Is Solar Toxic? Part One - The Use of Cadmium Telluride

[Nathanael]

An interesting look at Cadmium Telluride, a toxic substance used in some solar panels that has people worried.


Advancements in solar technology and the rapidly-expanding landscape of photovoltaic arrays is raising concerns about environmental toxicity -- namely the use of Cadmium telluride (CdTe) in most photovoltaic (PV) solar cells.

The question of what happens when indictments of current energy sources are also levied towards alternative sources is an important one.

Does renewable energy pass the same scrutiny?

In the case of solar, the use of CdTe -- a considered toxic substance -- in most solar panels is raising concerns about land pollution.

Are these concerns legit? To answer, we need a cursory understanding of CdTe's function.


Link: http://www.energyboom.com/solar/solar-toxic-part-one-use-cadmium-telluride

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. No part 2?

[Nathanael]

2. It's On the Way

It hasn't been published yet.

[MineralMan]

3. Yah, there are toxic substances in use in energy systems.

From the CdTe compounds in solar panels to small amounts of mercury in CFLs, there's a price to pay for cutting our use of petroleum. In the CdTe issue, the danger of pollution will be small, since the panels themselves are large and bulky. There will need to be disposal guidelines for the time when such panels reach the end of their useful life. There are such guidelines for CFLs. Eventually LEDs will probably replace their use, but you can be sure that the chemistry used to create white LEDs is also potentially hazardous.

Recognizing the risks is the first step in controlling the hazards. There will be no riskless technologies in our quest to rid ourselves of our reliance on petroleum. No free lunch, I'm afraid.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. I think that's the truth. Even if we went back to living in caves we would still be

causing harm to the environment just by our existence, assuming we cultivated food and burned wood.

So it's just as you said; it is incumbent upon us to constantly strive for improvement in safety and eco-friendliness in everything we do and use.

[MineralMan]

7. Yes. The reality is that the CdTe would probably be recovered

from damaged or broken panels and reused. Recycling.

We do create things that damage the environment. Merely breathing adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. We need to be aware of what we're doing and minimize the risks. That's all we can do. We can never go back in time to another manner of living. Our population is too large for that by far.

[leveymg]

4. Solar doesn't risk destroying an entire sea or irradiating a vast swath of the continent.

So, I happily accept the relative risk reduction.

[Zenlitened]

6. Is this being trotted out again?

It was very popular about two and a half years ago, in an effort to bring down First Solar.

Didn't work then.

[NNadir]

8. The, um, "rapidly expanding landscape" industry has a problem..,

it would seem, manufacturing enough capacity each year to match the energy output of two or three small gas plants.

Solar has never been a serious alternative to even natural gas generated electricity, thus the toxicology profile is likely to remain obscure in observable terms, but not in terms of the ratio of toxic effects to energy generated.

The solar industry is pretty good though at misrepresenting itself and in egaging in obfuscation.

It's why they always speak of their "capacity" in terms of peak watts - which are seldom, if ever actually reached in practice - and never in terms of energy.

The typical capacity utilization of solar PV in latitudes north of Washington DC is about 10%, meaning that an "800 MW" plant advertised by the solar industry is more like an 80 MW dangerous fossil fuel plant, assuming one doesn't need to dump unnecessary power to maintains spinning reserve, usually provided by dangerous natural gas fueled plants.

The solar industry will surely misreprent itself on toxicology issues. The Scherrer Institute in Switzerland published a paper - I don't have the reference handy as I'm not at my home computer - showing that the toxicology payback time for solar PV at Swiss (and German) latitudes was on the order of 50 years, this with respect to the toxicology of dangerous natural gas. Mind you that toxicology issues are not the main concern with dangerous natural gas, which has a small toxicology profile. Dangerous fossil fuel waste is the main concern for dangerous natural gas use.

Of course, we cannot criticize the solar industry, either for its failure for its continuing cascade of failures to deliver on its promises, or for its external costs. Doing so would present a problem for the insistance by a variety of otherwise uneducated people that solar is magic.

[Tesha]

9. How much of an insurance subsidy/liability cap is the Federal Government providing...

...to this extremely dangerous solar energy industry?

Tesha