Solar Power energy Environmental issues?

Question

There are no environmental issues using solar power is there? None at all?

Answer 1

I am always amazed that people are so quick to try and find fault with solar, as has been pointed out, currently solar panels use a waste product, so the environmental impact is already done. No one suggests doing away with mobile phones or computers, which you are using right now, if anything solar panels offset the environmental damage caused by the IC manufacturing industry.

As for solar panels preventing plant growth, get real, thousands of acres of rain forest are being cut down on a daily basis to make way for bio-fuel crops, to keep the great piston engine going. Basic physics tells us that every time you have a change in direction you lose energy, that makes the piston engine the most inefficient machine on the planet. So ever wondered why it’s not got any better, your car is just an ink jet printer, a device for using as much of the consumable as possible, the money is not in the car it’s in the fuel. The ant-solar movement is based on economics, there are no consumables, so put people off it, keep them believing that the diesel generator is much better.

Over its lifetime a single gram of silicon can produce 3,300 kWh of electricity without releasing life threatening toxic and radioactive substances. A single gram of uranium can produce 3,800 kWh of electricity.  However, a uranium atom can only be fissioned once, whereas a silicon solar cell can absorb photons repeatedly to generate electricity. Gram for gram, silicon and uranium produce comparable amounts of electricity.

Answer 2

There are some issues, but it is by far the cleanest possible solution.  There are potential pollution issues with some of the chemicals used in the manufacturing process for both the solar cells and batteries.  Mining for raw materials almost always adversely affects the environment.

There will be less sunlight hitting the plants and animals in the areas that solar cells are deployed.  Although if done properly this shouldn't be an issue.

Answer 3

Of course there are, but they are in general less than alternates. If you want solar panels on your roof they have to be manufactured somewhere which creates waste and uses energy. The huge solar arrays being built in CA will impact the wild life that currently lives on that land.

The fact of the matter is, unless we can convince millions of Americans to dramatically reduce the energy they use, we have to continue to build power plants, they all have an environmental impact. It is just better and cheaper in the long run to build a plant that won't continue to pollute the environment once it is running or use a resource that will run out.

Answer 4

yes ther are.  Some people want us to dismantle powerlines because they are bad. Endangered animals will die because of construction.  mining the materials is bad. using precious water to keep the lenses clean is bad. people can get hurt making and install the systems. it goes on and on.

Answer 5

Yes there are a few Environmental issues, as stated above, however compared to the alternatives they have to be con minuscule, especially considering the new technology that is now at hand.

Nanosolar is actually installing their solar panels on raise trellises to no interfere with growth beneath them, as well as installing them on the borders of cities to reduce the need for long power lines.

http://www.nanosolar.com/

Southern California Edison, is installing solar panel on top of commercial building in San Bernardino.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/...

Answer 6

Oh yes there are.

First of all solar panels require semi-conductors to manufacture which have to be mined and processed (which releases a lot of toxic waste).  For the moment the solar industry has been using leftovers from the IC industry but that can't last if production rates increase significantly.

Then there are the environmental effects of doing solar power on a large scale, even in deserts it isn't very good for the environment.

To make matters worse solar power is unreliable and so needs backup power for use at night or when clouds reduce the power output of the cells, energy storage combined with sufficient overcapacity to charge it can be used for small scale systems but we don't have an adequate utility scale energy storage system so right now solar is usually backed up by fossil fuels.  The environmental effects of the backup power (and any overcapacity needed to charge an energy storage system) must be taken into account for a fair comparison to reliable power systems.

When you do that ground based solar starts to look pretty c**p (which might be why solar and wind proponents never seem to like a fair comparison).

Probably the biggest environmental issue with solar though is that it makes people think they are doing something when they really aren't thereby distracting people from real solutions to the global warming problem (such as nuclear power).  Right now, with our current technology level solar power can not supply our civilisation with its electricity needs no matter how much we are willing to spend to do so (and it can't even if it were combined with wind, geothermal and hydro) but if we try to do solar then we're spending money that could have been spent on nuclear power (which actually can do so).  Some might argue that we'll eventually solve the energy storage problem (and I suspect we will) but we don't know when we'll solve it nor can we rule out the possibility that we'll never solve it which means that when it comes to something as important as stopping global warming requires us not to rely on us solving the energy storage problem if we can avoid it.

There is one place where solar power works really well and that is space, putting solar power plants in geostationary orbit and beaming the power down to earth with microwaves would solve pretty much all issues to do with solar power (and potentially give something that can undercut nuclear fission, our current cheapest clean power source) although it's also sufficiently speculative that we shouldn't try to rely on it (merely be ready to embrace it when our space infrastructure becomes good enough to do it).

Answer 7

Other than in deserts, if land is covered with solar collectors we lose any carbon collection by plants under the collector, we lose the plants as food for animal life.

The materials used to make the collectors are another area of concern... there is no fee lunch here.

Solar collectors have a heat capture too. so that the sun's heat will re-radiate only as infra-red, and that means it will be more heavily trapped by the greenhouse effect.

When a solar array is mounted on a home, it still collects extra heat, available to but not necessarily used in heating the home.

Also, the space under the panels is no longer being sacrificed from growing crops.

So put solar panels on a building or in a desert.

Answer 8

There is issues!Like the factory's waste  silicon will pollute our environment.

Answer 9

Great question!

Direct answer is 'no' at least during use if the solar panels are placed in low impact zones (on buildings, in desert, etc). But indirectly there are some issues which must be addressed.  

1st issue is that most solar uses silicon wafers and manufacturing processes which are similar to microelectronics, hence the fabrication can be overly hazardous to the environment if the manufacturer(s) do not take proper precautions.  This should be researched on a case-by-case basis.  

2nd, if solar energy is stored for use at night, the storage devices (often batteries) can have weighty environmental consequences if not disposed of properly.  

Finally, once the solar cell fails hopefully many years down the road, what do we do with it?  How does all that silicon and support structure and wiring get disposed of (yes, there are companies out there that do this, including SolarWorld, a Solar manufacturing company).  Yet even recycling can have an impact on the environment.  

We can continue to drive our environmental impact down, but only by asking the question you just asked will that be possible, so again I say, Great Question!