I’ve said it before. As solar energy overtakes just about every other competitor, state by state, look for claims about “solar cell syndrome”, and “lowered property values”. It’s a template.
Bill may raise utility fees
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill Monday that would allow regulated electric utilities to establish a new customer class for users of rooftop solar panels or small wind turbines.
In signing Senate Bill 1456, Fallin also took the rare step of issuing an executive order directing its implementation.
SB 1456 would allow electric utilities to apply to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to establish a higher base customer charge for users of rooftop solar or small wind turbines. The higher fixed charge would be used to recover some of the infrastructure costs to safely send excess electricity back to the grid.
Fallin’s executive order emphasized the importance of renewable energy in her Oklahoma First Energy Plan, which was released in 2011.
“A proper and required examination of these and other rate reforms will ensure that Oklahoma appropriately implements the Oklahoma First Energy Plan while protecting future distributed generation customers,” Fallin wrote in the executive order.
SB 1456 drew opposition from solar advocates, environmentalists and some conservative groups opposed to what they saw as an unnecessary roadblock to solar development by regulated utilities. The bill goes into effect Nov. 1, and any new tariffs covering distributed generation users would have to be finalized before the end of 2015
I’m not opposed to solar, and in fact have solar PV panels on my own house. It’s a new installation, so I’m not yet ready to report my results until I’ve had them for a year. I expect considerable seasonal differences between winter and summer. My system is not connected to the grid.
While I don’t consider solar energy itself to be “dangerous,” the devil is in the details. I’ve already stated several times on this blog my opposition to cadmium-telluride panels. They should be illegal, and ironically they are illegal for use in China, where most of them are made. And all products containing cadmium are illegal in the EU, but a special exception was granted to solar panels because solar is politically correct. To spread highly toxic heavy metal all over residential neighborhoods and just assume that they will be recycled at sometime in the future is about as responsible as selling backyard nuclear reactors to all and sundry. Fortunately, tellurium is a rare-earth element that is only cheap because until recently there was no use for it. Let us hope it is depleted soon, driving up the cost of cadmium-telluride panels so that nobody will buy them and instead switch to silicon, which is abundant and safe.
Outside of solar PV, we have solar thermal. I think it’s pretty safe, but there is an issue with reflected glare interfering with aircraft. That needs to be given some thought – probably the best solution is careful siting of the mirrors. If a single air disaster gets blamed on solar thermal plants, it could have a devastating effect on the whole industry. Just to show you I’m not making up this issue:
http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/solar/concentrating-solar/desert-solar-power-plant-a-risk-to-air-safety-say-pilots.html
One more thing about solar thermal, not all of the plants built so far (or on the drawing boards) have built-in storage. It surprised me when I learned that – I assumed that was their major selling point. See:
http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/solar/concentrating-solar/rumor-control-ivanpah-solar-project-does-not-have-storage.html
Cadmium Telluride is not toxic. Just like the Chlorine in Sodium Chloride is not toxic.
Toxic profiles of single elements are NOT the same as when such elements are combined with other elements in stabile compounds.
First Solar has commissioned safety and toxicology analysis of their CdTe PV panel products, and the reports can be downloaded from their site. They have even looked at the case of their panels exposed to the heat of a burning roof/house, in the situations where their panels are roof-mounted.
From Wikipedia:
“Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have found that large-scale use of CdTe PV modules does not present any risks to health and the environment, and recycling[clarification needed] the modules at the end of their useful life completely resolves any environmental concerns.[citation needed] During their operation, these modules do not produce any pollutants, and, furthermore, by displacing fossil fuels, they offer great environmental benefits. CdTe PV modules that use cadmium as a raw material appear to be more environmentally friendly than all other current uses of Cd.[17] CdTe PV provides a sustainable solution to a potential oversupply of cadmium in the near future.[18] Cadmium is generated as a waste by-product of zinc refining and is generated in substantial amounts regardless of its use in PV, due to the demand for steel products.[19]”
That image is awesome!
I guess you wouldn’t be crazy about arsenic in monocrystaline panels. Of course a small amount might be good for your heart. Here’s the deal. Chlorine is a highly dangerous gas. Sodium chloride, NaCl, is that dangerous? No. It’s table salt. Cadmium metal is toxic. Cadmium Telluride, CdTe, is a hundred times less toxic. Solar cells are made of silicon, a mostly inert, innocuous substance. Dopants are added in very small amounts like seasoning or flavoring and cooked in at temperatures as high as 900C, high e Once the silicon is cooled, the dopants are sealed in. Glass doesn’t let them escape easily. Glass melts at 1600C. We wre not talking ordinary fire temperatures here. So the dangers from CdTe are quite low. Here is what greentech solar has to say:
“The semiconductor material is bonded to a sheet of glass under very high temperature,” Sinha explained. “An industrial laminate material, ethyl vinyl acetate, a type of plastic, encapsulates the semiconductor and seals it between a second piece of glass.”
Freeing the CdTe from the laminate is the biggest challenge of recycling, Sinha said. It would take a very rare and daunting set of circumstances to both free the CdTe and release cadmium.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-safe-is-first-solars-cdte-thin-film
I wish we could get off the straw man (and basically irrelevant) issue of cadmium in solar panels. Is cadmium poisonous in certain forms? Sure is, but it doesn’t concern me as much as the mercury, lead and asbestos that have been spread everywhere in America, and the chemicals like CFC’s, DDT, Dioxin, and all the other wonders of modern chemistry and industry that we have been besieged with over the past 60 years or so.
In my yard, I fear the yellow jackets far more than the mosquitoes and gnats.