Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
U of C reearchers are saying the cost of replacing and disposing of solar panels will be much higher than regulators have anticipated. The efficiency of panels is improving so rapidly year over year that panels will not be in service for 30 years, but 10 years or less.
If we’re going to increasingly rely on an energy source that produces huge amounts of toxic waste that cannot be readily disposed of, I wonder why we don’t just ramp up nuclear.
|
Aye. when you compare the cost of landfill vs recycling panels, they are orders of magnitude apart. Renewables are a material consumption treadmill that most people do not appreciate or care about getting on. Massive impacts for very little relative output. Detailed in “Roadmap to Nowhere”, if we followed the Solutions Project plans, humankind would be replacing 1.25 million panels PER DAY, FOREVER to maintain a fully renewable system. How is this a good plan?
Nuclear has a similar problem. It’s too cheap to hold spent fuel in dry cask storage and mine new fuel instead of recycling it or building fast spectrum reactors. That said, Russia has commercialized a few fast reactors now which brings us closer to the closed fuel cycle. Gates/Buffett’s Natrium reactor is a sodium fast reactor with molten salt thermal storage. So there are interests pursuing that vision regardless.
Nuclear’s biggest problem is that a single person cannot slap a core on their roof and declare to their community how wealthy, independent and planet conscious they are. It is by its nature a centralized technology with a lifespan that ensures beyond a single human life which is very much at odds with the cultural/political “me first” mentality of the average person today, but solar lines up PERFECTLY with this.