"If solar and nuclear produce the same amount of electricity over the next 25 years that nuclear produced in 2016, and the wastes are stacked on football fields, the nuclear waste would reach the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (52 meters), while the solar waste would reach the height of two Mt. Everests (16 km)."
The Natural Philosopher pretended :
Shush - Don't let the greenies now how ungreen they actually are.
but they count glass as toxic waste.
NT
Every part of a solar panel can be recycled.
There's a difference between 'can' and 'are'. Most things _can_ be recycled, but it's not cost-effective to recycle a lot of them.
So can nuclear waste.
This has to be the strangest comparison I've seen for a while, all based on not a lot of course.
Brian
Afraid not. So far, they don't kniw what to do with it.
Exactly so. What part of "solar" is toxic?
based on rather a lot. essentially the point is that solar panels contain toxic contaminants that do not decay in any amount of time, and that would be very dangerous leached into groundwater, and per unit electricity produced are thousands of times more prevalent than radioactive isotopes.
and if the same environmental standards as are applied to nuclear materials were applied to solar panels, they would instantly be banned.
>
The solvents and stuff needed to recycle it! Similar to when its made.
They don't grow on trees like greens think they do.
Well there you are proof that either solar panels are dangerous or that turning nuclear waste to glass and dumping it is safe.
Solar panels have heavy metals in glass that quote "don't leech out under normal conditions".
While according to harry heavy metals in glass do leech out when the heavy metal happens to be nuclear waste.
Which one is correct harry? Are solar panels dangerous or not?
The study treated the entire panel as hazwaste. In reality they're mostly glass, with a very thin coating that's mostly silicon. Toxic molecules make up a miniscule fraction of that silicon layer.
It's bunk.
NT
what's the quantity got to do with anything?
The theory is that the nuclear waste is dangerous by just standing next to it
The solar panels are only dangerous to my health if I eat them - and that not likely to happen
tim
*If* they leached into the ground water!
and how hard is it to stop that happening? Compared with how difficult it is to stop nuclear waste leaching into the environment?
Except that it isn't, once treated, and more particularly, glassified (a process that harry thinks doesn't exist).
Inside a nuclear power station, there's a water pool where rods removed from a reactor can cool down a bit before handling - they are quite dangerous at that point. You can actually swim safely in the pool, provided you don't dive down to where the rods are, obvs.
Not much is dangerous standing next to it. You don't stand next to it as its kept somewhere that you can't until it has decayed. This is why it sits in storage for a few years as a lot of it just goes away of its own accord without any intervention.
Except when the cadmium and other heavy metals leech out into the water table and you drink them. The same argument that harry has against storing nuclear waste as glass as he thinks it will leech out into the water table so he can drink it.
It either does or doesn't leech out of glass, if it does then waste from solar panels is as dangerous as radioactive waste and needs to be stored in the same way except its forever as it doesn't decay like radioactive waste does.
If it doesn't leech out then both are safe once stored.
The problem is the same, what makes you think its different?
Why would radioactive waste leech from glass if the stuff in solar panels doesn't?
And lead doesn't leach from glass either. Plenty of leaded glass around, exposed to the elements, too.
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