What Are The Environmental Impacts Of Solar Cells?
Oct 09, 2009 in
diy
Sorry, phrased my previous question incorrect. Anyway, I am responsibility a project for solar cells and was wondering what are the environmental impacts of solar cells, besides pollution?
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2 comments
jballer9 on October 9, 2009 at 9:03 pm
The waste in manufacturing the panels are one, but one thing everyone is missing is this:
To deploy solar power, you need UNOBSTRUCTED view of the sun over its annual sweep. This means you need to have NOTHING between the panels and the sun the panels, EVER.
Although you can get landscapers to plot this out for you, this is a cost that is not taken into account, which can amount to a lot of cash.
I have a “green” neighbor who jumped into getting panels on their house, but the installers saw the trees and basically stripped the branches off of five “ancient growth” cherry and maple trees. I would say there was a pretty hefty environmental impact there. They wouldn’t chop them down because of town ordinances, but they look really hideous and the neighbor is still hurting from the experience.
That is why solar farms are not as well loved – they make shade when installed and require that full access to the sky to have maximum subsidy.
If you set them in the city, all the buildings/skylines need to be adjusted to not make shadows over any arrays. Not simple to accomplish – as we have no “solar rights” laws yet.
Rural areas/farming fertile areas would be a choice of solar power for food or electricity. Not an simple choice.
Hope that helps.
lc001 on October 9, 2009 at 9:30 pm
The use of solar cell modules naturally does not yield waste products that have any impact on the environment. But, the manufacture of the cells does require energy and equipment and may emit pollutants. Also the management of the waste at the module’s end of life may have impacts on the environment.
The question adressed in this research project is: “To what extent may the manufacture, use and end-of-life decomissioning of solar cell modules contribute risks to shape, safety and the environment”. For this purpose the environmental impact, safety and raw material exhaustion aspects of four types of solar cell modules have been studied by means of a life-cycle assessment (LCA).