933
Gas imports or solar panels?
(slrpnk.net)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
933 points (98.2% liked)
Climate
8436 readers
385 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Solar panels are easily recyclable as are a lot of batteries once infrastructure catches up. You burn that gas and its gone.
Millions of acres are used for corn to produce ethanol mixes for gas. All of this land is under direct sun. Also wind. This again is because of corn subsidies in the US.
The amount of money tied up in oil companies is second only to the military industrial complex. If we took that money to put toward renewable, we would solve a shit ton of issues.
Yes voltage drop exists. However , you know we have electrical lines to basically every structure in the US right? Even Joe blow in the absolute middle of nowhere has power lines. The grid is already here. We need to invest in it and improve it (also destroy data centers but thats a different discussion)
Also, panels dont just abruptly die after 20 years. They slowly start losing efficiency. You could be using a 30 year old panel, and it could be at 70% efficiency depending on degradation (*I can't say if 70% is accurate , I'd have to research it). Again, gas is burned up and used instantly, one time. Panel gets old, recycle it.
But we don't do things because they're good. We do them because they're profitable. Capitalism breeds innovation right?
What's the source on this? To my knowledge they're like most e-waste: technically recyclable but separating the component elements is functionally impossible
Most of the mass is aluminum for the frame. Then you have the actual silicon, which are paper thin wafers. And a voltage controller.
Also, its moot anyway, because that gas and oil is burned up the second its used. If we even recycle the frame of the panels only, net win.
No, it's actually easy to pull apart the different components of a panel and can be done by hand. The main expense is the labour.
The labor cost is the problem - it costs $10 to $20 (AU) to recycle a panel, but the value of the parts vary based on the cost of copper, silver and aluminium and so capitalism struggles to make a consistent profit on it. Hopefully as the oil crisis worsens, transport costs will probably go up and the profitablity of recycling should increase.
PS: The relevant technology connections video