Solar Panels Generate 300 Times More Toxic Waste Than Nuclear Reactors – IOTW Report

Solar Panels Generate 300 Times More Toxic Waste Than Nuclear Reactors

DC: Solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of electricity generated than nuclear power plants, according to a Thursday report from the pro-nuclear group Environmental Progress (EP).

The report found that solar panels use heavy metals, including lead, chromium and cadmium, which can harm the environment. The hazards of nuclear waste are well known and can be planned for, but very little has been done to mitigate solar waste issues.

“The problem with waste from solar is that it isn’t handled as well as nuclear waste,” Dr. Jeff Terry, a professor of nuclear physics involved in energy research at the Illinois Institute of Technology, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “There are two types of waste from solar. Waste from the manufacturing scene and waste from the solar panel after it has gone through its useful life. There are materials in those that if they leached out, it wouldn’t be good.”    read more

14 Comments on Solar Panels Generate 300 Times More Toxic Waste Than Nuclear Reactors

  1. Yesterday I threw away a bunch of old paint. I couldn’t help but to think of some enviroweenie throwing a fit if they knew about it. It got me thinking: what’s the difference between paint in a can and paint on a wall? The whole house will eventually end up in a landfill with paint on its walls.

  2. Paging Jane Fonda! Hopefully, nuclear power will finally make a comeback during Trump’s Administration under the new, sensible Secretary of Energy. Nuclear power should have been generating forty percent of our nation’s electricity by now.

  3. Mill tailings from Uranium mining (the leftovers – AFTER the Uranium has been extracted – this is common dirt) are considered and treated, as toxic.

    The burdens placed (and those NOT placed) on industries and businesses are political in nature, NOT scientific. Another of the more obvious reasons that politics has become such a lucrative profession.

    izlamo delenda est …

  4. As an Origin Conservationalist, I am in favor of returning the earth back to it’s original organic state: A hot ball of molten magma and gas.

  5. Tim: Uranium processing extraction methods remove nearly 99% of the uranium from the ore that is milled prior to the waste being discharged as tailings. The mill tailings were not considered toxic until the anti-nuclear groups found out that they could shut down uranium mining by creating an environmental problem that made the tailings from uranium milling toxic.The Department of Energy has wasted billions of dollars cleaning up uranium mill tailings that were not a threat to anyone because it was politically expedient not scientifically necessary.

  6. If nuke, wind and solar want to try to take a larger share of the energy market, let them stand on their own, as Free Market Capitalism entities, WITHOUT ANY FedGov funding or favoritism.
    ((hint, jab, Tesla, jab, koff, koff))

  7. You should see a open pit mine
    in China when they finish extracting
    chemicals for solar panels.Bright
    green & yellow sludge everywhere…

Comments are closed.