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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The Afterlife of Solar Panels -Mahashri Ranjith Kumar

The Afterlife of Solar Panels -Mahashri Ranjith Kumar

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published Published on May 23, 2022   modified Modified on May 23, 2022

-The Wire Science

* Solar energy is a rapidly expanding marketplace that should benefit the environment. Solar panels can last for decades if they are properly cleaned and maintained.

* But there is a catch. What happens to these panels after they are decommissioned? They go straight to the landfill, where they have significant consequences.

* Heavy metals in solar panels such as lead and cadmium have been known to seep out of the cells, enter groundwater and harm plants, alter soil fertility, and affect our livelihoods.

* Most solar recycling facilities simply extract the valuable silver and copper from the cells before burning the contaminated glass and plastic casings in cement furnaces.

Solar power. Who doesn’t like it? It’s a clean, green, beautiful, renewable energy source that can be found almost everywhere the Sun shines. Solar energy plays an important role in the global effort to reduce our reliance on non-renewable energy sources such as fossil fuels, with the primary goal of preserving our home planet.

Solar energy appears to be more promising than ever on paper. It has grown to become the world’s cheapest form of electricity for companies to build, according to the International Energy Agency, and the fastest growing source of electricity in recent years. Solar installations have increased by more than 30% annually on average over the last decade, leading to cost reductions of more than 90%.

Even better, there is some progress being made for solar panels to be more effective in the darker winter months; a hybrid structure combining existing solar panels with this new kind of “night solar panel” might be built (a.k.a. “anti-solar panels”).

Isn’t this it? This is all we need, right?

Wrong.

Solar power isn’t completely apples and sunflowers – there is a dark side that is seldom talked about. There are numerous questions that arise when we talk about the shadow of solar panels – is solar power efficient enough? Would the panels function even if the weather is cloudy or rainy? Isn’t it expensive? All these myths and misconceptions have been busted. And yet, the ultimate question remains: what happens to all these solar panels after they die?

Please click here to read more. 


The Wire Science, 23 May, 2022, https://science.thewire.in/environment/solar-panels-waste-management/


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