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by engineer_22
61 days ago
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Frankly, the US EPA has established there is no safe level of lead exposure. Lead is bioaccumulative. To be placing lead containing materials in prime ag land should be considered seriously and with a sober mind. I spoke to a colleague today who works closely with rural communities on emerging issues like industrial solar. He says he is recommending his clients to require baseline soil testing and annual soil testing to confirm hazardous materials are not being released to the environment. He said his clients have not seen elevated lead levels, but the concern is warranted. He also recommends 30 year decommissioning bonds be established prior to construction and $50,000 highway bonds for damage to road surface. Bottom line, serious people are requiring serious commitments from solar developers. |
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I disagree strongly with you when you start making claims like
> cSi cells are liable to leach lead into ag soil and watersheds, and solid waste disposal are looming problems without regulatory structure in New York. I'm afraid that in my home state we're going to see a net negative impact from solar.
I think you're no longer making a real argument based on facts and data at this point, you're making an emotional appeal that supports your existing bias. You're taking any negative, exhaustively focusing on it with exclusion of facts about alternative power generation means, and then declaring solar bad.
But I think the blunt reality is that basically every other form of power generation we have has negatives that outweigh those of solar (often by fairly incredible margins when we look at generation costs alongside those negative externalities).
So if you really think that moving batteries once for installation is more harmful to road surfaces than a never ending stream of fuel tankers that weigh up near 100k lbs... or that solar is worse than fracking for natural gas, or pollution from coal, or the environmental destruction and waterway damage from hydro... Well, then we don't agree. Period.
And sadly for you... solar has the benefit of being much cheaper to install and maintain. So the economics mean it's coming.