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Maybe we should banish the term "clean energy." Growing corn for ethanol requires fertilizers and pesticides. Producing and shipping small-scale wind turbines for urban areas generates more CO2 than they save. Production of polysilicon for solar panels leaves a trail of toxic waste in China, as The Washington Post reported back in 2008.
Now a survey and scorecard that ranks solar energy firms points to potential environmental, health and safety issues associated with the production and disposal of solar photovoltaic panels -- as well as the reluctance of some well-known industry players even to talk about their practices.
The survey comes from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, an activist group that has produced similar scorecards of the computer and TV industries, designed the shame the laggards into reform. (In the argot of environmental activists, this tactic is known as "rank 'em and spank 'em.") SVTC is calling for mandatory takeback and responsible recycling by solar companies as a step toward reducing the solar industry's environmental footprint.
Maybe the most striking thing about the survey was how many solar companies felt free to ignore it. Only 14 companies replied, representing about 25 percent of the industry's module production in 2008, according to the SVTC. Well-known companies that did not respond include California-based Solyndra–which has been offered a $535-million loan guarantee by the U.S. Department of Energy–and venture-backed startups Miasole, Nanosolar and Konarka. Other companies that did not respond to the SVTC include Silicon Valley-based SunPower; Suntech, the Chinese solar giant that plans to open a plant in Arizona; and Japanese electronics firm Sharp.
Sheila Davis, the executive director of the activist group, told me she wasn't surprised at the lack of response.
"We've done scorecards in the past, and in the first round, we typically get a low response rate," she said. "Our experience is after a couple of years, companies are knocking on your door to participate because it becomes a competitive issue."
The top three scores in the SVTC survey were earned by German manufacturers Calyxo, SolarWorld and Sovello, scoring 90, 88 and 73 respectively. The two U.S.-based respondents scored in the mid range: First Solar in Arizona received a score of 67 and Colorado-based Abound received a 63.
Other key findings:
• 57 percent of respondents would support mandatory takeback and recycling programs in the markets where they sell solar panels.
• 42.8 percent of companies are setting aside money to finance the collection and disposal of end-of-life panels and 50 percent said that they provide recycling services free of charge.
• 50 percent have undertaken analysis of their supply chain to document the social and environmental impacts associated with different production phases.
The reason why take-back and recycling programs are so important in solar, as they are in other industries, is that when companies understand that they will be responsible for the end-of-life of a product, they have an incentive to rethink their design and materials. "There are hazardous materials and rare metals in solar panels that don't belong in landfills," Davis said. "Anytime you have a product that you can't recycle, that's waste, and it's a pollution problem."
How big a problem? SVTC estimates that announced utility-scale solar panel projects in the state of California alone will generate about 1.5 billion pounds of panel waste.
The good news? Because panels last 20 to 25 years, companies and their customers have time to get a recycling infrastructure together.
GreenBiz.com Senior Writer Marc Gunther is a longtime journalist and speaker whose focus is business and sustainability. Marc maintains a blog at MarcGunther.com. You can follow him on Twitter @marcGunther.
Ammend that
please make that "about 1.5 Billion pounds", and make the pile about 40% lower:)
Misleading title, awful journalism
I read this article to the end, anticipating the revelation of a "dirty secret". Which, it appears, is that solar has a non-zero environmental footprint. Wow. I'm trembling.
What isn't done is making any meaningful comparison with present practice. Because criticizing an alternative is a vote for the status quo, campers, and there is not a mention of the impact that the coal-fired world presently makes.
The only hard number quoted is "up to two and a half billion pounds" which sounds huge, but which is, incidentally, about one million tons, or a four hectare landfill with 7 meters of coverage, assuming that the stuff is about as dense as soil, at 1.2-1.6T/M3.
So we're talking about ONE shopping center car-park to contain all the solar waste of the entire state of California. Kindly Google Earth some coal mines, and count the land area. Hell, look at conventional landfill for ordinary consumer junk.
The question of environmental impact of any technology is important to asses, but it really needs to be done in a way that makes a fair comparison with the status quo, and in a way that makes the numbers meaningful. If your journalist ain't up to that, find one that can count.
Call me naive, but...
I still think it's necessary to bring all industry under scrutiny and hold them responsible for their products' life cycles. In my opinion, that is the best way to bring about innovation in an industry with respect to best practices. Companies will (almost) always take the path that will cost the least which, when it comes to live cycle design, is often the best result.
On another note, the stats that indicate the 50% life cycle research, etc, fail to note that roughly that same percentage is represented by the number of survey participant companies from Germany, where such life cycle ownership is required by law. This is something that the U.S. would do well to emulate.
ecorightconstruction
Long term impacts of other energy industries?
Agreeing with what others have said above....While important to examine and reduce impacts of new energy technologies, analyzing them in a vacuum is not realistic, nor helpful. Would love to see a similar analysis made to coal extraction, transport, burning.....
It is worth understanding
the realistic implications, as too many people simply green wash their opinions. The survey is not by any means definitive, but is a place to start from.
By the way, based on about 8 years real world experience, I think the failure rate (delaminating, backflow, environmental damage) among panels will be higher than expected, and your average lifespan will be much lower than projected.
Energy's dirty secret
Let's be fair, and not pick on solar manufacturing. Biased studies like this are either terribly misguided or are a subtle form of disinformation. The coal and oil companies are thrilled to see this kind of proof that solar power companies are polluters, just like every one else.
Plants take pristine rocks and turn them into dirty soil. Burning renewable wood makes toxic smoke. Mining and smelting copper and iron for electrical generators of any kind creates poisonous mine tailings.
End-to-end accounting is a good idea, but it's tremendously difficult to do correctly. The first thing to look for is the terms of the results, which should be in amount of pollutant per kilowatt-hour of power delivered to the end user, averaged over the lifespan of the installation. Compared to coal and nuclear, solar is still approximately zero, even adding in the contributions from manufacturing.
@anon - Makes sense but don't
@anon - Makes sense but don't hold your breath waiting. The concept behind the SVTC is basically green mafias motto, !do it our way or off with your head!'
Manufacturing Comparisons
I would like the author to actually compare manufacturing fallout and carbon footprints of ALL consumer energies. That, to me, would reflect a true comparison of what we should expect, as well as the ability to model manufacturing processes and improvements going forward.