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Recycling Solar Panels | Earth Wise

October 1, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

It is inevitable that the things we make and use eventually outlive their useful lives and become waste that we have to deal with. Solar panels, despite their impressively long lifetime, can’t escape this general principle. As pioneering solar panels near the end of their 30-year electronic lives, they could well become the world’s next big wave of e-waste.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, nearly 90 million tons of solar panels will have reached their end of life by the year 2050, resulting in about 7 million tons of new solar e-waste per year.

Solar photovoltaic deployment has grown at unprecedented rates in recent years. The total global installed capacity is about 600 GW today; projections are that there will be 1,600 GW by 2030 and 4,500 GW by 2050.

Solar panels contain valuable materials, including silver and high-purity silicon. But current recycling procedures are not cost-effective. Only about 10% of panels are currently recycled in the U.S. The rest go to landfills or are shipped overseas to become another country’s problem.

Before solar waste becomes a major problem, the industry needs to better address the issue. Strategies include improving the design of panels to align with recycling capabilities as well as developing new recycling methods that can more efficiently extract and purify the valuable materials in the panels. Industry researchers are also looking into ways to repair and resell panels that are still in good condition and to repurpose old panels for less demanding functions like e-bike charging stations and housing complexes.

Like most things, solar panels do fail over time and with a rapidly growing number of them in the world, we need to figure out how to avoid them adding to the world’s problems.

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Solar Panels Are Starting to Die. Will We be Able to Recycle the E-Waste?

Photo, posted January 6, 2006, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The New York Climate Plan

July 24, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

New York lawmakers have passed a sweeping climate plan that requires the state to eliminate almost all of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The plan calls for the phase-out of gasoline cars and oil- and gas-burning furnaces and requires all of the state’s electricity to come from carbon-free sources.

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act requires the state to slash its carbon emissions to 85% below 1990 levels by 2050 and to offset the remaining 15% by other means such as removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The bill requires New York to get 70% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

The challenges of reaching the program’s goals are daunting. New York has so far only reduced its emissions by 8% since 1990. The state currently does get 60% of its electricity from carbon-free sources – mostly hydroelectric dams and nuclear power plants – but it will require offshore windfarms, ramped-up solar installations, and battery storage systems to push the numbers dramatically higher.

Transportation, which is responsible for a third of New York’s emissions, will be particularly tough to tackle. The Trump administration is rolling back federal vehicle efficiency rules and is trying to prevent states from setting stricter standards. Currently, electric car ownership is primarily attractive for single-family homeowners who can plug in their cars at home. Far more pervasive charging stations – for example, all over the streets of New York City – would be needed to make electric cars practical for everyone.

The plan aims for industries to bear most of the financial burden, but supporters say that the costs of not acting on climate will be vastly greater for businesses. The plan’s deadlines for major emissions reductions are a decade away but there will be much to do quite soon.

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