<
https://medium.com/the-environment/how-solar-panel-waste-is-paving-the-way-to-a-more-sustainable-future-3d4e521c791d>
"With the increasing importance of renewable energy to mitigate the climate
crisis, solar energy captured by solar panels becomes an increasingly powerful
role. This is because solar power has several advantages, including being safe
to use, being reliable, having a minimal environmental impact, and allowing
efficient conversion to electricity. Especially newer generations of solar
panels are efficient (further reading:
How Solar Energy Technology Is Becoming
More Efficient). That is why more and more individuals and businesses install
solar panels, for example on roofs.
But with the increasing number of solar panels being installed, also a larger
number of solar panels will reach their end-of-life in the near future. This is
because solar panels have a long life cycle of 30 years but some panels are
already replaced after twelve to fifteen years due to government incentives for
upgrades and replacements. Also, many solar panels reach their end-of-life
early because of poor handling during transportation, installation, and
operation. As materials used for solar panels are hazardous, without a plan for
how to deal with this upcoming waste, end-of-life solar panels can turn into a
worldwide problem soon.
The optimal solution for this luring problem would be to recycle panels
completely by recovering materials. These materials can then be used to create
new solar panels and reduce their cost. But currently, only a small portion of
solar panels is recycled so many of them end up in landfills. This is very
unfortunate as solar panels consist of many different materials that can be
extracted."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
