The decline in solar cost blows all of this away. If a person upgrades their solar because it has so improved in cost and quality, this article pretends people don't know how to add to their system, or sell their used panels to someone else. Solar panels in the US are currently lasting 33 years on average and have had an 85% cost decreas…
The decline in solar cost blows all of this away. If a person upgrades their solar because it has so improved in cost and quality, this article pretends people don't know how to add to their system, or sell their used panels to someone else. Solar panels in the US are currently lasting 33 years on average and have had an 85% cost decrease in a decade. Now a new US program intends to cut the cost in half in the next decade and increase that life expectancy to 50 years.
The great wave of retirements will be in the coming decades, recycling resources are, and will be, coming along to deal with this as volume goes up. I'll give five examples from around the world.
-
USA
1) Game-changing solar company recycles old panels into new ones
The first wave of solar panels is reaching the end of their useful lives. Now they can become new solar panels instead of trash.
"...At a recycling plant in Ohio, next to the company’s manufacturing facility, First Solar uses custom technology to disassemble and recycle old panels, recovering 90% of the materials inside. It runs similar recycling systems in Germany and Malaysia.
"...The E.U. requires solar producers to recycle products, and similar laws are in the works in some other parts of the world, including Japan and India.
"...By recycling materials, the total environmental impact of each panel drops. The original solar panel, ...might last 30 or even 40 years. If 95% of the semiconductor material can be recovered and put back in a new panel, and the cycle continues to repeat, the original material could stay in use as long as 1,200 years.”
2) First Solar began investing in recycling and established the first voluntary global panel recycling program in 2005. They now have recycling facilities in the US, Malaysia and Germany and offer customers a service to recover and process panels globally. Their technology involves a continuous flow process and claims to result in the recovery and recycling of over 90% of the semiconductor material and approximately 90% of the glass used in its panels. This material is then re-used in new First Solar modules and for new glass or rubber products8.”
4) Italy: Mechanical technique for PV module recycling
“An Italian consortium has developed a panel recycling process that can recover up to 99% of raw materials. The developers claim their technique takes only 40 seconds to fully recycle a standard panel, depending on size and recycling site conditions.”
5) Australia: One of Australia’s first solar PV recycling facilities is up and running in Melbourne’s north, The plant will recycle 100% of end-of-life solar PV modules and all associated materials recovered – inverters, cables, optimisers, mounting structures – using no chemicals.
The final components are:
- High grade aluminium
- High grade silica dust
- The silica cells which will be reused by some manufacturers.
- Copper
- PVC
- Silver
100% of the materials separated from this process will be reused and given a second life. All inverters, rail components, cable can be processed in this facility.”
IF GERMany=433 g is doing so good with RE and Recycling why 10X the EMISSIONS= CO2/KWHR of Nuclear FRANCE=38 g ??? After conducting an investigation and then the ensuing debate among member nations, the European Commission has decided on an 18-month extension to antidumping (AD) and anti-subsidy duties applied to Chinese solar exports to the EU. Hard to compete against CHINA#1 SLAVE LABOR? https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/FR
France is coasting on some old nuke. It's not 1980 anymore so we can't build anymore of that. Germany is coming along fine.
Germany sees largest emissions drop since 2009 recession
“Germany’s… track record on cutting climate-damaging greenhouse gas emissions is mixed. One major reason is continued coal-fired power production. But the country is now eyeing a coal phase-out by 2038 at the very latest, and gross renewable electricity generation almost caught up with combined lignite (soft or brown coal) and hard coal power production last year.”
Lower emissions in Germany help CO2 reduction across EU
“CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion decreased by 2.5% in the EU in 2018 compared to 2017, partly driven by a decrease of 5.4% in Germany, the EU's biggest emitter.”
GERMan Political Thought, Destroying the 21st century as in the 20th! GERMan Emissions are ~ 8X greater compared to France NUCLEAR==1/2 the ERATE$$$ https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/FR
France built that nuke decades ago and I'm glad they did. Times have changed since 1980, with the cost of wind and solar dropping by a factor of as much as 100-200x. Here's how France's latest attempt is going.
-
France's Revolutionary Nuclear Reactor Is a Leaky, Expensive Mess
With a bloated budget, endless delays, and shoddy construction, EPR looks like a big mistake.
A revolutionary French reactor design is 10 years overdue and nearly four times over budget.
The latest extension takes the project timeline from 13 years to 17 at least.
“It’s three times over cost and three times over time where it’s been built in Finland and France,” says Paul Dorfman, from the UCL Energy Institute. “This is a failed and failing reactor.”
The decline in solar cost blows all of this away. If a person upgrades their solar because it has so improved in cost and quality, this article pretends people don't know how to add to their system, or sell their used panels to someone else. Solar panels in the US are currently lasting 33 years on average and have had an 85% cost decrease in a decade. Now a new US program intends to cut the cost in half in the next decade and increase that life expectancy to 50 years.
The great wave of retirements will be in the coming decades, recycling resources are, and will be, coming along to deal with this as volume goes up. I'll give five examples from around the world.
-
USA
1) Game-changing solar company recycles old panels into new ones
The first wave of solar panels is reaching the end of their useful lives. Now they can become new solar panels instead of trash.
"...At a recycling plant in Ohio, next to the company’s manufacturing facility, First Solar uses custom technology to disassemble and recycle old panels, recovering 90% of the materials inside. It runs similar recycling systems in Germany and Malaysia.
"...The E.U. requires solar producers to recycle products, and similar laws are in the works in some other parts of the world, including Japan and India.
"...By recycling materials, the total environmental impact of each panel drops. The original solar panel, ...might last 30 or even 40 years. If 95% of the semiconductor material can be recovered and put back in a new panel, and the cycle continues to repeat, the original material could stay in use as long as 1,200 years.”
https://www.fastcompany.com/90562056/this-game-changing-solar-company-recycles-old-panels-into-new-ones?
2) First Solar began investing in recycling and established the first voluntary global panel recycling program in 2005. They now have recycling facilities in the US, Malaysia and Germany and offer customers a service to recover and process panels globally. Their technology involves a continuous flow process and claims to result in the recovery and recycling of over 90% of the semiconductor material and approximately 90% of the glass used in its panels. This material is then re-used in new First Solar modules and for new glass or rubber products8.”
https://www.newenergysolar.com.au/renewable-insights/renewable-energy/solar-panel-recycling?
3) Canada: Solar X revolutionizes the solar industry in Canada with the launch of its new solar panel reuse + recycle program
https://pvbuzz.com/solar-x-launch-solar-panel-reuse-recycle-program/?
4) Italy: Mechanical technique for PV module recycling
“An Italian consortium has developed a panel recycling process that can recover up to 99% of raw materials. The developers claim their technique takes only 40 seconds to fully recycle a standard panel, depending on size and recycling site conditions.”
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/04/01/a-mechanical-technique-for-pv-module-recycling/
5) Australia: One of Australia’s first solar PV recycling facilities is up and running in Melbourne’s north, The plant will recycle 100% of end-of-life solar PV modules and all associated materials recovered – inverters, cables, optimisers, mounting structures – using no chemicals.
The final components are:
- High grade aluminium
- High grade silica dust
- The silica cells which will be reused by some manufacturers.
- Copper
- PVC
- Silver
100% of the materials separated from this process will be reused and given a second life. All inverters, rail components, cable can be processed in this facility.”
https://reneweconomy.com.au/australias-first-solar-panel-recycling-plant-swings-into-action/
Etc.
IF GERMany=433 g is doing so good with RE and Recycling why 10X the EMISSIONS= CO2/KWHR of Nuclear FRANCE=38 g ??? After conducting an investigation and then the ensuing debate among member nations, the European Commission has decided on an 18-month extension to antidumping (AD) and anti-subsidy duties applied to Chinese solar exports to the EU. Hard to compete against CHINA#1 SLAVE LABOR? https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/FR
France is coasting on some old nuke. It's not 1980 anymore so we can't build anymore of that. Germany is coming along fine.
Germany sees largest emissions drop since 2009 recession
“Germany’s… track record on cutting climate-damaging greenhouse gas emissions is mixed. One major reason is continued coal-fired power production. But the country is now eyeing a coal phase-out by 2038 at the very latest, and gross renewable electricity generation almost caught up with combined lignite (soft or brown coal) and hard coal power production last year.”
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germany-sees-largest-emissions-drop-2009-recession-govt-agency
Lower emissions in Germany help CO2 reduction across EU
“CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion decreased by 2.5% in the EU in 2018 compared to 2017, partly driven by a decrease of 5.4% in Germany, the EU's biggest emitter.”
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/lower-emissions-germany-contribute-co2-reduction-across-eu-2018
Germany's reduced coal generating capacity.... from 50 GW in 2010 to 43 in 2020.
https://www.energy-charts.de/power_inst.htm?
GERMan Political Thought, Destroying the 21st century as in the 20th! GERMan Emissions are ~ 8X greater compared to France NUCLEAR==1/2 the ERATE$$$ https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/FR
France built that nuke decades ago and I'm glad they did. Times have changed since 1980, with the cost of wind and solar dropping by a factor of as much as 100-200x. Here's how France's latest attempt is going.
-
France's Revolutionary Nuclear Reactor Is a Leaky, Expensive Mess
With a bloated budget, endless delays, and shoddy construction, EPR looks like a big mistake.
A revolutionary French reactor design is 10 years overdue and nearly four times over budget.
The latest extension takes the project timeline from 13 years to 17 at least.
“It’s three times over cost and three times over time where it’s been built in Finland and France,” says Paul Dorfman, from the UCL Energy Institute. “This is a failed and failing reactor.”
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a33499619/france-nuclear-reactor-epr-expensive-mess/?
3.3GW for $14 billion. 17 years. It was supposed to be running in 2012, for about $4 billion.