Well they are semiconductors doped with elements like arsenic so they are definitely hazardous. Of course it all depends on how you dispose of them at the end of their life. If people just throw them in the trash it is not good.
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Apple Announces 10 New 'Power for Impact' Projects to Tackle Climate Change
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The total surface area of the average Mac box (except the Mini) is probably more than 10 times as large as the total surface area of an iPhone box.
That point is invalidated by the industry, for whom climate change isn't about worsening air and evironnment, but about new avenues to push ever-increasing new markets into. In fact, they are cutting down forests to build solar power grids, and replacing even low-impact farms with factories and solar power.
If any industry cared truly about the environment, they would roll up shop and do as you said, re-plant, stop advertising new ridiculous objects for us to buy, build locally rather than far away, and get their people back into traditional labour rather than the desk jobs that require massive buildings and infrastructure to support.
It is ALL a lie.
They glue batteries in their wireless earpods to make them non-repairable. Airpods are the least repairable in their categorie. This is a fact.
www.ifixit.com/News/35377/which-wireless-earbuds-are-the-least-evil
Apple always continues to focus on renewable energy and our planet. Good work apple.
Not sure what is a joke or if you've fallen sway to the various misinformation campaigns. But let me give you some facts from someone who builds energy generating facilities. Yes, Hydro is not forever without maintenance. But with good maintenance hydro projects can last at least a very long time and basically forever. There are hydro generating facilities that are 100 years old. I only use it as an aside because it is the only generating facility I can think of that you can build and with a straight face say, "This should still be running 100 years from now."
Please I hope that wind turbine blades wearing out from hitting a bird is a joke. Yes, wind turbines blades do hit birds from time to time. Maybe this works out to one bird a year per large wind turbine (I'm talking about the modern big boys that can individually power a small town), meaning one of the turbines three blades hits one bird per year. No that is not going to result in a "completely worn down on their leading edges".
There is one wind project, the Altomont project, built in the 1970s that between the combination of its location in a migratory bird path and the technology of the time (lattice structure looks, to birds, like a good place to nest) that really does a number on birds.
"Over the last 25 years there have probably been 17,000 raptor mortalities -- about a thousand golden eagles," said Dr. Michael Fry of the American Bird Conservancy in Washington, D.C.
Note, this project has 5,000 small turbines, so that works out to about 3 raptor mortalities per turbine over 25 years. And this old project is unlike any other project in the US on a bird mortality basis. Big modern turbines don't kill large numbers of birds and certainly not to the point where the turbine blades are wearing out.
This doesn't have much or anything to do with disposing of materials at the end of their useful life. But it even says in your link the answer, US law regulates the use and disposal of hazardous materials.
However, some toxic materials and chemicals are used to make the photovoltaic (PV) cells that convert sunlight into electricity. Some solar thermal systems use potentially hazardous fluids to transfer heat. Leaks of these materials could be harmful to the environment. U.S. environmental laws regulate the use and disposal of these types of materials.
US law also regulates the use and disposal of the oil in your car engine that your local mechanic has to comply with. There isn't anything special with a PV solar project in this regards. The number of solar thermal systems built at scale in the US that are mentioned in your link can be counted on one hand. Yes, when you do construction or decommissioning of anything in the US, you need to think about and comply with environmental codes. In the case of PV solar projects, there are minimal issues; far far less than the environmental issues associated with your local gas station/mechanic shop which actually regularly handles hazardous materials in the form of gas and oil.
And they won't be thrown in the trash because that is not how you decommission a multi-million dollar generating facility. Or how a contractor takes them off your roof. Currently we live in a world where someone will pay you for the right to junk your car because of the materials in it. Another example is the companies that pay for the right to scrap an old boat. You don't just toss a ton of metal in a landfill or sink it in the ocean. I strongly believe that the world will be more material constrained in 30 to 40 years when solar projects that are being installed now are coming to the end of their useful life. So I believe that when it comes time to decommission these projects, there will be companies bidding to take the materials away so they can recycle them and resell the base materials.
? The company I worked for has done created fields generating thousands of megawatts over 10 years now. A 40 year old panel is about as useful as a 40 year old horse.
Recycling of any kind in that industry is a joke. Nothing beats nuclear in terms of low environmental impact and cost per watt over the lifetime of the project.
I've no idea how you could have looked at 1,000s of MWs of 40-year old solar panels since there aren't that many installed that are even 15 years old. Industry standard expected degradation of a solar panel is 0.5% per year and every panel manufacturer will warranty their panels production for at least 20 years with 25 warranties now being standard. But will panels fail between 30 and 40 years? Possibly. Not enough old solar projects around to really say for sure.
As for Nukes, yes, they are great in terms of not producing CO2. But sorry pretty much every generating technology beats them in terms of cost per watt when we are talking about building a new generating facility. This is why the US basically doesn't build them; no one can make the cost pencil. And it isn't because folks don't want to do this. I've never built a nuke (which is as you would expect because very few people in the US have done so successfully), so this is one area I can't speak to from direct experience. But I've certainly seen the industry try (and I've worked with people who have tried). I remember when Obama was so excited to announce the start of construction of some nukes. (No, I've never talked to Obama, yes, I worked with people who were working on those nukes and who were coordinating with the Obama administration on them.) Here is the announcement:
Washington D.C. --- Underscoring his Administration's commitment to jumpstarting the nation's nuclear power industry, President Obama today announced that the Department of Energy has offered conditional commitments for a total of $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for the construction and operation of two new nuclear reactors at a plant in Burke, Georgia. The project is scheduled to be the first U.S. nuclear power plant to break ground in nearly three decades.
This announcement is from 2010 and work started on this prior to 2006. Here is the latest update:
July 29, 2021
Georgia Power today announced a revised schedule and cost forecast for the Vogtle 3 & 4 nuclear expansion project, resulting from productivity challenges and additional time for testing and quality assurance. The company currently projects a Unit 3 in-service date in the second quarter of 2022 and a Unit 4 in-service date in the first quarter of 2023, representing a three-to-four-month shift for each unit. The company has also revised the total project capital cost forecast to reflect this updated schedule – resulting in a $460 million increase to Georgia Power. Georgia Power's share of the total project capital cost forecast is now $9.2 billion, although the company has not sought approval of any capital costs above the $7.3 billion previously approved by the Georgia Public Service Commission.Georgia Power owns about half of these, so the cost of building them is approaching $20 billion, but it is hard to find total costs in a public fashion. No one really wants to talk about how vastly over budget these projects end up being.
Here is another recent example of attempting to build nukes in the US:
South Carolina Spent $9 Billion to Dig a Hole in the Ground and Then Fill It Back In
Cost is often raised as a critical objection to combating climate change. But South Carolina shows what's possible.
theintercept.com
South Carolina, in a bid to expand its generation of nuclear power in recent years, dropped $9 billion on a single project — and has nothing to show for it.
$9 billion into construction, the state just decided to walk away because it was unclear when the cost escalations would end.
You might see statements about nukes being low cost to produce Watts of electricity. What you are seeing is the cost of running projects built 30 or 50 years ago and they've long since covered their construction costs. There doesn't seem to be a way to build new Nukes in the US in anything that approaches an affordable way.
Was this supposed to be a joke? I can't tell. If it is, then well done, I love the dry humor!!
If you are serious then let me just say that the way you "state your opinion" is likely the reason why no one would want to converse with you about your point, instead they would just argue. Let me help you rephrase what you said....
"Anyone pushing for cleaner energy and does not include nuclear in the conversation is missing a huge piece in my opinion."
That not only is less combative but also allows for others to enter into a conversation rather than an argument. Just food for thought if you actually care about a point influencing people who don't already think like you do.
Just for the record, I agree with the idea of what you wrote, so I am "on your side".
Nope, I'm good with the way I said it. But thanks for your "opinion". I wasn't going for non-combative. I was just "stating a fact". (putting quotes randomly around words is fun)
Nope, I'm good with the way I said it. But thanks for your "opinion". I wasn't going for non-combative. I was just "stating a fact". (putting quotes randomly around words is fun)
"You do you"
You may not care what they're thinking, but I find it hilarious that you don't even know that these people (the ones you don't care what they're thinking) are actually are the same humans who keep saying that the sea levels are going to rise and we'll all have to move up into the mountains to keep from drowning.
Did you lose your scorecard? Oh right, you're in Europe; your media is just as corrupt as ours in the US. Well, I'm sure your politicians, actors, sports stars, and other royalty are all doing the same thing: saying we're all gonna die due to the world being 90% underwater and we'll all have to scrape and eat dirt to survive in the remaining 10% mountain/desert wastelands in 10 years. But then those same people buy prime beachfront property at or near sea level and build walls around it at every chance they get. Fun stuff!
Good for you; it's good to have passion, even if it's misplaced!
At the end of the day, nature will place its own indiscriminate judgement towards the human race. See you in 20 years.Good for you; it's good to have passion, even if it's misplaced!