Solar power — Don’t expect perfection, demand progress
“Solar panels — an eco-disaster waiting to happen?” As we face up to a future without fossil fuels, this headline grabs attention, but it’s bigger message is far more problematic.
No technology is perfect. Let’s address that at the outset; every advancement we make comes with costs, be them economic, social, or environmental. In fact we now stand at the precipice of environmental collapse for exactly that reason. Fossil fuels have proved far from perfect, and yet have persisted throughout the last century as our preferred energy technology.
This is thanks, in part, to persistent lobbying by the fossil fuel industry to influence our media, governments, and businesses, and suffocate the investment and popularity of renewables. As a result, there remains wide scepticism and public distrust in the mass production of renewable energy, aka our energy future.
Why is this context important?
2023 marks a significant rebalancing of our energy system, with global solar energy investment set to outstrip oil for the first time in a single year.
The annual investment report findings from the International Energy Agency (IEA) depict a resounding vote of market confidence in solar. It is now not only the fastest growing renewable, but is also cheaper and far less (up to 20 times) carbon intensive to produce than its fossil alternatives.
However, this rapid expansion comes with warnings about some of solar’s own technological imperfections, namely e-waste.
In short, between 2000 and 2050, we will have made, used, and at some point need to dispose of many, many solar panels.
Currently, the materials in a solar panel are considered ‘difficult’ to recycle. The aluminium frames, low quality laminate glass, and interwoven fragments of precious metals make for complicated, though far from impossible, material recovery.
So great is the predicted use of solar, some have branded e-waste from discarded panels a new and impending “eco-disaster”. Indeed, it is certainly a challenge. Yet in solving it, we are offered an unrivalled opportunity to build a truly circular economy, on an immense scale.
How? Well let’s understand our situation a little better…
The same BBC article from which that fearful headline originates also highlights that it is not for our lack of recycling capability — the first dedicated PV recycling plant is due to open this month in France with a proposed 99% material recovery rate — but rather our lack of recycling capacity which prevents us from handling the massive volumes of panels our future will demand.
To put this into perspective, the French plant can only recycle 4000 tonnes per year; by 2030, we will likely have over 2 million tonnes of panel waste.
This is altogether a different issue, and one not born solely of our technologies, but notably of our governments and energy industries. They have neglected to invest resources or research into the infrastructure of material recovery and regeneration, and in doing so, we are depriving ourselves of the chance to build our global energy system into a self sustaining circular economy, from which, the health of our societies and our natural world can thrive.
For me, this is the true attention-grabbing headline of our energy transition — we have witnessed the mistakes of our past, known the trajectory of our future (for some time now), and yet again, we are woefully behind in preparing fundamental renewables infrastructure.
So what? It’s just one article with one, perhaps mis-judged, headline.
Whilst writing this piece, several recent and rather heated conversations with colleagues stick in my mind.
Like me, many of them are rightfully questioning how we intend to deliver on our decarbonisation goals, and this week some even wielded the ‘eco-disaster’ headlines in strident opposition to my optimism.
For them, the existence and publicity of just this one story has undone years of trust-building in renewables and resurfaced a fossil-fueled rhetoric of doubt and despair.
This is the damage a single sentence when used out of perspective is capable of. The perspectives from which we ponder our future have never mattered more, especially when peoples’ very belief in our ability to change hangs by an oil-soaked thread.
Amongst these doubts however, I do remain optimistic. My colleagues rarely pay much notice of the advancements in ‘green tech’, let alone share their thoughts on them with me without prompt. Yet this topic struck some level of personal stake for them — they want renewables to succeed.
That is a valuable feeling that all of us who wish to see a future on this beautiful planet must latch on to, and a feeling our media must nurture.
Framed differently, our solar energy landscape can tell a far more empowering story:
The world is rapidly agreeing that fossil fuels must remain in our past, and our focus has to now be on overcoming the challenges of a renewable future.
We know we have been inexcusably slow in preparing for a material-based energy sector.
However, as our investment in solar and wind grows, so too do the economic and efficiency opportunities to create cheap energy within a circular system, a system which designs materials to be recycled and reused in a continuous cycle and eases our burden on Earth’s finite resources.
What is required now is the same industrious ambition that has always enabled us to thrive on this planet, i.e. we need more French solar panel recycling plants, and we need them quickly.
Every sum of time, money, and messaging we retain for the oil, coal, and gas world of today to pine for a perfect alternative is nothing but squandered progress in slowing planetary warming.
After all, there is one cost we cannot afford to pay. The loss of our uniquely survivable home.
