Solar Panels Produce Toxic Waste

[Hairpin]

I read an article on Forbes that reports how solar panels aren’t so clean after all. A Chinese solar official, along with research scientists with the German Stuttgart Institute for Photovoltaics, discovered the problem of solar panel disposal. They say it, “will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment” because it “is a huge amount of waste and they are not easy to recycle.” And apparently, pollutants such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium can be almost completely washed out of the fragments of solar modules over a period of several months, for example by rainwater.”

How ironic is it that even as we try to create a sustainable environment, our efforts are only making it worse?

Is there really no hope for saving our Earth?


https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if-solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/#7bd97e0b121c

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[NickromeZo]

i cannot believe this *sad*. Feel like we're trying in vain. However, what if we dispose them before their explodinh?

[Heartbreakeren]

It's frustrating how our "efforts" are turning out to be useless. We are doomed.

[First77]

Solar farms are encouraged by the governments.

[BatuNissan]

the earth is not as beautiful as it used to be. the weather is uncertain. a lot of waste causes our earth to become damaged, ugly, and creepy. trees and forests are getting worse.

[Joker121212]

Such information smashes hope for a bright future. At school, students are taught that solar energy is a clean, non-polluting thing. So now, how do I teach them how to do it right?

[brownaxe20]

Maybe we can fine another replacement for it. How about natural sources such as waves of the seas. The sum is not the only source for renewable energies.

[ASNAKU]

I read an article on Forbes that reports how solar panels aren’t so clean after all. A Chinese solar official, along with research scientists with the German Stuttgart Institute for Photovoltaics, discovered the problem of solar panel disposal. They say it, “will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment” because it “is a huge amount of waste and they are not easy to recycle.” And apparently, pollutants such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium can be almost completely washed out of the fragments of solar modules over a period of several months, for example by rainwater.”

How ironic is it that even as we try to create a sustainable environment, our efforts are only making it worse?

Is there really no hope for saving our Earth?


https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/05/23/if-solar-panels-are-so-clean-why-do-they-produce-so-much-toxic-waste/#7bd97e0b121c

There is also truth to what you say, because global warming can also occur because of the reflection of sunlight, and worse now the trees are so little that the balance of geothermal irregular, and even can kill all living things, because the heat of this earth.

[yoseph]

Maybe we can fine another replacement for it. How about natural sources such as waves of the seas. The sum is not the only source for renewable energies.

When you read the article, the waster being talked about is when after the solar panel cannot fully utilize the sun's power and provide free energy anymore what then should be done to panels since the glass which makes most of the panels cannot be recycled and thus it wasteful and also the Cadium in the panels which sometimes causes cancer.

[LtMotioN]

Well there is still wind and hydro power plants. The problem is that all the clean alternatives cannot generate power every hour of every day in the year. 
If you look back 15 years though, technology has come very far. Someone will invent something that actually works to sort this issue out at an affordable price.

I am not too worried, we still have plenty of time left to go over to clean energy since only some cities are badly polluted, most of the planet is still fine for now.