Well these are projects that should be headed by states to begin with instead of waiting on and relying on the ever so “reliable” fed
Solar Panel Waste? I thought this whole time it was clean engergy, renewable, no waste.
So there is a hidden penalty to renewables that nobody talks about.
Trump doing everything he can to stall renewables.
Unfortunately for him it’s not going to be enough.
Recycling solar panels is in its infancy. Reclaiming the materials and extracting them is a very specialized process, not impossible, but also not at high volume, or industrial scale yet. It might not yet be needed for some time and such an industry might always remain small. I’m thinking public-Private initiatives should be invested in to reclaiming all recyclable materials nation wide. Aluminum, used in PV panels frames, is easily reclaimed. The glass layer can also be reclaimed separate from the electricity making materials. These things take time.
It doesn’t help that panels are made of slightly different mixtures of ingredients done using different processes. When the variability of composition issues, possibly small, I don’t know, are mitigated then PV Panels will be recycled. Maybe, it takes some fees to help it for the recycling, there are many possibilities going forward.
This confuses me no end. Panels are made up of glass, aluminum and the cells on the thin carrier. Once the aluminum and glass are recycled (to the extent that glass is recycled at all–don’t get me started), What is left? A typical home with 30 panels the cells are probably less than a cubic yard. A cubic yard of landfill waste? After 20 years, 1 cubic yard is less than the weekly household waste of the home it came off of. Somehow this is a crisis that should slow down adoption?
Am I missing something?
Just stack them until the recycling industry catches up.
It’s not really waste. It’s a commodity that is very low cost. Someone will figure out how profit from it.
6 comments
Well these are projects that should be headed by states to begin with instead of waiting on and relying on the ever so “reliable” fed
Solar Panel Waste? I thought this whole time it was clean engergy, renewable, no waste.
So there is a hidden penalty to renewables that nobody talks about.
Trump doing everything he can to stall renewables.
Unfortunately for him it’s not going to be enough.
Recycling solar panels is in its infancy. Reclaiming the materials and extracting them is a very specialized process, not impossible, but also not at high volume, or industrial scale yet. It might not yet be needed for some time and such an industry might always remain small. I’m thinking public-Private initiatives should be invested in to reclaiming all recyclable materials nation wide. Aluminum, used in PV panels frames, is easily reclaimed. The glass layer can also be reclaimed separate from the electricity making materials. These things take time.
It doesn’t help that panels are made of slightly different mixtures of ingredients done using different processes. When the variability of composition issues, possibly small, I don’t know, are mitigated then PV Panels will be recycled. Maybe, it takes some fees to help it for the recycling, there are many possibilities going forward.
This confuses me no end. Panels are made up of glass, aluminum and the cells on the thin carrier. Once the aluminum and glass are recycled (to the extent that glass is recycled at all–don’t get me started), What is left? A typical home with 30 panels the cells are probably less than a cubic yard. A cubic yard of landfill waste? After 20 years, 1 cubic yard is less than the weekly household waste of the home it came off of. Somehow this is a crisis that should slow down adoption?
Am I missing something?
Just stack them until the recycling industry catches up.
It’s not really waste. It’s a commodity that is very low cost. Someone will figure out how profit from it.
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