The toxic problem of not-so-clean energy
Digital Editor Jack Houghton 12/02/2020
As the world shuns energy sources of old in pursuit of clean alternatives a very toxic problem has been slowly building in the background.
During the construction of solar panels the soft, silver, and highly ductile metal cadmium is compressed between sheets of glass – a vital part of how sunlight is converted into electricity so that environmental leaders like Zali Steggall can charge their hypothetical electric cars.
It is a process that many – who view technology through a tribal lens – consider to be worthy of replacing coal.
The only issue is cadmium is carcinogenic and considered roughly ten times more hazardous than the lead which sits next to it in a typical photovoltaic panel.
Panels which are shattered in storms break into tiny fragments and after several months of rainfall the silver metal which once created energy is transformed into a dangerous health hazard.
Just like the 16,000 wiped out by hurricane Irma in the Virgin Islands in 2017.
The wreckage is pictured above.
If not destroyed by wild weather these panels last about two decades.
After that point much of their construct becomes useless hunks of toxic waste which will collectively weigh 1500 kilotonnes by 2050 in Australia alone.
That figure is roughly 300 times what a nuclear power plant would have created to produce the same energy.
But surely those seeking to radically reform Australia’s energy grid through a Green New Deal must have considered this looming ecological crisis?
Well, no, according to authors of a study released last year titled “Drivers, barriers and enablers to end-of-life management of solar photovoltaic and battery energy storage systems: A systematic literature review”.
As the title suggests the study provided a meta-analysis of 191 research papers into solar panel waste management.
Its findings were damning to say the least.
“Little attention has been paid to the potential environmental and human health related impacts associated with PV systems, if not managed properly at the end-of-life,” the authors wrote.
“PV panel and BESS contain hazardous materials such as lead, lithium, tin and cadmium which can harm the environment and human health if they are not properly managed at the end of life-cycle.
“Exposure of heavy metals embedded in both of these technologies will cause various negative health effects.
“For example, cadmium is associated with its impact on lung, kidney and bone damages once absorbed into the body whilst exposure to lead will cause damages to nervous system.”
The authors even went as far to suggest that the technology should not really be classified as renewable because the issues with waste and the fact many rare minerals cannot be salvaged.
They must be mined again and again.
“The current linear take-make-consume-dispose economic system practised within PV systems will inevitably undermine renewable status of this technology without an effective end of life strategy,” they said.
Questions were also raised about the true CO2 impact of solar panels considering the role mining plays in their formation.
These issues don’t mean solar won’t form a crucial part of Australia’s energy grid.
What they do mean – however – is we must be far more reasoned and cautious before rapidly seeking to switch 81 per cent of our energy grid from fossil fuel sources to emerging technologies.
What is dramatically unhelpful is failed politicians such as Malcolm Turnbull using the tragedy of bushfires to attempt to speed up this process before adequate solutions are found.
“Have we now reached the point where at last our response to global warming will be driven by engineering and economics rather than ideology and idiocy,” he wrote in the Guardian last week.
“Our priority this decade should be our own green new deal in which we generate, as soon as possible, all of our electricity from zero emission sources.
“If we do, Australia will become a leader in the fight against global warming. And we can do it.”
This process should not be rushed and leaders in the Coalition must resist calls to do so – especially by those who wish to re-write history as environmental saviours.
There are quite incredible solutions to climate change being discussed in academic circles and according to all the science this writer has read – the climate catastrophe is still a long way away.
And there are far bigger fish to fry over in China before we should be despairing about our tiny geo-centric emissions tally.
Let’s pause and reflect before we poison the next generation with the very technology we hope will save it.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/5e43 ... 001c5a1032