A June 21 Forbes article by Michael Shellenberger argues that solar energy is not as environmentally friendly as green energy supporters say and that it is more toxic to the environment than nuclear energy.
According to the report, discarded solar panels produce 300 times more toxic waste than high-level waste from nuclear power plants. Rather than being safely stored away from the public, solar panels are shipped to sub-Saharan landfills in Africa and is highly dangerous for local trash pickers and communities.
"The reason was because it was so much cheaper to make new solar panels from raw materials than to recycle them, and would remain that way, given labor and energy costs," Shellenberger wrote in the article.
Shellenberger said it is 10 to 30 times more costly to recycle solar panels than to simply dump them in a landfill. This is problematic because the toxic substances from solar panels comprise significantly more toxic waste than laptops, smart phones and other electronic devices combined.
A study by Harvard Business Review found that waste produced by solar panels will make solar energy four times more expensive than was previously assumed. HBR estimates that “by 2035… discarded panels would outweigh new units sold by 2.56 times.”
“If early replacements occur as predicted by our statistical model [solar panels] can produce 50 times more waste in just four years than [International Renewable Energy Agency] IRENA anticipates," wrote Harvard Business Review researchers. "That figure translates to around 315,000 metric tons of waste, based on an estimate of 90 tonns per MW weight-to-power ratio.”
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, utility-scale solar installations provided 5% of New Mexico’s in-state net generation in 2020, while customer-sited solar panels added about 1%.
In 2019, New Mexico lawmakers raised the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS), mandating that by 2030, 50% of electricity retail sales be from renewable sources, ramping up to 80% by 2040 and 100% by 2045. Additionally, New Mexico has created regulatory and financial policies that incentivize and favor wind and solar energy including net metering, solar easements, interconnection standards, and taxpayer subsidies.
The average lifespan of solar panels is roughly 20 years, but high-temperature environments can accelerate this degradation, reducing their effectiveness, according to CFACT.
Solar panels typically use nitrogen trifluoride in their construction, a substance the UN intergovernmental panel on climate change has deemed to be 17,200 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.