Is the solar panel really green? While discussing with a friend over matters of our energy supplies, this question just hit me. We think that the solar panel is a green solution to our energy needs; but what if producing it can be as eco unfriendly as oil-powered power plants (cf. Deepwater, 2010) or even nuclear ones (cf. Fukushima, 2011)?
Manufacturing solar panels takes lots of energy (that is, using electricity generated by other carbon emitting power plants) and produces toxins that could damage environment and people’s health. Also extracting materials from the mother earth itself can impact on environment, both natural and human.
Some have warned about this, but unless you consciously look for it, you won’t find much information. Certainly there is no drive to heighten public awareness on the issue on the part of the mainstream media.
Then I heard on BBC for just five seconds: there has been a protest in eastern China against a nearby solar panel factory damaging their environment. I started chasing.
Now it is reported that the plant in question was closed down. The manufacturer, Jingko Solar Co., was suspected of dumping toxic material in a nearby river, killing fish and causing other environmental damages. The local people demanded explanation, violent confrontation followed, and finally authorities stepped in, ordering the company to stop production of solar panels.
Can we say that it is a Chinese problem and dismiss it as such? After all, manufacturing of any industrial products can leave dangerous toxic stuff as byproduct, and apparently, the Chinese are behaving just like Western industrialists in the era of the Industrial Revolution in the previous centuries. In the West, they say that our technology is improving. Overall, the whole process of solar panel production, from the material extraction stage to the final assembly, is still much more eco friendly than using other energy sources.
Or, are we just letting the Chinese build the most polluting kinds of those panels while our manufacturers get to build good ones? Our old computers also end up in China, where under-paid low-skilled workers put those machines apart by bear hands. No protective gears, no facemasks, nothing. It is amazing that they let a Japanese TV crew film it at all.
Now should we go on talking about manufacturing of computers, mobile phones, and flat panel TVs? Personally, I’m not so sure the radiation from mobile phones won’t damage our brains. By the looks of it, it is already too late, most young people and business elite is now zombies.
.. and incidentally, a small solar panel for mobile phones I bought this summer broke down within a week of purchasing. It was made in China. How the >_< do I recycle this thing?
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