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Comment by culi | Hacker News Reader

E-waste is a massive problem that's growing exponentially and needs to be talked about more publicly

We're currently at around 50 million metric tons of e-waste every year globally. By the 2050s solar panels (average lifespan of a panel is around 2 decades) alone are expected to be around 50 million metric tons of waste

Unless we start taking seriously right-to-repair and full life cycle analysis, the move towards electrifying everything is just more of us kicking the can down to road

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I dislike trash as much as the next person, but 50MT is 2% of global waste production (2000MT from my search). Is 50MT or (<1% of predicted 2050 waste) really that bad for generating most of the world's energy? This is before considering that solar panel lifetimes keep increasing; some solar panels are sold with 40 year warranties (88.3% @40years, SunPowerMaxeon), so that number could come down perhaps by half.

Also a 20/40 year warranty is what manufactures guarantee.

There is every likeyhood panels guaranteed for 20 years are still in use decade(s) past their warranty.

By year 5 a panel is already down to 95% efficiency. Year 25 is around 80-85%. That may not sound like much but in many environments, that difference is enough to make solar panels not worth keeping. And ask yourself as a consumer if you really think other consumers are going to keep a solar panel because it's "the right thing to do" when they could probably buy and much better solar panel for very cheap at that point in the future. It's like keeping a 15 year old graphics card when you could buy a 5 year old graphics card for $50 and get 100x the performance

It's nothing like the 100x graphics card though, it's the 1.2x graphics card, and perhaps a few percent more for efficiency improvements. If it's down as far as 80% after 25 years, replacing it will net you such a small improvement for such a large amount of work to tear out and replace.

> That may not sound like much but in many environments, that difference is enough to make solar panels not worth keeping

Is this satire? 80% efficiency is definitely still worth keeping around. You may want to replace the panels, but they also recycle well in that case. I'd rather keep around 20-25 year old panels than necessarily have to replace them if I didn't want the cost of a new installation.

Panel installation is not free. Neither are permits and any other part of the process. Things are NOT getting cheaper at this point, they are becoming more expensive (and possibly more capable, but that's debatable). There is no Moore's law for solar.

E scrap contains a high proportion of potentially hazardous metals and materials which is why it has an outsized influence over just the volume. It is the fastest growing waste segment, and a large contributor of Heavy Metals.

> 50MT is 2% of global waste production

There is a huge difference between 50MT of feces or food waste or other organic matter that could easily decompose and e-waste. Even outside of organic matter, we often at least have solutions for recycling many things. We simply don't have the technology currently to completely recycle solar panels though. There is only one facility in the world (a tiny facility in France) that can completely recycle a panel and it's unlikely that it is actually able to do it in an economically feasible way. In addition, e-waste in general often has to deal with very hazardous or toxic waste

Which would you rather have near your backyard, a landfill filled with plastics (at least the non-compostable kinds so you don't have to worry about microplastics) or a landfill filled with e-waste?

E-waste is simply much more difficult and expensive to deal with. And much more so if we're being honest about the environmental and health impacts and what it would take to resolve those as well

Worldwide coal consumption is over 7 billion tons. So we could just burn those solar panels to ash and it would still be a dramatic improvement over what they're replacing.

Solar panels do not have an economic life of 20 years. After 20 years they are still producing 90% of their nameplate capacity. https://www.nrel.gov/state-local-tribal/blog/posts/stat-faqs...

Compared to what? Consider that computers, cell phone replace paper, books, car transit, movies, etc. Solar panel replace coal, oil, etc.

Not perfect but 100X better than before, only getting better each year. In 20, 30 year will be in such an abundant and green environment mostly because of all that tech.

Take a look at Tony Seba on the solar revolution.

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