All Energy Solar

Busting Fear-Based Myths About Solar Energy

Recent studies have shown that fake news travels six times faster than true stories. Because of this, busting myths around solar is getting more and more difficult. The unfortunate effect of this is serving to delay the adoption of solar, even by people who might otherwise want to invest in it. We’ve busted many myths in the past (check some of them out here, here, and here), but let’s jump in again and bust a few more recent ones that keep popping up.

Myth: Solar will create a mountain of toxic waste and fill up our landfills

This particular myth keeps rearing its ugly head, but a recent article in the journal Nature Physics does a great job of debunking this once and for all. In the article the authors claim that in a worst case scenario, 160 million metric tons of solar panel waste could be accumulated by 2050. This represents a very small amount when compared to other sources of waste such as municipal waste, coal ash, plastic waste, e-waste, and oily sludge. The waste from coal ash alone would be 800 times greater than solar panel waste, a small price to pay for affordable, sustainable, and clean energy.

Solar detractors have also spent a lot of time complaining that solar panels contain toxic materials such as lead, arsenic, gallium, germanium, and hexavalent chromium. They claim that these materials can “run-off” from solar panels, creating toxic waste in your own backyard, on solar farms, or in the landfill. In fact, the researchers found that the most common types of photovoltaic panels contained “almost none” of these toxins. Some substances such as cadmium that appear in small amounts are highly valuable and can be easily recycled.

Myth: The production of solar panels and storage batteries requires such high carbon emissions that they can never be offset during their lifetime

Critics argue that battery production is environmentally harmful due to mining activities, but this overlooks the broader context. While mining does release pollutants, these critics ignore similar impacts from extracting materials for steel, aluminum, and cement. The hypocrisy lies in objecting only to mining for batteries.

The Center For Alternative Technologies highlights that the carbon footprint of lithium-ion batteries is about 100 kg of CO2 per kWh when made with fossil fuels, but this drops to 60 kg when renewable energy is used. To offset the manufacturing impact, a battery needs to be charged with zero-carbon energy and replace methane-generated electricity around 200 times, something that is typically achievable in less than a year.

Solaris Renewables also addresses this myth directly by explaining that most solar panels become carbon neutral by their third year of operation and are then about 20 times less carbon-intensive than coal-powered electricity. Considering the greenhouse gases produced by coal mining versus solar panels, solar panels are a far cleaner alternative.With solar adoption now growing faster than ever, there is no doubt that we will continue to see more myths like these pop up. Sometimes seeing the numbers work for you is the best way to become a believer in solar. Contact us for a free quote and see how you can start saving money and minimizing your carbon footprint today.

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