California went big on rooftop solar. Now that’s a problem for landfills
latimes.com
latimes.com
Every energy source has consequences. We need to pick the ones that are less bad. Having a pile of waste in landfills seems infinitely better than roasting the whole planet to the point of it being unlivable by humans.
Nuclear has nothing to gain by smearing solar, and in fact benefits from solar, as it very much addresses the shortcomings of other renewables. Nuclear gains a lot by aligning itself as a renewable, and this stance has already been accepted by many people concerned about climate change.
I know this feels like pedantic nitpickery, but 2022 - 2006 = 16 years. That's 53%-64% of the 25-30 year lifecycle. Characterizing that as "nearing the end" feels like manufacturing urgency that doesn't yet exist.
Having said that, we appear to have 9-14 years to get our elected representatives into gear to write some legislation that requires recycling for all this, before the bulk of the early subsidized installs start heading to landfills. That's not forever (especially where government is concerned), but that's definitely quite a bit of runway.
That said, I'm in Australia and our recent government change is starting to make major changes in the space of renewables. It gives me a since of optimism about government I haven't seen in a long while. Just maybe we can still get into the right direction even if it isn't a perfect conclusion.
In my case after just 4y every panel was subpar And 2 of 12 were simply so bad that the bypasses kicked in. In turn that caused the input voltage to be too low when it was hot and the internal resistance went up, which results in a shutdown inverter.
Really, how often does this happen without people realizing? I've checked with a neighbour, he never looked at it, guess what, same deal!?
Making it more expensive to build housing in California at a time like this is a bad move, and I doubt the benefits of solar outweigh it.
Think about it this way: we take on mortgages and car loans and other sorts of debt because we can't afford the full cost of something up front, and accept the tradeoff that, over time, we'll be spending more money than if we had that up-front money.
Same thing applies here. Requiring solar on new homes will just make homes cost more, and will put home ownership out of reach in cases where people were already stretching. Either that, or it'll just increase the problem of people being in too much debt.
If the government wants solar on all new homes, they should be paying for it. I believe in renewables, and in distributed power generation, but forcing people to spend another $20k or whatever to buy a new home is a heavy lift.
Property prices are driven by the amount people can afford to pay on their mortgage, with the free variables being land price and house size.
Housing booms and crashes are only slightly linked to the cost of building a home.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-07-14/california...
That said, I have friends with old panels, and they are happily generating electricity and reducing PG&E bills.
So although there might be a problem with older panels, I expect there are also problems with old power plant generators, aged oil tankeer and gas station equipment ending up in landfills too.
“The industry is supposed to be green,” Vanderhoof said. “But in reality, it’s all about the money.”