The Truth About Solar Panels
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- Опубліковано 15 сер 2022
- The truth about why solar panels aren't recycled? Visit brilliant.org/undecided to sign up for free. And also, the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium membership. Thanks to a 70% drop in price since 2010 and plenty of government subsidies, solar panels have become an integral part of the utility grid, as well as many home rooftops. However, this renewable energy technology isn’t all sunshine. There’s a potential tsunami of panels that will be nearing their end-of-life in the coming years. That fact has concerned many people, as the vast majority of panels here in the U.S. aren’t recycled. Why is that and what happens to these panels at the end of their service life? Is it even possible to recycle solar panels? There’s some interesting advances there that we have to talk about. Let’s see if we can come to a decision on this.
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Do you think solar panel recycling will catch up to the coming wave of solar panel waste? Visit brilliant.org/undecided to sign up for free. And also, the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium membership.
If you liked this video, check out: The Reality of Carbon Capture ua-cam.com/video/HrRq2lzQb08/v-deo.html
Senku "I say, If we can't sustain 7 billion people, Then let's try having 7 billion people look for a way to sustain 7 billion people. After all, that how science does thing." (Dr. Stone season 2 episode 10)
Me: " We accidently changed the environment of the whole planet, wipe off several species of the face of the world and changed how the planet looks from space BY ACCIDENT, what would happen if we all decide 'nope, we are fixing this problem.' We could solve any problem in 20 years guaranteed."
Nothing is going to happen until people get realistic about their figures. You can only recycle existing panels that are dumped ie the numbers are not magic, todays working panels are tomorrows ready to be recycled panels. If the (median)average panel lifetime is 20 years then 2010 functional panels are the ones that need to be recycled in 2030. From SEIA/Wood ~20 times more panels were made in 2010 than in 2020. 12:05 if 2010 panels end up at $2.7B in 2030 then in 2040 we can expect 20 times that number or $54B. Now we have a much more accurate representation than the Veolia guestimate of $80B in 2050. Companies can then work out if a $54B solar panel recycling market in 2040 might make economical sense. There is just too many predictions floating around when we have access to more reliable numbers.
FYI It says "soalar" in your thumbnail.
It will have to catch up, otherwise there will be a huge waste problem... the biggest hurdle will be getting notoriously short sighted politicians across the world to start planning for beyond the next election and put policies in place to encourage recycling.
I think we need a legal structure around solar before it gets big and powerful like the fossil fuel industry.
For example, you could add a $10 solar recycling deposit fee to every panel. And then pay people who deliver solar panels to recycling centers back that fee.
I'm concerned about leeching of rare earths and metals into the soil and water table while waiting for a good recycling method to develop. But at least having all the panels in one place will help make it cheaper to recycle them.
And/Or the expected cost of recycling panels could be built into the panels as someone else suggested below. The only problem is other factions intercepting those fees to pay for a park or a road.
A lot of solar panels are scrapped because they have dropped below the required output for commercial use. Selling these panels at a really low price to be used in off grid solutions would help a lot of people and give a profit in relation to paying for recycling. I am surprised that this is not being done yet. A panel that has dropped below its optimum efficiency would still be really useful in non critical use cases.
It is being done. Will Prowse has a few videos dedicated to testing old solar panels you can buy. The problems are often that the panels are degraded differently from each other. Nevertheless, you can make a really cheap arrays with this method if you have the time and space.
I sell used panels on the big island in hawaii
@@ThisRandomUsername The problem is that there are only a few people doing it, the companies scrapping their panels are not making them widely available, or advertising the fact. It may be that they are on sale in the US, but here in the UK, there are a few sellers on Ebay, but selling at prices that are almost the same as new budget panels.
I buy used panels all the time so cheap and still work great
@@terryhayward7905 That sounds like you have a business opportunity then. Here in South Africa I have been keeping an eye on the second-hand classifieds, and I've come across quite a few good deals where people are selling 5-10 year old panels cheaply. Maybe people in the UK expect too high of a salary, meaning things get scrapped more easily because the manual labour of sorting through old panels or removing them and testing them isn't worth the payback on the market.
I bought some 20 year old German panel and they are working at 98% of their sticker's output. I paid $40 for 200W panels. $400 got me 2KW, I can not complain. They are the roof of my woodshed, I made custom flashings for them and used them like big shingles. It was the deal of a lifetime! Buy used panels, check them with your volt meter. Even if they don't work, they can still keep the rain out. No need to trash them or melt them down, just keep using them.
they are waterproof and some are opaque even and of course glass area is air tight.
But they cost much less tehn 20 cents a watt to manufacture now
and are much lighter per watt and take less area and last longer
old ones are not waste OF COURSE
it requires a different mindset in use
a disruptive one
such deals are easy to find currently...
and the panels to come are better then those inthe past
selling them years before they need removal is what has most promise.
90 million to dig a whole in la for a building
I did buy new panels around 76€ per 100 Watt. Buts that's also their peak output.... Around that. These where only camping panels and I can't position them 100% ideal. Only get sun after 12:30. These inverters are also a price point. A good one is more expensive than my panels for around 300€.
A friend of mine als did buy uses ones. The got around 50% peak of what stood on the back.
This panel can put out close to 100 watts ua-cam.com/users/postUgkxOqI2yqX0XVrhR2BMJciTWrHJpG8FhJyg when positioned in the appropriate southernly direction, tilted to the optimal angle for your latitude/date, and connected to a higher capacity device than a 500. The built in kickstand angle is a fixed at 50 degrees. Up to 20% more power can be output by selecting the actual date and latitude optimal angle.The 500 will only input 3.5A maximum at 18 volts for 63 watts. Some of the excess power from the panel can be fed into a USB battery bank, charged directly from the panel while also charging a 500. This will allow you to harvest as much as 63 + 15 = 78 watts.If this panel is used to charge a larger device, such as the power station, then its full output potential can be realized.
I worked for my great uncles' multi-million dollar metal recycling business between '80 and '85. The lead battery saga seemed different from my POV, if memory serves. I ran a lead/aluminum smelter when I was 19. I'd make 6 or 7 1650 lb ingots a day when the machine was running. I melted mountains of textile machine scrap. Waded in aluminum cans. It was a nasty mess but brutally effective. Batteries became a thorn in our side due to the forces that couldn't decide if we could recycle the damn things, or not. We had a stack about the size of a tractor trailer trailer, that basically sat in limbo for two years. Ended up polluting our ground because we couldn't move it on, etc... Cluster.
The business is ongoing and within a decade of being 100 years old. They've probably recycled at least $2B in metals.
I ran a cellulose insulation operation for two years before I started recycling metal. I know some recycling. A set of regs like batteries will likely help sort out the panel situ soon. The procedures may develop organically. A big key is simply to separate the different materials, AMAP, at reinstallation of worn out units, of course.
You know, there are types of mycelium that can absorb heavy metals. (I'm a wild mushroom forager, and have to be careful how many times I collect certain species because of the amount of heavy metals that are contained within).
It might be worth your while, since you are in America, looking up the name 'Paul Stamets.'
He's an American mycologist of world renown (probably the best in the business), and if you have issues with contaminated ground, he'd be an excellent source of advice.
I have his best-selling book, 'Mycelium Running,' one of the best fungi books I have read, and it mentions several species that 'mop up' heavy metals such as Cadmium and Copper. Oyster mushrooms have been known to 'clean' engine oil spills in local authority vehicle yards.
It may be possible that Mr Stamets already knows of a species that may help clean your ground, or is currently conducting research, or may even want to use your site for conducting new research.
Worth a try.
And it's certainly a great deal better to start finding ways to clean up your site 'now' (while you have time to investigate and pursue different options at your leisure) rather than face imposed clean-up costs a bit later should local environment agencies suddenly be forced by new government directives to check out & test the nation's recycling areas... Because that's going to happen as recycling sites become increasingly contaminated over time (unavoidable), and chemicals find their way onto neighbouring properties, into waterways, or accumulate to make staff sick.
@@debbiehenri345 That's already happened. The site was borderline superfund. I'm not sure what has been done to remediate.
Indian Mustard has also been shown effective for lead and cadmium.
It obviously works only over a span of years (harvests) but it is far less destructive than ripping out all the soil and then trying to find a secure place for it.
Man you hit the nail on the head. Society's always trying to play catch up with the technology they make when it comes to recycling. And you definitely got it right about the recycle center smell. Me and my buddies used to dumpster dive for aluminum cans.
Aluminum back in that part of the 90s I think was worth 45 cents a pound. And for a kid that wanted fireworks this wasn't a bad deal if there was no under the table labor work to do.
Although sometimes the drunks would get pissed that you were rummaging through the trash. But that's where all the money was.
The smell of soda and beer cans and of course a number of yellow jacket bees comes to my memory after reading your comment.
Anyhow you have a good day.
@@debbiehenri345 in fact HEMP is agreat tool too,it literally sucks heavy metals from the soil
The other big part that is never mentioned is designing the product itself to be easily recycled, removable substructes and avoiding the use of adhesives and so on. Makes the recycling process far more cost effective
If we were smart this is how we would design all products.
If you warm up the panel a bit over it's rated temperature things start to delaminate fast. And solar heat can be used to do that. It's just the petrol industry clinging to oil and doing everything possible, including war and killing tens of thousands for that.
@ The “It’s sabotage” argument is almost never ever ever EVER the actual reason. It’s usually “It’s super complicated and we don’t know how to do it in a way that is practical yet”
@@fencserx9423 actually it's quite simple and ensuring low-to-basically-free landfill costs by heavily bribing lawmakers.
@ Yeah see. Thats pretty near sighted. Cause it’s just people bad. It lets you believe that the world is easier than it is. If “people not bad” it would all be fine. Your world is binary. Cause if it’s actually “we genuinely don’t have the answer yet. We need someone to figure it out” then you feel like your grand hope for the future is farther away than you want, which in turn, whether you realize it or not, means you lose the power tied to that hope of being close. And most people who think in such a binary are just playing a power games, which is why they refuse to acknowledge when we just don’t know how to do something yet
The cost of recycling should be factored into the cost. Do that and you'll suddenly find the manufacturers will start taking the task seriously. But the process should not be structured as a business, but as a essential service, then it doesn't matter what the returns are.
It is similar to how plastic bottle-using companies should factor recycling in.
The returns always matter. We use money as a stand in for all the other things that is required. Any time the process costs more than what you recover you are losing resources. That means you have to get more resources from somewhere else. Which in turn costs more other resources to get. There is no magic solution. Only trade offs. I mean you wouldn't keep pouring money into repairing an old refrigerator. Nor would you try to recover some of your money from it by selling it to a salvage yard if what you would get from the salvage yard was less than it cost to take it there. And if you wouldn't do it why should any one else?
Diminishing returns are always bad for the environment. Because we have to get the resources from some where to do the good things you want done.
Yes lets do this. But do it also with nucular power, for its thousends years of storage!
There is no need to recycle since you can up cycle them to be used as roofing material. It will out last asphalt roof.
@@Pey5531 - “cycle them into roofing materials”
The leeching of heavy metals from the roof materials may then go into the water systems and food 🍱 in people’s gardens… poisoning the next generation
Former Soviet nations are stuck with asbestos for 50+ year roofing material, fun fun fun
The roofing materials made out of the crushed up panels would still need to be recycled. We are merely delaying the cycle.
All this hazardous ☢️ waste must be recycled ♻️
2:55 high heat isn't the only option, there are several solvents for ethylene vinyl acetate which seems to be what holds the panel together once the frame is removed so mechanical separation seems entirely feasible.
To be reused the component materials need to be melted anyway & the metals will separate from the silicon as they melt so can simply be skimmed from the melting pot as they surface or sink. The melting points are 962, 1084 & 1414 °C for silver, copper & silicon respectively which is a sufficiently broad range to largely separate them though there may be some alloying.
liquid copper dissolves silver but not silicon. that makes a healthy mess.
copper has higher MP than silver
@@janami-dharmam Yeah, he switched silver and copper when listing the melting points. I think it was just a simple mistake.
@@janami-dharmam thank you, I've edited it
hmm are those solvents made from soon to be extinct fossil fuels also EVA is made from fossil fuels - no comments on your 16/9/22 vlog but solar panels are made with EVA - made from fossil fuels - Is ethylene-vinyl acetate good for the environment? "EVA is one of the least harmful synthetic materials. With optimal combustion, only CO2 and H2O are released. really only releases CO2 - CO2 is bad according to thermoeddonite greenies and how are you going to make them when they close down all fossil fuels - EVA is a copolymer: ethylene vinyl acetate that is usually produced from fossil raw materials such as oil or natural gas -The big green lie
Great video Matt! You brought up all the stake holders from manufacturers to governments to recyclers. I feel it starts with the manufacturer. If they make it too easy to dismantle and fix then it doesn't sell more panels.
"Come-on man." Sell the used panels. They still work, just not as good.
I truly love this channel. I look forward to it.
Latest well researched info and excellently presented
Congratulations on a million subscribers!!!!
Enjoying all these informative videos but just a dash of tech reviews would definitely be an icing on the cake !!!!
Also, was hoping for a very long livestream!!! Maybe do it soon ??
Another great video Matt. As I work for a Renewable Energy Company, this is important to me.
is love important to you
have you and your company removed all plastic goods from your homes and offices ?? nothing that comes from nasty fossil fuels - go green live poor
Very simply - more products need to be designed to be recycled and have an end-of-life plan other than just be thrown away.
Absolutely, the amount of designed obsolescence that we have these days is just ridiculous.
... much more common in Europe than in the US. But, absolutely agree ...
Solar panels can be repaired and refurbished. Why design for recycling when it can stay in use?
I was hoping to see a comment like yours. Everything we manufacture today shold have appropriate end-of-live designed into it. Whether it's refurbishment or recycling or some other option, the manufacturer should not be able to sell a product that they themselves cannot take back and process. It's not just about the environment, resources are becoming more scarce and more difficult to dig out of the ground. Good reuse, recycling, refurbishment and remanufacturing should be the standard.
@@apkk5594 How ? We know what the costs a to recycle so the people that buy new pay a tax for the old ones so there is money to recycle.Same goes for import and it should be more expensive then redesign in a sustainable way
Love your work.
We all need this technical perspective.
Congratz on the million subs! Love your videos
I just purchase 2.6kwh (10 x 260w ) of used panels for $600. In peak sun I get around 2.5kw. Used panels prices are in demand
Ha Ha Ha Man I got close to the same deal (10) REC 260 watt panels and a SMA 3kW Inverter for $500. Straight off the people roof to my truck. Craigslist. The highest I have seen is like 2.4kW, but the the inverter has data from 2014 when it was first installed and the original owner never seen 2.4kW so I'm cool with it. The 260 watt panels can only produce 260 watts in perfect lab conditions. Peace out Otis J!
Solar panels didn't drop 70% in price since 2010, they droped 70% in price between 2010 & 2013 and have remained flat since, look at the prices on solar websites using wayback machine, we haven't seen prices drop for 9 years.
In 2014, the price per Watt was $0.9. We're now at $0.2 per Watt. You can still find articles with headlines such as "Price of solar panels to drop to $1 by 2013, report forecasts". I bought my solar panels three years ago for around $0.3 per Watt.
@@upnorthandpersonal I look at bimble solar and see 2013 - 250W panel - £130 (0.52/W) & currently in 2022 400W panel - £210 (0.52/W).
You can get more watts/$ if you buy older panels, but the 250W panel was top-ish of the line in 2013, it is a fair comparison.
@@arkatub And as I said, I can buy 445W panels for < $0.4/W in Europe, and well under that (< $0.3) if I buy them from China directly - and that's with the current global shortages. Even that site you quote has 550W Canadian Solar panels at < $0.5 and from a quick look at that site, they're overpriced on everything.
@@upnorthandpersonal that is a 2 meter double panel, it is not fair to compare, what site are you getting $0.4/W from? does the china price include import duty? also that would only be a 40% price reduction, starting from the 2013 price being £0.52/W, which I have shown.
@@arkatub There are no import duties on solar panels in the EU. In the EU, check out GWL for example.
Another great video...Hats off Matt...😊😊
PV recycling is in it's infancy, we'll get there. Thanks for bringing it up to people who have no idea how solar works. Beat up, old solar panels that have lost 25% of their power still sell for $20 to $30 around here.
In 2018 my uncle got called to dispose of 2500 solar panels from a facility in Arizona. He stacked them on pallets and put up a sign. "Free solar panels". They were gone in a week.
He got paid, they got rid of the panels, and a bunch of people have free power at their house from now on.
Win-win-win!
I'm sure it's intentional, but I enjoy how optimistic this channel is in it's presentation of possible futures.
Its just hope and change clickbait. We are screwed. The people in charge aren't about changing anything because destroying the world is how they make money and the people voting for them are so scared of everything they will never organize to force change until it's too late. Then when it is too late and the water dries up we will just get violent like the monkeys we really are.
Yes, the optimism of this channel (and “Just Have a Think”, which I also enjoy) is a refreshing alternative to both reactionary conservative denialism and Luddite progressive hopelessness. We CAN solve these problems, if we make it about “solving problems” and not “scoring points”.
Lol luddite progressives. Thats not even an insult. Yea fine. I prefer local skilled labor over large scale machine manufacturing. I guess I'm a luddite. Shipping cheap garbage products all over the planet is a huge part of our problem. Progressives are the only people fighting for change at all. We just get zero support because we advocate for actual change. Not just a different power source a different power structure. But hey im sure Elon will take care of you right? I'm sure Jeff or Zuckerberg have a solution up their sleeves. Technology daddy for the win.
@@stephankyle6460 1. I’m a progressive myself, and I’m frustrated with so many on my own side rejecting technological solutions in favor of political fantasies. 2. Remember what I said about people more interested in scoring political points than solving problems? You kinda made my point for me.
@@davestagner whats wrong with talking about the politics of the situation dave it has a huge effect on real life. I mention that the people in charge are corrupt and that is scoring political points to you? Whats your point dave I mentioned the fact that our politics are a huge impediment to progress despite any promise you may think the technology offers and you jumped directly into your conservative/luddite shtick. So whats up man do you have any other bits you want to run through or are we done here?
I just ordered to have solar panels put on my home. I'm excited to see how much of an impact it makes for me but by the time they're needing to be replaced we'll be decades down the road so hopefully even more recycling options.
Your thinking is why there IS a problem. People like you thought the same thing 25 years ago, and now the problem is here.
@@GEOsustainable And there are more options now than there were. People like you are probably why we don't have more nuclear. See how asinine it is when someone assumes they know anything about you? When it comes time to replace my panels I will do everything I can to keep them out of a landfill. In the meantime I will take stress off the grid and generate electricity with an abundant resource at my disposal.
There will almost definitely be options when your panels are due to be replaced. Even now, there’s options which can recycle key parts of the panels but they’re just “not profitable”. That can change drastically in 20 years.
Excellent presentation! Comprehensive and updated!
You have got such a great voice, with such great delivery. I have found myself reading technology books with your voice in my head. The last time someone's voice worked that way in my head, was Carl Segan. Thank you for giving me to have fun reading more!!
The difference in the treatment of almost all waste in the US to Europe is startling if you spend time in both places. But the EU proves that with the will, most of these problems can be overcome. It's just the will that is lacking.
I was on vacation in the USA and was crying inside over throwing so much aluminium in the "trash".
It's the cheap energy needed to perform the work. But a cheap new source of energy like reliable fusion would negate the need for solar panels in most places.
The problem is that US society is geared more towards "I'm not doing it if I can't make money from it" whereas Europe seems to have more of a "I'm doing this for the good of humanity" mindset.
I am an advocate of imposing end of life responsibilities on the manufacturer. If manufacturers are taxed on the amount and type of waste they create, they would take more care to avoid such losses of revenue. Conversely if tax rebates were given to companies who recycle their product after the end of its life, it would also incentivize recycling. In theory this tax would and should have a net revenue of 0, meaning that everything that is produced and is no longer being used will be recycled.
@@needamuffin That is only true if you believe the earth is being degraded by 1st world societies. This line of thinking can lead to some very dark outcomes, including genocide.
In the last few years in Australia any panels that still work are being bought up and shipped to Africa. Which is great to see them reused, but less chance if recycling at end of life.
We also have a couple of recycling facilities that will collect once you have a palet of panels.
Best scenario is that the recycling cost is incorporated in the purchase price.
Thanks for the honesty
Very interesting. Thanks. Off to read about this.
It's good to see more work being done on this. For now if you have old panels it's probably best to just hold on to them for now imo. Also they shouldn't allow patents for recycling methods, this is something that should be open and available to everyone.
The majority of panels are still serviceable when they are due for replacement under warranty. If removed carefully the market for second hand panels for individuals, families and community based PV systems is possible. This could contribute to efforts to reduce CO2 and also to reduce energy poverty. Particularly important in a emerging energy crisis in the UK, which will see a vast increase in energy poverty from this coming Winter.
Don't the panels loose efficiency over time? I mean would it still be viable after two or three decades?
@@davidtherwhanger6795 that is true, but if we have to choose between using a second-hand panel with low efficiency and not using any, it's still better for both ourselves and the environment to reuse old panels
"reduce CO2 and also to reduce energy poverty"
Energy poverty?! You just like stringing words together into nonsense sentences don't you?!
@@kalidesu Wow. Bad enough you don't know shit, but do you have to brag with it?
Energy Poverty is caused vy being unable to afford the energy for heating, a fridge, cooking food and the like.
@@kalidesu no, he is not. It’s a real thing now, especially in the current energy crisis in Europe. People having to choose between heating their home or feeding their kids. More and more people have trouble affording energy for their families.
Excellent work, Matt.
Awesome info . Very enlightening.
Here in Texas you pay an additional fee for buying a new car battery, for the cost of disposing of the old one. Why not charge a $25 fee when buying new panels to offset the cost to recycle?
regulators can make it compulsory for panel makers to properly recycle the panels they make for free. and then also allow the makers to charge buyers for the recycling costs upfront.
I have never heard of Elon talk about solar recycling as he thinks solar is "the way" of the future. He has talked about about battery recycling as a closed loop eventually but never talked about recycling panels. I wonder if Redwood Materials would R&D this problem to a solution...
Redwood Materials have their hands full with the recycle of Lithium Batteries. Although Elon funded SunRun there are many many more solar companies out there, just because Elon may be the richest the problem should not rest on him doing something.
Nice video pundecided!
Great video Matt. Thanks for shedding more light on this important topic (see what I did there?). Also, congratulations on 1 million subs! You’ve come a long way since I started watching your channel about four years ago!
THank you for this reminder. I thought we were recycling every bit of these panels. I am worried that some less developed countries that are seen as potentially attractive to set up big centers of solar energy production will become dumpsters for all these hazardous materials. As some comments before me suggested, we need better regulations that should include recycling as part of the development market for these materials. It is a pity if in 30 years or so we create environnemental distasters in place of using solar energy to save the environment.
The cullet could make a great filler for concrete. It encapsulates too
My worry about recycling programs is that the government (local/state) simply outsources to a company who sends it overseas to deal with where labor much like life is cheap and disposable ... well until they decide they don't want it anymore like what happened to most of the plastic industries in the US. "Hey I'm paying money on my garbage bill for recycling... yay!!!" "Wait they simply crush it into cubes and send it a third world country?"
In the mean time, spent solar panels probably should be separated then stored in such a way to minimize land contamination. There will come a time the enormous piles of them will be seen as a gold mine.
People say the earth is running out of mineral resources. That's not true, their all now buried in landfills.
Congrats on passing 1M subscribers, Matt :)
Great video❤️
What about refurbishing/reconditioning solar panels that aren't "damaged", just well used? Lots of people would love cheap(er) solar, and lots of EOL panels are still useful.
The point is that the actual internals are less efficient....
Because capitalism. Repairing or reusing is not good for business. It is better to destruct to make money.
Capitalism is based on scarcity, not on plenty...
@@arnaudmosse6894 Exactly...you have hit the nail on the head here. Getting hold of cheap old panels is fantastic for those who want to play with solar, not so good for the corporates, as it is very difficult for them to make any money out of that.
How do solar panel recycling issues compare to the damage caused by oil extraction and consumption?
Fossil fuels produce around 1000 times more pollution and landfill compared to solar panels over their full lifecycle for the equivalent energy. Coal alone produces 450 million tons of slag ash to landfill per year!
@@stevetaylor2818 Yeah, I knew this. It's just a question I like to ask when people start talking about the potential down sides of solar or wind.
because solar panels consume a lot of fossil fuels in the mining / manufacture of panels - no fossil fuels no solar - google what he says they are made of then add the fuels used to mine and manufacture the silicon and metals - don't just play one side of the fence
@@jimlofts5433 Whatever is contructed to replace fossil fuels will be constructed using fossil fuel energy as that's currently the main energy source..
But Once the world in running on renewable energy, new renewables will be constructed using renewable energy!
And yes, may still make things out of fossil fuels (like plastic), but stop burning fossil for energy!
Good morning Matt. Enjoy your content! I am considering going solar and wondered if you wouldn’t mind providing a link to a trusted source(s) for solar quotes and purchase. Thank you.
Hello Matt and thank you.
Why recycle? Why not reuse first?
An "end of life" solar panel still capable of give out at least 70-80% of it's nominal output.
Totally agree...but have you noticed how the corporate world doesn't think that way? Probably because there is no $$$ in it for *them*.
We faced this problem in the oil industry a hundred years ago. In most states, when you license to drill a well, you must pay a bond that will cover the cost of decommissioning it safely at end of life. The same could be done with solar panels. There is actually a looming crisis in Texas because the state isn’t setting the bond value high enough, so 50 years from now a lot of land owners and/or the public are going to be screwed when those wells in the Eagle Ford hit end of life and the companies that drilled them are long gone.
Basically a “bottle deposit” for solar panels? Works for me!
Good old Texas and smelling Ted Cruz, well they get what they deserve when they vote for those that one can plainly see corruption just dripping off of them. And then you have the real problem of decommissioned properly for how long, considering the petroleum industry is notorious for brand new casing leaking! So how long is any fix going to last before methane starts leaking?
This. Manufacturers should be economically incentivised to design recycling or decommissioning friendly products. It's completely backwards to attack it as a consumer or disposal problem.
That bond is also starting to be required in some states for wind turbines. Oklahoma recently starting requiring this bond. The bind covers the future cost of deconstructing the turbine, removal of debris and returning the land (including access roads) to its previous state. Currently bond values were adding several million dollars to the cost of installing each turbine. A necessary thing I think.
If they had to pay a bond to cover the cost of the CO2 the oil puts in the air they would never dig the well in the first place.
Congrats on the 1m subscribers
They were waiting for you to make this video. They will start recycling now :D
It seems to me that we may have to accept lower output per square foot of panel to build something designed from the start to be efficiently and fully recycled.
Efficiency is important only for some. Cost beats efficiency for majority of residential use. The limit on how much of your roof you cover has to do with price. If we could make 2x less efficient panels but 4x cheaper, that would be awesome for house roofs, especially in the developing world that is very price sensitive.
@@astroNexx I think efficiency is important for quite a lot of people.
For myself: if I could have 4 times cheaper panels with half the efficiency I would be able to put 3 times as much panels as the ones I have now.
However, due to orientation I would get around 140% the power I got now.
It wouldn't cost the same as the 12 panels I have installed at the moment: a considerable amount of the price is installation cost.
If I want more generation in the future I could get more (high efficiency) panels, which would bump the power to 260% of the current generation. This option is lost when covering the house with low efficiency panels.
Our home is actually still quite good for your scenario: there is quite a lot of roof area, compared to a lot of other houses in the Netherlands, and I would also be able to use the north side, duo to having a low angle on the roof.
There are plenty of people who wouldn't be able to fit more than 10 panels, anyway, whereas we can fit around 36 in total.
Conclusion: high efficiency panels are a better option for a lot of people, as long as they are not prohibitively expensive, compared to low efficiency panels. Cheap, low efficiency panels could be an alternative for those who have huge unused roof area's.
@@astroNexx I'm interested in what you're saying, but at the same time put off by "times less." It would be half as efficient at a quarter the cost.
Or what? What exactly is the catastrophe that solar panel waste is going to cause us? Because we know more and more about the catastrophe that making solar panels even a little bit slower to roll out, is going to cause us.
This exact issue has been on my mind for so many years. Its so sad that recycling globally is driven mostly by profits.
And its hard to deny that without some sort of profit, these recycling projects wont come to fruition.
All of us globally, need to figure out how everyone can come out on top at the end of the day.
We have been pushed into using wind farms and solar panels when they are not economically viable, while most places ignore nuclear or even close plants. Government: ideas so good they have to be mandatory.
But if it’s not for profit then who’s gonna pay for it? I want these things to be recycled, but expecting people to just recycle because it’s good for the planet isn’t gonna work. It’s too expensive and no one wants to cover that without some sort of return.
@@crt5866 yea exactly my thoughts.
Here’s what I think would help when it comes to future proofing recycling possibility when an item comes to its end of life cycle.
All companies should and must design all their products around recyclability. Yes it would probably cost more in R&D but the benefits at the end, out weigh the initial costs. In turn, Recycling becomes cheaper which will then start using lesser hazardous chemicals/processes and what not to retrieve as much material as possible. Shortens recycling time as well in the process!
@@jaythelonelydriver another option I saw some people throwing out was that the company’s include recycling costs into the purchase of solar panels.
But that will raise the cost of solar panels pushing people away and back to cheap fossil fuels.
There’s just trade offs to all of this and it’s gonna take time to get a good system in place.
@@crt5866 If we need something done that isn't viable to be profit driven, the best answer usually ends up being either pump money into research to figure out methods to make it viable or have the government take the reins and allocate tax funding towards it. Same things happens with other common public services that would be a pain to privatize or would be overwhelmingly expensive/complex for the consumer in that scenario.
Interesting, Thank You . We need something
The problem isn't that recycling is too expensive, it's that landfills are too cheap.
This issue is similar to the plastic recycling issue. Fabricants should be forced to make their product more readily recyclable. They should shoulder that burden as well. The plastic industry is coming up with new unrecyclable laminated plastic product and they should be fine for it.
"...fined" for it.
So many questions: What is being defined as their life span and end of life? If the panel still produces energy why should it be thrown away and not still used in some capacity or resold on the cheap? What is the cause of complete failures or disuse and what about refurbishment?
Panels can fail if some of the tabbing wires behind the glass get somehow disconnected (usually fractures though heat cycling or corrosion). Other times it is because the panel has experienced reverse current through it and one or more of the cells has literally burned out.
Either of these situations can be repaired and you can have most of the panel, if not all of it, working again. In the case of burned out or broken cells, you can route past them . You might end up with effectively a 70 cell panel instead of a 72 cell panel, but it will still be able to run some stuff or charge a battery.
Matt, great work on this murky issue. Could you please do a deep dive on Li-ion battery recycling?
hope soon we find a way also to recycle the newcomers perovskite panels... 😬
btw, nice video Matt, there aren't much debate o videos talking about this near problem. 👍🏻
There needs to be more research done on the cost of recycling solar. Also, is it still cost-effective to recycle panels as PV efficiencies increase over time? Will people want secondhand panels?
Would it not depend on price? Sometimes space is at a premium and more yield per panel is important. But other times it’s not and price per kWh is.
"Will people want secondhand panels?" Check out San Tan solar and how many they sell and can't keep up with orders on used panels.
I think the used car, phone, etc markets show a lot of demand for high cost items. I could definitely see a market around used panels.
There are some pretty hard limits as to how high solar PV efficiency can go.
Plenty of people buy used cars, or used _anything_ for that matter.
Manufacturers should figure out new ways to make the panels that allows recycling to be much easier/cheaper. Manufacturers and recyclers should work together to figure this out.
Implementing a carbon tax is a great way to help push for this to happen. If manufacturers know that they’re going to have to pay 50% more for virgin materials then they have incentive to work with recyclers like you want. And it doesn’t matter that the recycled material costs 25% more because it’s still less expensive than the virgin material.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet but that raises the price of solar so it's no longer competitive with other forms of electricity generation. The best method would be to tax petrol vehicles to fund a quarterly prize for the best breakthroughs in recycling technology.
Yes, always demand magic from others. Why do you not come up with a solution ?
Here's the problem I have: Sunlight is practically infinite. Why is efficiency even a factor? 1% of infinity is still infinity. Sure, a panel's productivity snowballs over time. But, what do we lose by using older panels for lower voltage/current purposes? Is it a lack of modularity? Is it a real estate issue? A panel which is converting limitless energy is still converting limitless energy.
At some point the panel will not produce enough power to allow the Inverter to do it's job. My solar panels are used and I got them because the previous owner put a new roof on. While he will get solar again, he rather install (6) 400 watt panels over the (10) 260 watt panels he sold me. The sun is infinite, man made products are not.
Thank you for the video Matt! Would solar panels be a candidate to run through a plasma gasification waste management plant? Do you have any videos deep diving plasma gasification?
I feel like companies should be considering what happens to their products after they're no longer useful. If their product becomes garbage, they should be held accountable. It's weird that we have to rely on 3rd parties to hopefully step up and find a way to take products apart.
100% this
Ah bingo, too bad the USofA’s politicians sold out long ago. Just think about all those throw away flashlight batteries. But Y’all just go ahead and keep drinking that tap water!
Coal companies don't have to consider what happens to their product, coal, after it's burned. This is a proposal to hold solar to a higher standard, but keep burning coal.
@@TrogdorBurnin8or when did I say coal wasn't included here?
@@AlmightyDoubleHelix The sudden crop of articles demanding that we recycle our solar panels is emerging from the fossil fuel industry that doesn't recycle anything whatsoever, as a means to delay rollout by raising prices. "Solar panel pollution" is a numerically negligible phenomenon compared to any of a dozen varieties of fossil fuel pollution. We don't NEED to do any kind of recycling. This is a red herring.
You can dump them on my front lawn, they're ugly but I DGAF as long as two generations from now we're not in the middle of a massive cascading biosphere collapse. A few kilograms of lead, you say? We still build roofs out of lead sheets.
This is like the vaping FUD campaigns; Yes, you can't prove that vaping your entire life is going to be 100% safe, but very clearly vaping alleviates nearly all of the health issues with smoking; Public health demands we put vapes in as many hands as possible. Yet we've somehow allowed cigarette companies to use their mandated court settlement ad campaigns to scare people away from vapes and into smoking conventional cigarettes.
As the number of expiring panels goes way up in the next few decades, the viability of large-scale reclamation of the more difficult materials increases. And rolling the cost of recycling into the cost of production is a powerful incentive for the producers to work out ways to produce panels that are easier to recycle.
But one option often left out is refurbishment. Panels are made up of many cells, and not all cells will have degraded to the same level. With a glass cutter and a big enough pile of 'dead' panels, you can refurb them back into working panels for cheap, the same way hobbyists are making panels from broken or defective cells today. It'll never use the majority of the waste stream, but it could be a profitable cottage industry, especially for selling very cheap panels to buyers who can't otherwise afford them. Similar to various e-waste recyclers today, who reclaim working computer parts to sell or give to lower-income households.
This is my opinion as well. Every keeps saying recycling “isn’t profitable” but really it’s just “not profitable at this moment.” A wave of panels to work on along with a wave of demand for panels along with a carbon tax on virgin materials can drastically change the profitability equation.
Hi Matt, please please do a video on the latest solar tech for apartments. What are the latest options available for apartment owners? Thank you very much in advance.
Great video. I am wondering where are things at in regards to Canada? I know we can be better with some things but not always.
If you use aluminum parabolic troughs as concentrators of solar rays, you could reduce the PV cells needed to maybe a strip, and this overall device would have a higher percentage of easily recycled components.
You'd just melt the panel. Far better, in that case, to heat water and use the steam to power generation. There's a channel of a guy who knocked up a parabolic reflector and water pipe very cheaply, and just propped it up against a pile of dirt. It was soon producing puffs of steam.
@@worldcomicsreview354 no, there are high temperature photovoltaics. But you could still heat a fluid, no question. It's just this way you increase the photovoltaic efficiency too.
Silicon PV efficiency drops _way_ off with heat.
Parabolic reflectors are incredibly counterproductive not only because of heat but because of the much smaller area of insolation.
As others have said, if you want to go with a reflector use it to heat something like water, oil or salt.
Solyndra, A Fremont, California based start-up backed by the government (Obama administration) tried to do the cell in a tube thing. Stole half a billion from the government (our tax dollars) and went belly up. The cells produced are no good and sell on ebay for little to nothing. They could not produce a cost effective product. Don't mean it can't be done but somebody had half a billion and the backing of the government I could not do it. That building now makes harddrives and is Seagate. I pass it everyday and think about the promise of something great and the failure.
Interesting ideas in the replies. I wonder if anyone has done a small scale "parabolic mirror to heat a boiler to propel a generator" type of thing. But I think a large scale system is already done.
One of the big things that needs to happen for solar panel reuse, to reduce the need for recycling, is to have some way to maintain their UL or other body certification when reused. Currently if you buy used recycled panels, you have to use them in an off grid configuration because they no longer carry the proper certifications for power companies to allow them to be attached to grid tied system. They still meet all the same requirements, but their certification has been revoked.
Good point.
I don't know if the recycled panels would actually meet the requirements of the grids. But if they can certify a used car as like new, you would think they could with a solar panel.
Segment your panel. Dedicate a sub panel. Feed that with a hybrid system. The ul listing is a joke
congrats on 1 million suscribers.
Hey Undecided! I like your info on climate change and all the technologies to face it. This is sightly off topic, but I heard there are PFAS in all the rain water around the world. Can you please do a video on research on if there are ideas on how to get the PFAS out of the earths rain water?
I learn so much from your videos!!
Thanks a bunch!
Because tedlar and ethylene vynil acetate are very hard to recycle :)
Remember, tedlar is a fluor based polymer used in airplanes and industrial kitchen because stuff does not glue to them, air and bacteria slides off. Very vapor proof.
I'll never understand why recycling, as a whole, isn't higher on our priority list. It should be the most subsidized industry we have.
We need to truly imitate nature by having a closed resource cycle
Capitalism doesn't roll that way ... invent a process that profits from recycling, then it's priority moves up the list.
@@KrustyKlown that‘s why he advocates subsidising, so that recycling practices that are slightly unprofitable, but much better for the environment, become competitive.
Recycling is kind of a scam. It was created by corporations to shift the responsibility to the customers and the government. We should be creating policies to encourage more compostable packaging
@@vincentfox4929 Your comment is kind of a scam.
Hi Matt. I've been enjoying your videos for a while now. I like the open-ended format of your videos. It seems to me that recycling should be a concern when products are produced. I know recycling considerations will increase production costs but recovering the materials at a product's end of life could be less expensive than producing new materials when they're designed to be recycled. Nuclear power plants are a good example. When the construction costs are calculated the cost of decommissioning is included. In the case of solar panels, the layers are fitted tight enough that water can't penetrate the assembly, but it makes the panels hard to recycle. These panels should have been produced with recycling in mind.
Now that you've made me aware of this problem it's not hard to imagine a world where we design everything with recycling in mind. All products could have assembly methods and materials choices that allow for efficient separation. Whether its mechanical separation, a sustainable electrical system, or an environmentally considerate chemical process. I'm geeking out about the possibilities. Thank you for this one.
Another point would be if we REALLY care, to make products that last. Going through 4 5 6 products in the time that one could do perfectly fine is far better for everyone besides the seller.
Thank you for this video on a very important and unappreciated subject! While there are technological innovations discussed here, it seems to me it's mainly a story about costs and incentives. When it's cheaper and easier to throw used solar panels in the landfill, that's what people will do. (Thereby distributing the true costs to all of us in the form of congested landfills and pollution.) But when government applies both incentives and regulations to make sure the cost of solar panel disposal falls upon the people who are responsible for it (the solar panel users and manufacturers), it creates a situation where there is now an incentive to decrease the cost of recycling. And like lead acid batteries before them, that's what people will do. They'll come up with new technologies or improve existing ones to bring that cost of recycling down.
It's just a matter of making sure the cost of disposal remains with the people who created and used the product, instead of being distributed to everyone through degradation of the environment.
Recycling to me is something that the governments around the world should be taking direct control over in both organizing and funding. It should be considered another public service like with infrastructure. If it's not directly profitable from a purely economic point of view, well, there are quite a few things that our tax dollars pay for that would fall under that categorization that we ultimately benefit from.
Is sewage/waste treatment profitable enough to be a widescale privatized industry? There would be grave health and economic consequences if we didn't have that properly taken care of, but it's not like treatment companies directly see all the benefits from that upkeep in a monetary sense.
Governments rarely do things efficiently, and they can be extremely slow to adopt new technology. It would be better to have them contract it out (with actual competitive contracts). The way I would do it, though, would be to just tax the waste based on how bad it is for the environment, and companies will recycle when recycling costs less than that.
Well, I agree that as we move forward the recycling will become. The one I am more concerned with is the recycling of Wind turbon blades. There is currently no way to recycle these. The result has seen the grow of land fills for thiskind of waste. They are not added to current dump sites because they not only cannot be recycled but will take multiple centuries to finally break down.
How do they go bad?
@@peterw1534 Material deterioration by exposure to the elements, fatigue, cracks.
That and stress from the constant motion of air across the blades needed to turn the internal generator. This takes a good deal of tork
Except some are being recycled already and certain new ones have been redesigned to be more easily recycleable.
@@ooooneeee I have yet to see anything market wise about the effort.
You got me with the thumbnail and title change.
Hi Matt, I want to get panels for my upcoming new roof, but I live in the pacific northwest.
My house is surrounded by beautiful tall trees and I'm concerned about keeping the panels clean.
Please provide another one of your great videos on panel maintenance and up keep. THANKS!
chop down the trees and burn them for heat the co2 is free so sayeth the IPCC
The LA Times was simply mounting a defense of the indefensible Californian taxes and levies on rooftop solar, which happened because of utility company lobbying, not any concern for the environment. They should be ignored. Or perhaps ridiculed. Solar panels do not represent a huge volume of waste, and if they MUST be recycled, they can simply be returned to service 95% of the time.
Well, at least people are finally starting to talk about solar's end-of-life problems. The only part thats really worth recycling is the aluminum frame. The glass and solar cells are just too expensive to recycle to be worth it. The worst part is that people are being sold the panels with government subsidies, but there's never been a government cent available for end of life.
IMO we should be going nuclear, not solar.
Wow! I would’ve assumed we had a jump on PV recycling. The more you know!!
I'm seriously surprised Oregon hasn't joined the list of states with solar panel EOL recycling plans! However, I've asked a few different employees at Portland General Electric if they have any robust recycling plans and they could not give me a straight answer. We really need to figure this out. This is a serious holdup for me when choosing solar over SMRs. Thanks for making a great video Matt!
Portland General Electric is a electric utility, much like Ford is not a recycling facility. Ford leaves the recycling to other companies, and PGE will also allow others to recycle the solar panes. Used solar panels can be in use for over 35 years! Mine are about that old now, and still in use to keep my RV battery full.
It can’t be less expensive to mine and refine the elements used in the panels, than to refine the material from shredded panels. There’s no way! The process just needs to be optimised and scaled up.
Random comment for channel interaction.
Channel interaction? What's that? 😏
Great work Matt. Scooby snacks for you!
Yes, that was a hare one to put together. Fantastic job.
Congrats on 1MM
One thing not mentioned in this video is getting the developers and manufacturers to design a solar PV panel that is recyclable more easily in the first place. Even if it ends up being more expensive to produce, it could be worth the price overall if it is easier and less costly to recycle safely.
Another thorough and interesting video!
I think PV panels are OK for private homes or a roof of a business, for large scale concentrated solar power makes more sense. It can also be used to desalinate water, killing two birds with one stone.
Interesting video! I installed lead-free REC Alpha Pure panels this summer. So regulators just need to ban lead in panels, and the heavy metal problem is gone.
You should do a video covering the destructive and water intensive mining required to obtain the 'rare' metals used in solar panel and electric vehicle production.
Great EP. Topic was a Weee bit to Advanced for me. Thanks to Brilliance I'm all caught up.
As JB says, "Closed Loop" Very important!
great analysis.
stacked up carefully and screwed well into place they would make a wonderful shiny mountain for people to slide down summer and winter alike, just bring some oil!
With solar panels running better at lower temperatures, have any manufacturers made a PV/thermal combined panel.
You could extract heat from the panel and use that to pre-heat your hot water with a thermal store.
When the store is hot you could divert the water through a finned heat exchanger and using a fan cool the water temperature.
The typo in the thumbnail got me clickbait. Great content btw ;)
Just wanted to say thanks for putting the sponsor ad at the END of the video. It's infuriating to pay for Premium and still get ads in the middle of videos. When it's at the end I let it play as appreciation.
If I get my own installer and pull my own permits can the 20k install fee be waived off I check and is ok to do
All technology should and must be sustainable, easily dismantlable, deconstructable and recyclable.
Thank you very much for the brilliant informative documentary,.
Very kind of you.
We aren't recycling a lot of panels yet because the number of panels put into service 40 years ago was tiny. "The wave" is more like 20 years out.
I am so glad to see this video. We are a solar energy manufacturer from China. I hope we can provide better production capacity and research and development for the world's green new energy, and make progress together to witness the beauty of the world!
A lot of the older panels that have dropped below their 80% output levels will still be producing for several decades either in the original install or in a second life scenario that we already see booming in the US. Solar panel recycling isn't any more challenging than current electronic circuit board recycling. Take off the outer frame and then drop the glass panel into a hammermill to be reduced to powder using water to keep the dust contained and dump the output onto a shaker table with rifflle mats to sort out the components by density. Then use acid to remove the heavy metals and separate them out. They could also use heat and mechanical scraping to separate the solar cells and encapulent from the glass to reduce the amount they have to separate through useing the the hammermill and shaker table. Either way it will still be easier than the recycling of lithium batteries since lithium batteries tend to catch fire unless they are completely discharged.