People think solar panels protect the environment but they require 300+ times as much land as conventional energy sources and now the Los Angeles Times has discovered that they could "contaminate groundwater with toxic heavy metals such as lead, selenium and cadmium."
“Many are already winding up in landfills, where in some cases, they could potentially contaminate groundwater with toxic heavy metals such as lead, selenium and cadmium.”
“Sam Vanderhoof, a solar industry expert and chief executive of Recycle PV Solar, says that only 1 in 10 panels are actually recycled. “The industry is supposed to be green,” Vanderhoof said. “But in reality, it’s all about the money.”
latimes.com/business/story…
I was one of the first reporters to write about solar waste. Representatives of the solar industry attacked me personally and tried to get my editors to censor me. Happily, they stood firm, and the article, from 2018, now looks prescient.
forbes.com/sites/michaels…
One year later, The New York Times confirmed my reporting & found solar panels & batteries used by Europeans were being dumped on poor nations. The bottom line is that it's much cheaper to buy raw materials to make new solar panels than to recycle old ones.
Why did so many of us get renewables so wrong? Karl Marx's concept of "commodity fetishism" explains why: we fell in love with the *image* (fetish) of the products and ignored the *reality* for workers and the environment.
youtube.com/watch?v=N-yALP…
