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by wellboy 3172 days ago
Solar panels make their ecological footprint after 3 years of use and last for 30 years. 80% of the material in solar panels is recycled from old solar panels.

So no matter how you turn it, solar panels are a lot alot more environmentally friendly than convential energy sources.
1 comments
FooHentai 3171 days ago
>80% of the material in solar panels is recycled from old solar panels.

That doesn't pass the sniff test. Solar cell production is on a strong upwards curve, if 80% is recycled from other panels then supply would be bounded by old solar stock recovery, which is not the case.

I can't see how 80% of solar panel material, even if we're talking exclusively about the PV cells and not the surrounds, could be from old solar panels, especially not 30 year old solar panels.

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wellboy 3171 days ago
In fact it is 90% http://earth911.com/eco-tech/recycle-solar-panels/ and there are nee processes that reach 96%.
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FooHentai 3170 days ago
That's 90% of the material being recovered from old solar panels, not 90% of new panels being made up of recycled material.

That's still great news, but nothing like:

>80% of the material in solar panels is recycled from old solar panels.

Which implies new panels rolling off the production line consisted of 80% recycled material from old panels. That's not possible. If you have 10 old panels coming in to be recycled, and you recover 90% of the materials from them, and you're producing 100 new panels (since production is increasing), at best you're gonna get 9% recycled material into your new panels.

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