being lifted.  @Joe Wooten - maybe we need to begin requiring those solar plants to set aside escrow end-of-life just like the nuclear plants have to.

[Joe Wooten]

Yep.

BTW....This is old news. Back in 1978 there was a study on this very subject that reached the same conclusion for both PV AND electronics, which were both being touted by the environmentalist movement as "clean" industrial developments. I remember seeing it as one of the power systems professors in the Mechanical Engineering department passed out copies in his classes.

[Joe Wooten]

It also would drive a nail into the coffin of the PV madness even with the government subsidies.