Solar panels are starting to die. What will we do with the megatons of toxic trash?

[pipedreams]

Much like the wind turbine blades how do we deal with them?  While green energy may be great how do we deal with them when worn out?

"Most solar manufacturers claim their panels will last for about 25 years, and the world didn’t start deploying solar widely until the early 2000s. As a result, a fairly small number of panels are being decommissioned today.  When solar panels reach their end of their life today, they face a few possible fates. Under EU law, producers are required to ensure their solar panels are recycled properly. In Japan, India, and Australia, recycling requirements are in the works. In the United States, it’s the Wild West.

“We need to face the fact that solar panels do fail over time, and there’s a lot of them out there,” he said. “And what do we do when they start to fail? It’s not right throwing that responsibility on the consumer, and that’s where we’re at right now.”"

https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-leaving-behind-toxic-trash/

https://grist.org/energy/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-what-will-we-do-with-the-megatons-of-toxic-trash/

 

[MO Fugga]

Did they even pay for themselves, installation, and maintenance over it's lifespan?

[Rellik]

8 minutes ago, MO Fugga said:

Did they even pay for themselves, installation, and maintenance over it's lifespan?

Prager U on YouTube has been asking these questions for some time now.  

[pipedreams]

47 minutes ago, MO Fugga said:

Did they even pay for themselves, installation, and maintenance over it's lifespan?

Many of the earlier panels never worked right or were inefficient and replaced within a year or so of installation. 

[gwalchmai]

1 hour ago, MO Fugga said:

Did they even pay for themselves, installation, and maintenance over it's lifespan?

Depends on whose math you use. Hell, with the math they teach nowdays you can justify anything... 

[gwalchmai]

1 hour ago, Rellik said:

Prager U on YouTube has been asking these questions for some time now.  

Probably the best thing I've taken away from Dennis is his insistence that "the perfect is the enemy of the good". Alternative energy is a great illustration of this concept. The left promised great things from ALTENG, but they also demand ZERO impact on Gaea. This perfection is simply not possible, which is why we used to accept tradeoffs between energy and impact, and using costs to manage those tradeoffs. Now we have an electorate which believes the politicians' promise of infinite energy at very low costs with zero environmental impact, which gives us results like $4 2x4s. 

[crockett]

In the US it takes currently 8 years to break even on your solar investment for home installations. Most offer and guarantee a 80% efficiency after 20 years. So yes, they will save you money in the long run.

[Batesmotel]

Use them to build the wall. 

[pipedreams]

2 hours ago, crockett said:

In the US it takes currently 8 years to break even on your solar investment for home installations. Most offer and guarantee a 80% efficiency after 20 years. So yes, they will save you money in the long run.

Is that including a gov. rebate in the calculation? 

[Cougar_ml]

3 hours ago, crockett said:

In the US it takes currently 8 years to break even on your solar investment for home installations. Most offer and guarantee a 80% efficiency after 20 years. So yes, they will save you money in the long run.

part of that also depends on where you live.

Less than a decade ago I was taking a power plant operations course in college, and one of the assignments involved writing a paper where you are trying to convince someone to loan you money for a solar array.

Using all the available local weather data, where I live just has too many overcast days for it to be economically feasible without major incentives, and my paper ended up being about why I couldn't justify it.  Still got an A on that paper.

 

I do know of people in this area with solar arrays, but it's almost exclusively due to being too far from utilities, one told me it would cost over $70k just to run the cable, not counting permits and other stuff.  

[LostinTexas]

4 hours ago, crockett said:

In the US it takes currently 8 years to break even on your solar investment for home installations. Most offer and guarantee a 80% efficiency after 20 years. So yes, they will save you money in the long run.

The articles are implying this may not be the case. A guarantee is nice, as long as it is honored and the company is still in business.

Still during the life expectancy, it is possible for it to be frugal.

Edited April 14, 2021 by LostinTexas

[gwalchmai]

Before I retired my company had a solar plant installed on our roof with an estimate of five years for it to pay out. All the power was sold back to our utility, which is obligated by the state to buy it. We used it to learn the technology and added solar consulting as a line of business.

[janice6]

7 hours ago, pipedreams said:

Much like the wind turbine blades how do we deal with them?  While green energy may be great how do we deal with them when worn out?

"Most solar manufacturers claim their panels will last for about 25 years, and the world didn’t start deploying solar widely until the early 2000s. As a result, a fairly small number of panels are being decommissioned today.  When solar panels reach their end of their life today, they face a few possible fates. Under EU law, producers are required to ensure their solar panels are recycled properly. In Japan, India, and Australia, recycling requirements are in the works. In the United States, it’s the Wild West.

“We need to face the fact that solar panels do fail over time, and there’s a lot of them out there,” he said. “And what do we do when they start to fail? It’s not right throwing that responsibility on the consumer, and that’s where we’re at right now.”"

https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-leaving-behind-toxic-trash/

https://grist.org/energy/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-what-will-we-do-with-the-megatons-of-toxic-trash/

 

I would guess we could feed them to Wind Generators.

[crockett]

My parents installed a large array on the roof of their house in 1996. It’s running to this day and feeds any unused energy into the grid. Granted, that’s in Germany, they are well ahead. Efficiency is still over 50% last time this topic came up.

Reality is, at some point we will run out of fossil fuels.

[pipedreams]

51 minutes ago, crockett said:

My parents installed a large array on the roof of their house in 1996. It’s running to this day and feeds any unused energy into the grid. Granted, that’s in Germany, they are well ahead. Efficiency is still over 50% last time this topic came up.

Reality is, at some point we will run out of fossil fuels.

True, True, and we need to look for alternatives.  The OP was actually about what or how are we going to deal with recycling those that no longer function.

[Cougar_ml]

I did a little reading.

The vast majority of the panel is easily recyclable.  Aluminum, glass, and copper.

The cells themselves do include some heavy metals, but I believe most of that portion is also recyclable.

It won't be like wind turbine blades needing to be buried out in the middle of nowhere.

[gwalchmai]

21 minutes ago, Cougar_ml said:

It won't be like wind turbine blades needing to be buried out in the middle of nowhere.

Fortunately we still have Minnesota, and they love ALTENG.

[pipedreams]

22 minutes ago, Cougar_ml said:

I did a little reading.

The vast majority of the panel is easily recyclable.  Aluminum, glass, and copper.

The cells themselves do include some heavy metals, but I believe most of that portion is also recyclable.

It won't be like wind turbine blades needing to be buried out in the middle of nowhere.

The biggest problem for recycling in the US is when the cost far exceeds the revenue.

[pipedreams]

Couldn't resist putting this in here.

[Cougar_ml]

32 minutes ago, pipedreams said:

The biggest problem for recycling in the US is when the cost far exceeds the revenue.

hopefully they go the route of lead acid batteries as far as that goes.  The whole "recycled everywhere" portion of it as opposed to the "dead cores shipped overseas, broken apart on the docks and everything that isn't the primary material dumped over the side into the ocean" part of it.

[minervadoe]

5 hours ago, Cougar_ml said:

my paper ended up being about why I couldn't justify it.  Still got an A on that paper.

I'd bet that was the only way to get an A on that particular topic.

[Cougar_ml]

9 minutes ago, minervadoe said:

I'd bet that was the only way to get an A on that particular topic.

It was actually a remote learning class.  I'd go to the classroom at my college, and the teacher taught it 100 miles away at his college.

There is a lot of variation in weather in areas with lots of mountains, especially along the coast.  

[MO Fugga]

8 hours ago, Batesmotel said:

Use them to build the wall. 

The worst kind of broken glass! Dilly Dilly!

[crockett]

Watch this...

 

 

 

[Fog]

When you put up solar panels you are simply buying cheap coal power from china for your home. The fact is that right now solar electric is a way to transport power, but not to generate it. Despite all the marketing to the contrary solar panels barely produce more power than it took to make them, and that is giving every benefit possible in the equation to solar.

Tesla's largest installations are not approaching 1/10% of 1% of energy usage per 24hr of the local grid they are connected to. They are being used to buffer, absorb spikes, fill the potholes, keep the lights on during switching, and startup time while peaking plants come online.