Intercontinental power transmission

[Bohandas]

Coincidentally, Slate just published an article about how we need to start planning for how to deal with the millions of dead solar panels we're going to have in a couple decades.

Time to go bug your local/regional/national representatives.

I'm gonna say we should recycle and/or refurbish. The article says outright that a big part of the problem is that current recycling efforts aren't large enough.

[sihnfahl]

I'm gonna say we should recycle and/or refurbish. The article says outright that a big part of the problem is that current recycling efforts aren't large enough.

Which comes around from the costs of recycling versus landfilling.

And the salable price of the recycled stuff ... which comes down the reclamation efficiency.

Which means until the net of recycling is close to, or superior to, landfilling the panels, barring legislative action, landfilling wins out.

[Bohandas]

Well that's simple. We just need to make it more expensive to landfill them

[Rockphed]

Well that's simple. We just need to make it more expensive to landfill them

But that will drastically raise the cost of solar power plants, and those go bankrupt often enough as it is.

[Keltest]

But that will drastically raise the cost of solar power plants, and those go bankrupt often enough as it is.

Sounds like good incentive for them to look into more cost efficient recycling methods then.

[Lord Torath]

Most of the big solar plants that I've read about don't use photovoltaic panels, but fields of mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto towers that then use the heat to create steam to turn turbines. They won't be affected much. It's the individual users and non-power companies putting solar on their roofs that will be the most affected by a price hike in solar panels.

[Trafalgar]

Which comes around from the costs of recycling versus landfilling.

And the salable price of the recycled stuff ... which comes down the reclamation efficiency.

Which means until the net of recycling is close to, or superior to, landfilling the panels, barring legislative action, landfilling wins out.

The costs of recycling have shot up since China won't take the material anymore. Much of our current recycling is landfilled or incinerated. Here in Philadelphia, for example, half of recycled material is incinerated or landfilled.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...-trash/584131/

https://www.inquirer.com/science/cli...-20190125.html

[sihnfahl]

It's not just that.

Also factor in single-stream recycling, which increases the contamination rate of recyclables.

Which means ... those items are no longer eligible for recycling. The end product, if there is one that isn't sludge, would be inferior.

So the cost of transporting and processing those items is now no different than shoving it into a landfill, plus a little overhead evaluating the contamination and repacking it for shipping for incineration / landfilling.

With no costs recouped from selling recycled material.

[asda fasda]

Regarding recycling I would say that this is quite separate topic and not one solar-panel specific. All power plants have significant equipment that needs to be replaces regularly (at least in 30 year periods) which include many electronics parts and I can bet you that those are probably not recycled properly, as most of stuff right now isn't, so I would be caution with this.

Most of the big solar plants that I've read about don't use photovoltaic panels, but fields of mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto towers that then use the heat to create steam to turn turbines. They won't be affected much. It's the individual users and non-power companies putting solar on their roofs that will be the most affected by a price hike in solar panels.

I think that's just because photovoltaic is new technology, or after looking thorough Wikipedia it would be better to say that efficient photovoltaic panels are a new technology, but as I understand it "fields of mirrors to concentrate sunlight" was primary technology for generating sun energy but it's not very efficient and photovoltaic panels have more to offer and now those kind are build, to back this up Wikipedia has a pretty long list of photovoltaic power stations (with some nice satelite phtotos)

[Vinyadan]

Most of the big solar plants that I've read about don't use photovoltaic panels, but fields of mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto towers that then use the heat to create steam to turn turbines. They won't be affected much. It's the individual users and non-power companies putting solar on their roofs that will be the most affected by a price hike in solar panels.

Does this match the description?

[gomipile]

I think that's just because photovoltaic is new technology, or after looking thorough Wikipedia it would be better to say that efficient photovoltaic panels are a new technology, but as I understand it "fields of mirrors to concentrate sunlight" was primary technology for generating sun energy but it's not very efficient and photovoltaic panels have more to offer and now those kind are build, to back this up Wikipedia has a pretty long list of photovoltaic power stations (with some nice satelite phtotos)

I think I may be misunderstanding you.

Current photovoltaic panels of the highest quality top out at 20% to 22% efficiency when brand new.

Concentrated solar power plants (solar "power towers" with fields of heliostats) range from 20% to 35% efficiency.

What photovoltaic panels offer is convenience of installation, operation, and maintenance. They require much less in the way of specialized operation and safety training, and much less complicated engineering for designing an installation.

[veti]

I'm gonna say we should recycle and/or refurbish. The article says outright that a big part of the problem is that current recycling efforts aren't large enough.

The efforts are small because the volumes are tiny. It's only in the last 20 years that people have started to install the things on any significant scale, and they have a lifetime ~25 years, so the number of panels currently reaching end of life per year is tiny. You'd be crazy to build a big, expensive facility for that volume of business.

But as the volumes ramp up, that calculus will change. In five, ten years, it'll be a different story. And by then there will also have been progress in recycling technologies, which would make a plant built today look outdated anyway.

Ideally, I'd like to see a dedicated storage facility for panels retired today, with appropriate incentives - stick and/or carrot - for people to deliver them there, where they can be stored until the infrastructure exists to reprocess them efficiently. But I wouldn't anticipate it being needed much more than ten years.

[sihnfahl]

But as the volumes ramp up, that calculus will change. In five, ten years, it'll be a different story. And by then there will also have been progress in recycling technologies, which would make a plant built today look outdated anyway.

Perhaps a bit optimistic? Consider the amount of e-waste generated yearly, between people disposing of smartphones, computers, monitors, etc...

[Rockphed]

Perhaps a bit optimistic? Consider the amount of e-waste generated yearly, between people disposing of smartphones, computers, monitors, etc...

And most of it ends up in poor African towns where they take it apart without any PPE or environmental regulations...

[Trafalgar]

So I did 60 seconds of research into recycling photovoltaic cells and this is what I found:

https://www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/20...0cell%20frames.

I guess I was surprised at how little e-waste and plastic there is in a solar panel. If you can turn the recovered glass into another solar panel, this is probably our best option.

[sktarq]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/featu...p-in-landfills

about the lack of recycling options for wind power turbines (especially the blades and towers)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC_BCz0pzMw
a fairly decent video about the economics of nuclear power plants with a direct cost comparison to natural gas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5cm7HOAqZY
another video from the same irish guy above discussing issues about power storage and the issues California is having already with this.

as a side note the regulatory issues with building atomic power plants can be many, subtle, and weirdly backwards. For example here in Cali the main reason we can't build any is a law that says before you build one you have to show and have reserved space for the permanent disposal of the HLW....this was done back when people thought Yucca mountain would open soon and was not meant to shut the industry down but it did anyway.

As for the original concept....okay lets stick several cities worth of people to build, maintain, monitor etc these things in a place that is a struggle to keep a bunch of die-hard scientists healthy and sane....also all their support services...bringing in all their food, goods, etc...and they are all going to want hazard/hardship pay and for good reason...And if you need to surge people...how exactly?

Plus there are issues in making the bloody things work down there. Concrete sets different, metal that will need to operate at one temperature could well be being installed at a significantly different size due to thermal contraction...also warming and cooling cycles are going to just put way more stress on the system in general as different parts expand and contract at different rates.

Also if something does go wrong Antarctica is freakishly windy so it will get spread out fast.

oh I have not yet got to the actual power transmission yet....

Well power transmission over long distance SUCKS. you loose a ton of power in the lines as heat. Maybe using YCBO and Liquid Nitrogen could help but that is another giant kettle of fish. Also most power usage is well into the northern hemisphere. North America, Europe, China, almost all of India, etc. So you are not just talking about putting it a VERY LONG way away you are talking about putting it more than half a world away. figuring out how to send solar from the Sahara to Europe, North America, and India or from the Gobi back to Vancouver etc and just chase the sunset.