Imagine having more electricity than we need in California, especially from wind. We could desalinate water from the ocean all night long.
Welcome to the fascinating world of Umeshisms/Malthusianisms, per [0]. :).
Solar farms are hurting the ecosystem when they break and leak out. Even if they aren't liquid based, solid state versions have thin films which contain some chemicals like cadmium and arsenic. Cadmium telluride has been introduced more recently has it is safer.
Liquid solar panels are simply not a production-ready technology. There are no commercial liquid solar cell farms. Installed solar panels are solid. They're not particularly prone to corrosion and 'leaking', and are >99% silicon with trace amounts of boron and phosphorous. CdTe is actually nastier.
Solar farms are hurting the ecosystem when they break and leak out
[citation needed]
Admittedly, as with all e-waste, we need to look to what happens to solar panels when their life is up and they are landfilled or, hopefully, recycled. That said, over its 25+ year useful life, a solar panel will prevent tons of coal from being burned, which in and of itself would release a non-zero amount of cadmium and other heavy metals into the atmosphere.
No danger from this.
Funny, that's what anti-wind/solar/nuclear people say!
I think it comes down to a lack of science education and a fear of the unknown.
Yes, I know :). That's (among others) a reason I don't go and point my finger too much :).
> I think it comes down to a lack of science education and a fear of the unknown.
I'd add a collapse of trust in authority as an underlying cause for this and movements like anti-vaccination. I talk to people holding such beliefs quite a bit, and I've noticed they're perfectly willing to (selectively) trust science; they can even have an above-average understanding of it. It's often that they don't trust the intentions of governments and corporations (the "Big Pharma", evil Monsanto, etc.). So I think painting them as anti-science idiots, as it is often done on-line, is counterproductive. Not just because it's always counterproductive to paint the other side as idiots, but also because it's missing the point.