While green advocates often use renewable, sustainable and net zero words to describe their efforts, the dirty little secret is that most of the waste from solar panels and wind turbines is emerging in landfills. [emphasis, links added]
Current fiberglass, resins, aluminum and other chemicals (not to mention propeller blades from giant wind turbines) currently pose no threat to local town dumps, but this largely overlooked issue will become even more challenging in the coming years, as we now operate and replace in our operations in our operations in the 73,000 solar panels and 73,000 wind turbines in the United States.
The Greens insist that a reduction in carbon emissions will compensate for the potentially toxic levels. Others are concerned that renewable energy advocates are not straightforward about their lack of environmental programs and technology to deal with waste.
“No one plans to get rid of them, no one plans to close, no one plans to get rid of them, no one plans to close,” Dwight Clark said. “No one thinks of that.”
Discussions on how to deal with worn-out solar and wind equipment are often another topic, often radiating in a net-zero blueprint, which often focuses on the benefits of projects required in projects that are discounted or ignored costs.
As previously reported on the lack of plans to acquire solar and wind farm land needed to achieve net zero, mathematics can become blurred, with the most commonly cited figures being the most rosy renewable energy source.
“They either remain silent or are incoherent, or Mark Mills, executive director of the National Center for Energy Analysis, said. To make solar and wind look as cheap as possible, they did not include the expense of addressing the final disposal cost, which could leave taxpayers holding the bag.
Some renewable proponents acknowledge Mills’s point. The Affordable Energy Alliance supports government-funded research on recycling panels and turbines, which he said is not yet realized.
“With the existing energy infrastructure, many end-of-life problems have never been solved.” Logan Burke, the league's executive director, told RCI.
“Maybe these costs have to be embedded in the front end, but we need to make market announcements somehow. How do we find the market in that market where the purpose is terminated?”
It is not clear how many panels the United States will dispose of or retire each year.
Meng Tao, an energy engineering professor at Arizona State University, said there was no clearinghouse to track national figures and no closures.
The estimate may be very large. Solar panels usually have a life expectancy of 25 years, but factors such as damage and system upgrades make it impossible to determine the number of boards in circulation each year.
In 2021, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory did not respond to a request for comment, and estimated that it would retire between 3,000 and 6,000 panels per year.
Critics say even the high-end of these numbers seems suspicious because of the hundreds of millions of panels used now and tens of millions of panels in the future.
This problem will not only be limited to the distance zero roads in several European countries in the United States, but the EU estimates that it will accumulate 60,000-13 and 210,000-350,000 tons in total [solar] By 2040 and 2050, waste. ”
The waste from wind turbines will be greater. The EU said that sounds promising records that recycling renewable energy will become even more prominent.
“Both PV [photovoltaic] “Wind infrastructure waste requires special treatment and recycling methods that are not extensive in Europe today,” the EU wrote.
According to several experts, the U.S. accounts for about 10% of waste, and it is estimated that by 2043, the U.S. will produce about 2 million tons of solar waste annually, but other studies have higher figures.
A 2019 renewable energy study predicts approximately 10 million tons of solar waste between 2030 and 2060.
“Solar waste will grow exponentially over the next 20 years,” Tao said. “Global, we have produced 200,000-250,000 tons of solar panels in 2023. They will be offline in about 20 years. There are 200,000-250,000 tons of solar waste each year in 2045.”
The International Renewable Energy Agency will raise potential peaks, pointing to a study of 78 million tons in 2050.
Currently, 90% of this debris is used in landfills. Furthermore, panel fields and towering turbines must be removed, usually by diesel-powered vehicles, and then sent to landfills or ports, where they are transported to poor developing countries.
Fossil fuels may dirty the air, but renewable energy may pollute the ground.
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