[tsjackson]

I work in the solar industry, and very few large projects are turfing solar panels anymore. There are at least three companies that will usually bid against each other to purchase used/broken solar panels for recycling/reclaiming materials.

One of the early issues with recycling companies scaling is that solar modules don't break very often, so there hasn't been enough volume to get the industry off the ground. Solar modules are generally good for 10-40 years, so we're just starting to get the first generation of decommissioned plants (which by the way, are generally being repowered with more efficient modules).

Same with wind turbines. In any case, outside of the valuable heavy metals, landfills really aren't that huge of a problem, despite consumer focus. Decommissioned landfills are already a hot commodity among solar developers in the Northeast for instance because they're great, relatively flat, centrally located land that you can build a solar farm on. So as long as we're succeeding at reclaiming heavy metals, the waste generation component is pretty trivial. They're really just part of the cycle.

Finally, the decommissioning cost of solar plants is usually bonded in with a utility PPA to be borne by the project company, just like with nuclear, so it is indeed a fair comparison.

I agree regarding our regulatory environment for nuclear being counterproductive (it's counterproductive for wind and solar too, though to a lesser extent). However, even in positive regulatory environments such as France, Nuclear costs 3-5 times as much to build on a $/MWh basis and takes much longer to site, permit and construct. There may be a small role for base-loading nuclear in certain areas that have poor renewable resources, but it otherwise rarely makes sense, regulatory issues aside.

[notacop31337]

Cheers for the great comment mate! I replied to you initially and I am still learning about this very vast topic, I try not to take a partisan approach to this stuff as it is obviously important, always trying to update my understanding and I do change my position as I learn new stuff.

It's interesting to hear that the recycling processes have changed, how recent of a change is this? I took my viewpoint from what seemed to be a overwhelming amount of (what I consider to be non-biased) resources, around the panels "being" recyclable, but not actually being recycled. And I don't think it's unreasonable to be wary of toxic waste given the entire purpose of this thing is to clean up our energy system etc.

I also wasn't aware of the decommissioning being bonded, cheers for that.

Do you think there's a difference between (what I assume for you is) the US and other countries progression along the lifecycle of solar? I feel like in Australia where I am, a lot of the articles I'm seeing are bringing up that what you've mentioned as solved problems, don't seem to be here. I will admit though that we are fairly useless being an economy that derives so much from coal exports.

Yeah so the pricing thing I do understand, but I also just think it's important to continue nuclear as an option anyway for future improvements and general management of brain drain.

Cheers for being chill, I find topics so divisive these days, I never mean to come across and ignorant of other opinions and I try to engage and not just be a "this is my tribe and I'll die on this hill", this problem is too important for it to be a "I'd rather be right" type deal.

[tsjackson]

Thanks for checking me on my U.S.-centrism and your comment as well! For the record, I think Australia's market is a bit younger even though it's already a bit larger as a percentage of power consumed than the U.S.'s thanks to some amazing solar resources in the desert. I'm fairly certain that all of this gets much easier for everyone at scale - it's just a matter of waiting it out until there are enough modules ready to recycle to generate regular revenue for recyclers, so it's likely just a waiting game.

[jfengel]

Out of curiosity... for utility-scale solar, do they tend to dismount the old panels, or just leave them in place for whatever small fraction of their original generating capability they still provide?

I imagine that they'd eventually run out of land to put them on, but from what I've seen, utility-scale solar often sits in places with a fair bit of room for expansion.

[tsjackson]

Modules degrade in production really slowly (<1% per year) and are often used for 40 years. They're generally replaced quicly if they break due to manufacturing defects or impact damage (hail, tree branches etc.). A lot of the recycling of solar panels is for panels that are a decade or two old but in perfectly good condition. What's happening is that new modules have increased 30-40% in efficiency over the same time frame that the old modules have decreased by 10-15%. So its cost effective to upgrade them in certain cases - generally where the utility will allow it.

The other factor here is that many agreements between a solar power and a utility that buys the power only have 20 year terms. Generally, there's a strong incentive to renegotiate at the end of the term, but frankly, that renegotiation is kind of a mess in practice. It depends on the policies of the state, the utility's interests, the ISO market, etc. as to how that ends up working. Every solar farm is working in at least five overlapping regulatory environments - local, state, utility/retailer domain, the ISO or regional grid, and the federal regulatory environment. Decentralization is nice in theory, but definitely makes it difficult to scale the widespread change that's required right now.