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July 08, 2023
By Kevin Killough
Destroyed Solar Panels In Hailstorm
Will End Up In Landfills Because Recycling Isn’t Economical
The panels of a solar farm in Scottsbluff,
Nebraska, that were destroyed in a hailstorm last week will likely be
taken to a landfill. There’s no way to recycle a solar panel to
produce another one, and it’s not economical to recover minerals from
them.
![](images/images_07_14_2023/pic4.jpg)
A solar farm near
Scottsbluff, Nebraska, suffered major damage last week when a storm
dropped baseball-sized hailstones at 100 to 150 mph on it. (Courtesy
Photo)
The extent of the damage at a Scottsbluff solar farm
that was heavily damaged in a hailstorm last week remains unknown.
“They’re still working through that process,” Grant Otten,
spokesperson for the Nebraska Public Power District, which buys
electricity from the solar farm, told Cowboy State Daily.
Cowboy State Daily reached out to Sol Systems, which financed and
developed the project, but didn’t receive a response.
While some of the solar panels at the farm may be salvageable, as well
as other equipment, it’s likely many of the panels will need to be
discarded.
Even if solar panels aren’t destroyed by weather events, they
gradually stop producing much electricity and reach the end of their
lives in 20 to 30 years.
By 2050, the International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that 78
million tons of solar panels will come to that point.
Recycling
While renewable energy proponents are pinning their hopes on recycling
to deal with this coming deluge of e-waste from dead solar panels,
only about 10% of them are recycled, and only a small portion of any
single panel provides recoverable minerals.
B.F. Randall, who has a background in project development and finance,
told Cowboy State Daily that a lot of people are under the impression
that recycling a solar panel means you make a new solar panel.
“A solar panel has very little mineral content relative to the volume
of the panel,” Randall said. “So, it's just not something that can be
recycled in that sense.”
Polysilicon
The polysilicon in solar panels cannot be recycled at all, he said.
It takes 3 to 5 tons of polysilicon to produce 1 megawatt worth of
solar panels. To make it, they take silicon dioxide and mix it with
carbon, which is most often derived from coal. However, it’s possible
to use wood or graphite.
The mixture is dropped in a furnace at about 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit,
which means it takes large amounts of constant energy to produce the
heat needed for the process.
For every ton of polysilicon produced, 3-4 tons of silicon
tetrachloride, a highly toxic compound, also are produced.
As solar panels reach the end of their useful lives, most of that
polysilicon will need to be disposed of in landfills.
“Polysilicon … can’t ever be recycled back into polysilicon. If it’s
fake cycled into sand it would be absolutely toxic,” Randall said.
Other minerals
It is possible to recover aluminum and copper from a panel's frame and
junction box.
The Grist, a publication of a pro-renewable nonprofit, reported that a
recycled panel will produce about $3 in recovered aluminum, copper and
glass, which after transportation costs will cost between $12 and $25
to get.
The same panel tossed into a landfill will cost less than a buck.
There is also a small amount of silver to recover from the panel
that’s worth less than the cost to recover it.
As Randall explains in a Substack article, solar panels contain about
60 grams of silver paste. Each panel only has a tiny amount, but the
industry altogether consumes 9% of all silver produced in the world.
If that solar paste were refined silver, it would be worth $6 — but
it’s not refined.
Randall said in an interview that the paste contains contaminants that
have diluted that refined silver.
“You can’t recover the silver. It doesn’t work that way,” he said.
Regulations
So long as the cost to recover minerals from the solar panels exceeds
the value produced, the best way to deal with destroyed or exhausted
solar panels is to throw them away, like is done with most wind
turbine blades.
Some nonprofits are shipping dead panels to developing countries where
the weak amount of electricity they produce still has some benefit to
people who have no access to other sources of power.
The European Union is trying to address the problem by requiring
manufacturers to finance end-of-life collection and recycling, which
will increase the cost of the panels.
So far, only Washington state has passed similar legislation, which
will go into effect in 2025.
Green Play Ammonia™, Yielder® NFuel Energy.
Spokane, Washington. 99212
www.exactrix.com
509 995 1879 cell, Pacific.
Nathan1@greenplayammonia.com
exactrix@exactrix.com
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