• ryannathans@aussie.zone
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      2 months ago

      Can you clarify how the recycling works? We had BP solar panels and after 6-7 years they all cracked (the crystalline silicon couldn’t handle the sun or heat) and stopped working

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I used to genuinely be against solar because the carbon costs barely break even,

      Carbon costs are not break even. The monetary costs include all economic inputs including the dirty energy used to produce the panels. So even if 100% of the $1000 cost to create a panel was from burning coal, that means once the panel has generated $1k in electricity, it has recouped all the carbon output. Because the alternative to $1k in burning coal to make a solar panel is $1k in burning coal for electricity.

      Solar takes 10 years to break even and lasts a minimum of 20 years. And 20 years it hasn’t stopped working but is only outputting at worst 80% less power. There are 40 year old panels outputting 80% of what they did when new.