Claim: Solar Technology is Not Green

[TheNZThrower]

According to Michael Shellenberger, solar power has a few dirty and decidedly ungreen secrets. To start of with one of his first claims, he says:

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in 2016 estimated there was about 250,000 metric tonnes of solar panel waste in the world at the end of that year. IRENA projected that this amount [of solar panel waste] could reach 78 million metric tonnes by 2050.

Solar panels often contain lead, cadmium, and other toxic chemicals that cannot be removed without breaking apart the entire panel. "Approximately 90% of most PV modules are made up of glass," notes San Jose State environmental studies professor Dustin Mulvaney. "However, this glass often cannot be recycled as float glass due to impurities. Common problematic impurities in glass include plastics, lead, cadmium and antimony."

Researchers with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) undertook a study for U.S. solar-owning utilities to plan for end-of-life and concluded that solar panel "disposal in "regular landfills [is] not recommended in case modules break and toxic materials leach into the soil" and so "disposal is potentially a major issue."...


The fact that cadmium can be washed out of solar modules by rainwater is increasingly a concern for local environmentalists like the Concerned Citizens of Fawn Lake in Virginia, where a 6,350 acre solar farm to partly power Microsoft data centers is being proposed.

"We estimate there are 100,000 pounds of cadmium contained in the 1.8 million panels," Sean Fogarty of the group told me. "Leaching from broken panels damaged during natural events — hail storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. — and at decommissioning is a big concern."

Don't have the time to dig through this now, so I'll leave it here for you guys to tackle for now.

 

[Mendel]

According to Michael Shellenberger, solar power has a few dirty and decidedly ungreen secrets

reminds me of when i see an ad for the fifth time that claims to share a "secret" with me: it's never a secret.

Article:

The environmental impact of photovoltaic panels (PVs) is an extensively studied topic, generally assessed using the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology. Due to this large amount of papers, a review seems necessary to have a clear view of the work already done and what is still to be done.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S136403211400495X

You can find loads of studies by looking for "life cycle assessment solar panels".

Here's what the industry says:

Article:

The typical and arguably most comprehensive way to measure the environmental impact of solar panels on the earth is the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) methodology. Defined as the whole lifespan of a product, the life cycle includes everything from raw material acquisition and manufacturing to the disposal or recycling of the solar panel. Using that information, decision-makers can select the manufacturing, construction, and recycling processes that result in the least impact on the environment.

In Europe, solar panel recycling has reached a far more developed state than in North America. For example, over 70% of PV manufacturers take part in a global PV CYCLE Network that helps producers meet the legal obligations of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive legislation. As members of this initiative, producers are actively engaged in the sustainability of their product during manufacturing and throughout its lifespan.

If North America followed the EU model, the promise of 96% material recyclability would be fulfilled, which would cover almost two billion new panels by 2050.

Source: https://oyarenewables.com/resources/solar-panel-life-cycle-analysis-proves-sustainability/

 

[Mendel]

please use EX tags, your quotes are impossible to reply to

From the OP:

IRENA projected that this amount [of solar panel waste] could reach 78 million metric tonnes by 2050.

Counter point:

Article:

The paper could be read as a counterpoint to some of the estimates in a 2016 report from the International Renewable Energy Agency that has been widely cited (including by me) in discussions about rising demand for solar panel recycling. The report projected that the United States would have a cumulative total of 7.5 to 10 million metric tons of solar panel waste in 2050.

Since 2016, the pace of solar power development has accelerated to the point that old estimates are no longer reliable. Based on this growth, the amount of waste in 2050 would be much higher than IRENA projected.

But that's not the case, according to Mirletz and her coauthors. Using more recent data about the reliability of solar panels, they estimate that the United States will have a cumulative total of 8 million metric tons of waste in 2050. Considering the increase in assumptions since 2016 about how much solar will be deployed, that's a big decrease in the share of panels that end up needing to be recycled. (For perspective, the country generated more than 250 million metric tons of municipal solid waste in 2018, the most recent year available.)

Instead of being recycled, many of those decades-old panels will still be operating, Mirletz said.

Source: https://www.fastcompany.com/90806146/solar-panel-waste-may-not-be-nearly-as-bad-as-we-once-thought

 

[Mendel]

About the Cadmium (which is not actually elemental Cadmium):

Article:

The International Energy Agency studied the risk to human health from heavy metals leaching out of solar panels and reported it was below US screening levels, while water contamination levels were within the guidelines from the World Health Organization.

A 2021 life-cycle analysis by the United Nations found that solar panels produce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the manufacturing stage, but it is low in comparison to other energy forms.

The UN also assessed toxicity and found solar panels to be much a lower risk than coal, the production of which causes arsenic to leak to the surface and into the groundwater from the mining process.

Source: https://amp.abc.net.au/article/100757108

From the study mentioned in the first paragraph I quoted:

Article:

The methods estimate potential impacts from disposal of end-of-life (EOL) PV modules in non-sanitary landfills under the following worst-case conditions: no leachate collection or groundwater monitoring, no liner for preventing leachate migration, uncovered waste, and lack of stormwater management. Examining worst-case conditions allows the exploration of maximum potential risk to attempt to ensure disposal does not increase health risk above regulatory thresholds.

Specifically, this report presents an analysis of potential human health risks associated with non-sanitary landfill disposal for three PV technologies, focusing on release of the highest-prioritized chemical element for each: lead (Pb) in crystalline-silicon (c-Si) PV modules, cadmium (Cd) in thin film cadmium telluride (CdTe) PV modules, and selenium (Se) in thin film copper indium selenide (CIS) PV modules. The prioritization of these chemical elements for analysis is based on stakeholder interest. Because the methodology is chemical-specific, the risk assessment results for these chemicals cannot be directly generalized to other chemicals, although the risk assessment methodology can be applied to other chemicals. If the chemicals chosen are indeed the ones presenting greatest risk, then the results herein should represent the upper bound of health risk from exposure to a single constituent.

Under the layers of health-protective assumptions applied, for Pb for c-Si PV, Cd from CdTe PV and Se from CIS PV, cancer risks and non-cancer hazards are found to be at least one order of magnitude below the US regulatory screening thresholds of 1×10^-6 cancer risk and non-cancer hazard quotient of 1. Health screening levels can differ by country or region; exposure-point concentrations in groundwater and surface water of Pb, Cd, and Se for c-Si, CdTe, and CIS PV, respectively, are also within water quality guidelines from the World Health Organization.

Source: https://iea-pvps.org/key-topics/human-health-risk-assessment-methods-for-pv-part-3-module-disposal-risks/

Obviously this gets even better when the panels are properly recycled instead of being left to rot in a pile somewhere.

 

[deirdre]

reminds me of when i see an ad for the fifth time that claims to share a "secret" with me: it's never a secret.

NZ has a bad habit of paraphrasing people a bit inaccurately. The article says:

Article:

With few environmental journalists willing to report on much of anything other than the good news about renewables, it's been left to environmental scientists and solar industry leaders to raise the alarm.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if-solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/?sh=27d376ae121c

 

[TheNZThrower]

NZ has a bad habit of paraphrasing people a bit inaccurately. The article says:

Article:

With few environmental journalists willing to report on much of anything other than the good news about renewables, it's been left to environmental scientists and solar industry leaders to raise the alarm.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if-solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/?sh=27d376ae121c

Yeah, I was just in a real rush.

 

[Ann K]

@deirdre
Perhaps Forbes is not the best source to rely on for this subject matter. They're a business magazine, not a science publication.

A factual search reveals that Forbes has produced a misleading claim, according to an IFCN fact-checker. Although Forbes is usually evidence-based in science, they do not always support the consensus regarding climate change. For example, they have employed James Taylor as a columnist who writes anti-climate science propaganda and has connections to the questionable Heartland Institute and Exxon-Mobil. They have also published articles by Roy Spencer, who has a long track record of human-influenced climate change denial. Spencer has also been a speaker for the Heartland Institute and has connections to the fossil fuel industry. Lastly, Forbes has published several articles rated Very Low for Science Credibility by IFCN fact checker Climate Feedback.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/forbes/

 

[deirdre]

Perhaps Forbes is not the best source to rely on for this subject matter.

it's not my source, it is the OP source...another thing NZ does is hide links in hyperlinks.

edit add: but your comment is pure ad hominin. it does not address the claims at all.

 

[Mendel]

edit add: but your comment is pure ad hominin. it does not address the claims at all.

Article:

Valid ad hominem arguments occur in informal logic, where the person making the argument relies on arguments from authority such as testimony, expertise, or a selective presentation of information supporting the position they are advocating. In this case, counterarguments may be made that the target is dishonest or lacks the claimed expertise.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

It's fine to say "don't rely on this source" if you can show they're not good at it.
It does not disprove the claim.

However, the claim was "solar power has a few dirty and decidedly ungreen secrets", supported by the quote "With few environmental journalists willing to report on much of anything other than the good news about renewables, it's been left to environmental scientists and solar industry leaders to raise the alarm." The only support for this is "Forbes said so", and that support is now gone; which means this particular claim needs a different support in order to be upheld.

Unsupported claims can simply be dismissed.

 

[deirdre]

However, the claim was "solar power has a few dirty and decidedly ungreen secrets"

i said "the claims". your claim was not a claim made by Forbes or Micheal Shellenberger.

as far as other claims in the article, note the article is 4.5 years old.

 

[obiwanbenobi]

anyone citing older sources should be suspect as the industry and governments are working to increase recycling.

a simple google search will bring up plenty of efforts and results that are more recent (and also more interesting).

the common headline buzzword "toxic" is included as clickbait but when you read further in most articles like this they are listing things like silicon, copper and aluminum as toxic too which is very silly since silicon and aluminum are very common elements and copper is also fairly common. yes, sure some forms of these are toxic but to just blatantly call all forms toxic is misleading at best (or incompetent reporting at worst).

 

[deirdre]

anyone citing older sources should be suspect as the industry and governments are working to increase recycling.

sounds like a slow process in AMerica.

Article:

September 2022

There's a big regulatory barrier that gets in the way of some potential solar recycling. In most parts of the U.S., solar panels are classified as hazardous waste. This severely limits the number of recyclers willing to accept solar panels, due to tight regulations and testing requirements.

The state of California two years ago reclassified solar panels as "universal waste," a category that is also home to batteries and lightbulbs. Orben said this opens the door for more waste handlers — already permitted for universal waste — to accept solar panels. They may end up just storing the panels and shipping them to a more qualified recycler, but Orben said it creates more opportunities to divert panels from landfills.

...
The economics of solar recycling or reuse are likely to be an unwelcome surprise for many solar owners, Orben said, because most do not budget for any kind of end-of-life services.

He's confident that recyclers such as his own company could scale up as demand for the services increases, but he's not so sure the public is ready to see the price tag.

"They're in for a rude awakening," Orben said.

Source: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/solar-panels-have-come-long-way-recycling-them-has-not

 

[FatPhil]

anyone citing older sources should be suspect as the industry and governments are working to increase recycling.

a simple google search will bring up plenty of efforts and results that are more recent (and also more interesting).

the common headline buzzword "toxic" is included as clickbait but when you read further in most articles like this they are listing things like silicon, copper and aluminum as toxic too which is very silly since silicon and aluminum are very common elements and copper is also fairly common. yes, sure some forms of these are toxic but to just blatantly call all forms toxic is misleading at best (or incompetent reporting at worst).

People seem to be overlooking the fact that the vast majority of the elements that are most in demand for the manufacture of solar panels are found at a higher density, and with better availability, in old solar panels than they are in mines. Energy was invested in that negative entropy, don't waste it.

 

[Mendel]

they are listing things like silicon, copper and aluminum as toxic too which is very silly

silicon

copper

aluminium

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_toxicity : "Copper is essential to human health as it is a component of many proteins."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_toxicity_in_people_on_dialysis : "About 5–10 mg of aluminium enters human body daily through different sources like water, food, occupational exposure to aluminium in industries, and so on."

 

[TheNZThrower]

Another claim made by solar opponents is that the production of solar panels involves the use of Nitrogen Trifluoride (NF3).

New federal data shows a potent greenhouse gas — that's also a byproduct of solar panel construction — is on the rise.

Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) is a key chemical agent used to manufacture photovoltaic cells for solar panels, suggesting government subsidies and tax credits for solar panels may be a driving factor behind the 1,057 percent in NF3 over the last 25 years. In comparison, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions only rose by about 5 percent during the same time period...

NF3 emissions are 17,200 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas over a 100 year time period...

The 1,057 percent increase in US annual emissions of NF3 from 1990 to 2015 compares to an increase of 5.6 percent in carbon dioxide emissions, according to EPA data in a recently-published draft of a new report.

http://web.archive.org/web/20201205...ns-of-a-gas-17200-times-more-potent-than-co2/

Immediately we see the emphasis on the potency and the percentage increase in NF3, which ignores that a high percentage increase does not mean much if the absolute number is small. A city of 10 million with 1 homicide in 2020 and 10 homicides in 2021 would experience a 1000% increase in murders. Doesn't deny that the murder rates are still low.

Likewise, even if NF3 emissions have increased dramatically as solar panels have proliferated, it does not follow that solar panels contribute more to GHG induced warming than fossil fuels, nor does it follow that they will do so in the near future. In fact, NF3 is much easier to deal with as a GHG, as it is used primarily as a cleaning agent to clear excess silicon during PV production:

NF3 is essentially a cleaning agent that can be broken down into fluorine plasma to clear away excess silicon from production chambers. It is stable and transportable, cleans faster than other available options, and most of it is eliminated during use...

http://web.archive.org/web/20201112...e-solar-panels-is-on-the-rise-2288834288.html

A paper from Environmental Sci. and Tech. has also found that NF3 emissions get paid back within the first 1-4 months of the PV system lifespan:

Amorphous- and nanocrystalline-silicon thin-film photovoltaic modules are made in high-throughput manufacturing lines that necessitate quickly cleaning the reactor. Using NF3, a potent greenhouse gas, as the cleaning agent triggered concerns as recent reports reveal that the atmospheric concentrations of this gas have increased significantly. We quantified the life-cycle emissions of NF3 in photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing, on the basis of actual measurements at the facilities of a major producer of NF3 and of a manufacturer of PV end-use equipment. From these, we defined the best practices and technologies that are the most likely to keep worldwide atmospheric concentrations of NF3 at very low radiative forcing levels. For the average U.S. insolation and electricity-grid conditions, the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from manufacturing and using NF3 in current PV a-Si and tandem a-Si/nc-Si facilities add 2 and 7 g CO2eq/kWh, which can be displaced within the first 1−4 months of the PV system life.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es100401y?cookieSet=1

So while NF3 is much more potent of a GHG, in reality its total contribution to GHG forcing is minuscule due to the small quantities emitted.

 

[TheNZThrower]

Expanding upon my prior point, the EPA paper that is brought up frequently regarding NF3 emissions from solar panel production notes that the 1057% increase in NF3 emissions refers to an increase in the absolute numbers of NF3 by 0.5 Million Metric Tons (MMT) of CO2e. As in the NF3 emitted was equivalent to the emission of 500,000 metric tons of CO2. This means that back in 1990, the NF3 emissions would have been equivalent to 473 tons of CO2.

(The math being 1057% * X = 0.5 mil. Apply algebra and you get 0.5 mil./1057% = 473)

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20201111...es/2017-02/documents/2017_complete_report.pdf

Contrast this with CO2 proper, which would have increased by 288.4 MMT from a 1990 starting point of 5.15 billion metric tons.

(The math being 5.6% * X = 288.4 mil. Apply algebra and you get 288.4 mil./5.6% = 5150 mil. = 5.15 billion)

Even when NF3's effects get combined with other trace GHGs, they still only account for 2.8% of us GHG emissions.

 

[Scaramanga]

No technology is 100% green. For example lithium for all those 'green' car batteries has to be extracted from beautiful places like Salar de Uyuni....which most people are oblivious of due to the 'not in my back yard' syndrome where someone else's back yard can be ruined but theirs must be protected. And so it is with all technology. Look at Cornwall from space in Google Earth and you'll see the largest china clay mine on Earth laying waste to the landscape....at the same time as the government talks about planting more trees. Hypocrisy is the order of the day when it comes to the environment.

So all we can really do is decide which is the 'least bad' future and decide whether that is via nuclear energy, solar panels, windfarms, a mix of them all, and so on. Heck, we still don't really know what the effects are of living surrounded by so much electromagnetic radiation anyway...from computers, wi fi, electric lighting, etc etc.

There's a lot of fallacies in all the 'green' politics....but the biggest fallacy of the lot is there being any truly green option that has no environmental impact.