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by rrdharan
1950 days ago
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Isn’t there still a lot of implied waste from the solar panels themselves though, as well as the storage batteries i.e. once they’ve reached their end of life? My understanding is that this cost and the manufacturing cost (rate earth metals etc.) are often overlooked when reasoning about the total footprint of both solar and electric vehicles.. |
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The rare earth elements are the lanthanides plus scandium and yttrium [1]. None of these elements are needed to manufacture solar panels. The only rare metal used in quantity by solar panels is silver, which is used to make electrically conductive pastes for cell contacts [2].
The question of what resources solar panels require is deliberately muddied by a couple of vested interests.
1) Junior mining companies and their promoters who want to create the impression that vast wealth awaits the next rare earth miner. (It doesn't. Consumption is too limited. The market value of zinc alone eclipses all rare earth element production combined.)
2) People who are playing up the environmental impacts of solar to make the fossil fuel status quo look better by comparison. "Sure, coal is a dirty mining business, but so is rare earth production!"
These people either don't know or don't care that solar doesn't use rare earth elements.
You also have credulous people who just repeat what they heard from members of groups 1 and 2.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element
[2] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/08/28/slimming-down-on-silv...