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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric who wrote (22087)	7/25/2010 9:46:50 AM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86356

OK, I took a look at the FSLR site and it sounds pretty good if everything goes right ..... but in the real world things are messy. These things are supposed to last 30 years or so ... who knows really. Which means the person who has them installed likely won't be the owner when they're ready to be gotten rid of. Is the owner at the end going to be aware of the arrangments FSLR made? Are they going to go to the bother of dismantling and packaging the panels "in accordance with First Solar's instructions"? From First Solar's site: "The only requirement of those wishing to dispose of First Solar modules is to dismantle and package the modules in accordance with First Solar's instructions." firstsolar.com If someone wants their panels recycled and dismantle and package them as per instructions, the next step is to request recycling: "Inquiry Form: Collection and Recycling of First Solar Modules We invite you to contact us with your collection and recycling requests through the form below. A First Solar customer service representative will contact you regarding module collection." firstsolar.com Consider if homeowner E installs these things on his home. E dies and his widow or heirs sell the house to X. After 5-10 years X sells it to Y. What's the odds that Y is going to know about First Solar's dismantling and packaging instructions or care? Will Y even check to see if First Solar still is in business and has a recycling request site on the web? Suppose Y finds out he can get someone to take them and even pay a modest scrap value. If there's any scrap value at all, I'll bet he does that instead of figuring out what First Solar's reclamation arrangments were 30+ years back. Suppose Y's house burns down. Is he gonna have the panels that have been through a fire reclaimed? Not likely. Or suppose Y sells the house as a tear down to a developer. Is that developer going to figure out what arrangements First Solar made 30+ years ago and scrupulously follow those arrangements? Fat chance. --------------------------------------------- But let's play pretend. Let's pretend the rosy scenario really happens .... all the time. Every single First Solar installation is owned forever by scrupulous green minded folks and they get reclaimed by First Solar. From this, I note that First Solar's recycling isn't quite 100% recycling. 90% and 95% is pretty high but its not 100%. "Glass Rinsing The glass is rinsed to remove any residual semiconductor material that physically remains on the glass. The cleaned glass is packaged for recycling, resulting in a 90% recovery of glass for use in new products. Precipitation The metal-rich liquids are pumped to the precipitation unit and processed in three stages at increasing pH. The precipitated materials are then concentrated in a thickening tank. The resulting metal-rich filter cake is packaged for processing by a third party to create semiconductor material for use in new modules, with the entire process resulting in 95% recycling of semiconductor material." firstsolar.com If every house has solar panels in 20 years, won't the 5 - 10% that isn't recycled going to be a pretty big amount of unreclaimed material?