Next, the panels are ground, shredded, and subjected to a patented process that extracts the valuable materials — mostly silver, copper, and crystalline silicon. Those components will be sold, as will the lower-value aluminum and glass, which may even end up in the next generation of solar panels.
This process offers a glimpse of what could happen to an expected surge of retired solar panels that will stream from an industry that represents the fastest-growing source of energy in the U.S. Today, roughly 90 percent of panels in the U.S. that have lost their efficiency due to age, or that are defective, end up in landfills because that option costs a fraction of recycling them.
So, don’t recycle the shit then. If it costs more then it’s using more resources. Obviously. So, why would we want to use more resources to, umm, save resources?
At least solar panels can be easily removed and (inefficiently) recycled at the end of their short useful lives.
On and offshore wind turbines not so much. Incidentally their anticipated working lives can be similarly short as confirmed by the reply to my consultation question regarding the proposed Rampion 2 development off the Sussex coast.
Dump it in the sea.
Hur hur, let’s see what Greenpeace make of that !
I understand the Frogs have a similar situation when they recycle the plutonium from their spent fuel to let them burn a little depleted uranium.
But it’s still cheaper to store the short half-life isotopes for 300 years or whatever than store all the junk for thousands.
Yes. The French are a fickle bunch, but you’ve got to give them some credit for good food, good wine, not allowing themselves to be walked all over by their politicians and their nuclear power policy.
Lawd, that hurt to say out loud.
Lawd, that hurt to say out loud.
If somebody was obliging enough to nuke Paris, France would be a pleasant country. It’s a surprise the French haven’t.
If somebody was obliging enough to nuke Paris, France would be a pleasant country. It’s a surprise the French haven’t.
They keep having a jolly good try. Bu then, you could say the much same about London, these days.
We have friends in Paris. They leave for their farm in the countryside every weekend as they hate Parisians so much.
Solar panels are an eyesore at anything larger than the ones charging pocket calculators.
You wouldn’t buy a car that only worked on sunny days and lasted for less than ten years before you’d have to pay to scrap it.
You wouldn’t buy a car that only worked on sunny days and lasted for less than ten years before you’d have to pay to scrap it.
That’s all there will be to buy once the government mandated milk-floats only policy come into effect…
Might not just work on sunny days, but you’ll only be able to charge it at certain times to make sure the grid doesn’t fall over
It’s the line “Recyclers look to cash I ” that says it all for me. Why is so much entrepreneurial activity these days nothing more than accessing a subsidy, a crony capitalism shakedown?