Why Everything They Said About Solar Was Wrong

[rangerrebew]

Why Everything They Said About Solar Was Wrong
Solar Panels Will Create 50 Times More Waste & Cost 4 Times More Than Predicted, New Harvard Business Review Study Finds
   
Michael Shellenberger
Jun 21   
 
   

Three years ago I published a long article at Forbes arguing that solar panels weren’t clean but in fact produced 300 times more toxic waste than high-level nuclear waste. But in contrast to nuclear waste, which is safely stored and never hurts anyone, solar panel waste risks exposing poor trash-pickers in sub-Saharan Africa. The reason was because it was so much cheaper to make new solar panels from raw materials than to recycle them, and would remain that way, given labor and energy costs.

My reporting was near-universally denounced. The most influential financial analyst of the solar industry called my article, “a fine example of 'prove RE [renewable energy] is terrible by linking lots of reports which don't actually support your point but do show that the RE industry in the West considers and documents its limited impacts extremely thoroughly.’” An energy analyst who is both pro-nuclear and pro-solar agreed with her, saying “I looked into this waste issue in the past and concur with [her].”

The Guardian said solar panel waste was a “somewhat ironic concern from [me], a proponent of nuclear power, which has a rather bigger toxic waste problem” adding that “broken panels… are relatively rare except perhaps in the wake of a natural disaster like a hurricane or earthquake.”

https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/why-everything-they-said-about-solar

[Absalom]

Plain people already know that Solar is simply another mechanical product looking
for buyers and emphatically not some gadget that will transform their lives.
Anyone have a car on which maintenance and repair is unnecessary???

[Potluck]

I’m assuming he is talking about solar cells already manufactured. But there is the other side also of the processes involved making them.
Worked for a solar cell manufacturer.
We had silicon delivered in chunks the size of a baseball so mining would be a consideration I’ve had no experience in.
Anyway, the first thing is to melt the silicon so it can be poured into ingots about 6X6X12. The furnaces were powered from the grid.
These are then cut into wafers using water cooled saws that also carries away the dust produced. This slurry was considered toxic so that is poured into barrels, set out on the loading dock and hauled away.

Next the wafers are cleaned in a bath of KOH potassium hydroxide. Those baths were changed twice daily, poured into barrels and set out on the dock. 

To rid the surfaces of metal contaminants a bath of HCL hydrogen cloride was next. Those vats were changed, drained into barrels…….

Next comes a bath in hydrofluoric acid, HF, to remove any glass impurities. Those bath were changed .. yada, yada, yada

At the end of the day there was a truckload of toxic solutions to be dealt with. I have no idea of the processes involved in neutralizing all that.

It’s not difficult to imagine more energy goes into making solar cells than they produce.