“Switch to solar panels to help save the planet,” they say.

And they’re (mostly) right. Solar panels are a great source of clean energy because, unlike fossil fuels, solar energy doesn’t produce harmful carbon emissions while creating electricity. But how “clean” is the process of creating solar panels?

Ironically enough, solar panel production is reliant on fossil fuels. It also involves mining for precious metals, which contributes to greenhouse gasses and pollution.

Before we explore the extent of it, we want to be clear that we’re not here to tear down the use of solar panels. EcoWatch is a huge fan of solar energy and has helped hundreds of homeowners reduce their carbon emissions by going solar. But we want to be transparent about the impact that solar panels have on the environment — both good and bad.

The Carbon Footprint of a Solar Panel

While solar panels are an environmentally friendly energy solution, the materials and manufacturing process used to create them do have a decent-sized carbon footprint, as they involve mining, melting and cooling to be used.

Environmental Impact of Mining for Solar Panel Materials

Most solar cells are made up of silicon semiconductors and glass, as well as metals like silver, copper, indium and tellurium. And if we’re including solar batteries, add lithium to the list.

When it comes to environmental impact, gathering silicon and glass are both non-issues, as they’re abundant and non-toxic. However, the process of mining for those metals creates greenhouse gas emissions and can lead to soil, water and air pollution.¹

Environmental Impact of Solar Panel Facilities

First thing to consider: Solar facilities are massive. It’s safe to assume that, in most cases, some wildlife and recreation land has been cleared to create solar panel production facilities.

Solar panel facilities also require a lot of energy to keep up and running, and unfortunately, a lot of the energy used for melting down silicon comes from coal burning, especially in China where pollution emissions are already high.²

There’s also a great need for water for the cooling process, which can be an environmental strain in more arid areas where water isn’t as available. And like any big production facility, solar panel production facilities cause air pollution.

Environmental Impact of Solar Panel Manufacturing

There are three different types of solar panels — monocrystalline, polycrystalline and thin-film — and each are manufactured differently, meaning they each leave a different sized carbon footprint.

Manufacturing Monocrystalline Panels

Monocrystalline panels are the most common and have the highest energy conversion efficiency, typically ranging between 19 and 22%. Monocrystalline solar panels are made of pure, single-cell silicon crystals wedged between thin glass.

To make a monocrystalline solar panel, a huge piece of silicon is molded into a block, then cut into small wafers to be affixed onto a solar panel. It’s a complex process and, therefore, produces the highest emissions compared to any other solar panel manufacturing method.³

Manufacturing Polycrystalline Panels

Polycrystalline solar panels are also made of silicon, but instead of coming from a block, the silicon crystals are melted together and then placed onto the panel. Because of the melting process, polycrystalline solar panels do require a bit of electricity to create, although not as much as monocrystalline.⁴

Manufacturing Thin-Film Panels

Lastly, you have thin-film solar panels, which can be made from several different types of materials, like amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride (a type of silicon) or copper indium gallium selenide. T

ypically, thin-film solar panels are going to leave a smaller carbon footprint compared to their more popular counterparts.⁵ But on the downside, they’re created from extremely toxic materials that can lead to both human and environmental harm if not handled properly.⁶

Environmental Impact of Transporting Solar Panels

Emissions from solar panel transportation present another challenge. Solar panels are produced all over the world, but primarily in China, followed by the U.S. and Europe. And solar panels that are produced in one country may require shipments of parts from another.

To be honest, it’s hard to say exactly how big the carbon footprint is for each stage of making a solar panel — no matter which type. There hasn’t been much research or data released on the environmental impact of solar panel production. However, the Coalition on Materials Research Transparency is reportedly working to measure and report the carbon impacts associated with mining, producing and transporting solar panels.

It’s important to note that the amount of carbon emissions produced to create solar panels is still nowhere near that of traditional energy facilities, and it is quite small when compared to oil drilling, fracking or coal mining.⁷

But production aside, another common challenge surrounding solar panels is what happens after their average 25-year lifespan.

A Larger Issue: Solar Panel Recycling

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) set a target for solar energy to account for 30% of energy generation in the U.S. by 2030.⁸ If that target is hit, more than 1 billion solar panels will be actively collecting solar energy throughout the U.S. alone over the next decade.

While this is great news for reducing carbon emissions, it brings up a larger issue the solar industry hasn’t quite nailed down yet: solar panel recycling.

Scientists have been working on a better solution, but as of now, there isn’t a flushed-out system to recycle old solar panels. And there certainly aren’t enough places to do it.

As mentioned earlier, solar panels are made up of a lot of precious metals, and the carbon footprint of producing solar panels could be reduced if these materials could be recycled and repurposed instead of having to mine for more. Instead, lack of solar panel recycling availability is only creating more e-waste, which could eventually lead to solar panel material scarcity.

How Much Better is Solar for the Environment?

We’ve discussed all the ways in which solar panels can be harmful to the environment, but let’s not forget that they’re still a far better option than non-renewable energy alternatives.

Taking the carbon footprint of solar panels into account, one study still found that coal generates a footprint 18 times the size, while natural gas creates an emissions footprint 13 times the size of solar.⁹ It’s also worth repeating that solar energy produces zero emissions after production. For that reason alone, studies have revealed solar to be an essential solution to slowing climate change.¹⁰

But if solar continues to grow as the SEIA predicts it will, technology will also need to improve to minimize the effects that solar panel production will have on the environment, and proper solar panel recycling methods must be created.

Source: The Environmental Impact of Solar Panels – EcoWatch

The aviation industry’s attempts to go green are getting a boost from an unlikely place: carbon-neutral jet fuel pulled from thin air.

That may seem far-fetched, but it’s a concept that engineers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) have not only proved experimentally, but apparently proven again at scale. Even better, the fuel created by the process is allegedly a drop-in alternative to fossil-derived aviation fuel that can be used without changes to storage or distribution infrastructure.

Here’s how the system works:

Synthesizing kerosene pure enough to be used as jet fuel from thin air isn’t even a new concept. We know it can be formed from something called synthesis gas, or syngas, which is a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide.

Crucially, the goal of this particular project is to produce a clean, carbon-neutral form of syngas that doesn’t create additional emissions. According to the researchers, the best way to do that is with solar energy.

For their test-scale unit, the researchers built an array of 169 sun-tracking reflectors that focus approximately 15kW of solar energy at a 16-inch aperture on a tower-mounted solar reactor. According to the researchers, the solar energy directed at the reactor “corresponds to an average solar concentration ratio of approximately 2,500 suns, with a peak above 4,000 suns.”

Inside the reactor, temperatures reach approximately 1,500°C (2,732°F), which is hot enough to split captured carbon dioxide and atmospheric water vapor to form syngas. As it cools, the syngas flows out of the reactor to a gas-to-liquid unit that processes it into kerosene.

According to the researchers, the syngas produced by the reactor has selectivity, purity, and quality high enough to make it suitable for Fischer–Tropsch synthesis, which turns liquid syngas made from hydrogen and carbon monoxide into hydrocarbons we can use to fly planes.

The system isn’t the most efficient – only managing a 4.1 percent solar-to-syngas efficiency. Still, project lead and ETH engineering professor Aldo Steinfeld told IEEE, 4.1 percent is a record for thermochemical fuel production.

The test-scale project didn’t use any heat capture technology, meaning that 4.1 percent record should be easily beaten. If heat capture technology were added to a future iteration of the facility, efficiency rates could reach as high as 20 percent, the researchers claimed.

Jet fuel that begins life as air and captured carbon, the researchers explained, is completely carbon-neutral because the fuel only produces as much carbon dioxide as went into its manufacturing.

[…]

Source: Pull jet fuel from thin air? We can do that, say scientists • The Register

Wave Swell Energy’s remarkable UniWave 200 is a sea platform that uses an artificial blowhole formation to create air pressure changes that drive a turbine and feed energy back to shore. After a year of testing, the company reports excellent results. New Atlas reports: As we’ve discussed before, the UniWave system is a floating device that can be towed to any coastal location and connected to the local energy grid. It’s designed so that wave swells force water into a specially designed concrete chamber, pressurizing the air in the chamber and forcing it through an outlet valve. Then as the water recedes, it generates a powerful vacuum, which sucks air in through a turbine at the top and generates electricity that’s fed into the grid via a cable. As a result, it draws energy from the entire column of water that enters its chamber, a fact the team says makes it more efficient than wave energy devices that only harvest energy from the surface or the sea floor.

[…] A 200-kW test platform was installed last year off King Island, facing the notoriously rough seas of Bass Strait, which separates the island state of Tasmania from the mainland of Australia. There, it’s been contributing reliable clean energy to the island’s microgrid around the clock for a full 12 months. The WSE team has made a few live tweaks to the design during operation, improving its performance beyond original expectations. “We set out to prove that Wave Swell’s wave energy converter technology could supply electricity to a grid in a range of wave conditions, and we have done that,” said WSE CEO Paul Geason in a press release. “One key achievement has been to deliver real-world results in Tasmanian ocean conditions to complement the AMC test modeling. In some instances, the performance of our technology in the ocean has exceeded expectations due to the lessons we’ve learnt through the project, technological improvements and the refinements we have made over the course of the year.” “Our team is excited to have achieved a rate of conversion from wave power to electricity at an average of 45 to 50% in a wide range of wave conditions,” he continues. “This is a vast improvement on past devices and shows that the moment has arrived for wave power to sit alongside wind, solar and energy storage as part of a modern energy mix.”

The King Island platform will remain in place at least until the end of 2022, and the company is now gearing up to go into production. “Having proven our device can survive the toughest conditions the Southern Ocean and Bass Strait can throw at it, and deliver grid compliant electricity, our priority now shifts to commercializing the technology,” said Gleason. “For Wave Swell this means ensuring the market embraces the WSE technology and units are deployed to deliver utility scale clean electricity to mainland grids around the world.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD5fXCW-yKc

Source: Blowhole Wave Energy Generator Exceeds Expectations In 12-Month Test – Slashdot

TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION (“Toyota”) and its subsidiary, Woven Planet Holdings, Inc. (“Woven Planet”), have developed a working prototype of its portable hydrogen cartridge. This cartridge design will facilitate the everyday transport and supply of hydrogen energy to power a broad range of daily life applications in and outside of the home. Toyota and Woven Planet will conduct Proof of Concept (“PoC”) trials in various places, including Woven City, a human-centered smart city of the future currently being constructed in Susono City, Shizuoka Prefecture.

Portable Hydrogen Cartridge (Prototype)^*1

[…]

Together with ENEOS Corporation, Toyota and Woven Planet are working to build a comprehensive hydrogen-based supply chain aimed at expediting and simplifying production, transport, and daily usage. These trials will focus on meeting the energy needs of Woven City residents and those living in its surrounding communities.

Benefits of Using Hydrogen Cartridges

• Portable, affordable, and convenient energy that makes it possible to bring hydrogen to where people live, work, and play without the use of pipes

  • Prototype dimensions

    400 mm (16″) in length x 180 mm (7″) in diameter

  • Target weight

    5 kg (11 lbs)

• Swappable for easy replacement and quick recharging
• Volume flexibility allows for a broad variety of daily use applications^*2
• Small-scale infrastructure can meet energy needs in remote and non-electrified areas and be swiftly dispatched in the case of a disaster

Next Steps for the Hydrogen Cartridge

[…]

Our goal is to help hydrogen become commonplace by making this clean form of energy safe, convenient, and affordable. By establishing the underlying supply chain, we hope to facilitate the flow of a larger volume of hydrogen and fuel more applications. Woven City will explore and test an array of energy applications using hydrogen cartridges including mobility, household applications, and many future possibilities we have yet to imagine. Together with inventors and those living within and around Woven City, we will continue to advance mobility over time by constantly developing more practical applications for hydrogen cartridges. In future Woven City demonstrations, we will continue to improve the hydrogen cartridge itself, making it increasingly easy to use and improving the energy density.

Hydrogen Cartridge Applications (Image)

The ultimate goal of this project is to realize a carbon-neutral society where everyone can access clean energy, first in Japan and then throughout the world. Toyota and Woven Planet aim to develop best practices for incorporating clean hydrogen energy into daily life by conducting human-centered demonstrations in and around Woven City. These real-life experiences will help us learn how to best transform hydrogen into a familiar, well-used, and well-loved form of energy.

The portable hydrogen cartridge prototype will be showcased at Super Taikyu Series 2022 Round 2 at Fuji SpeedWay from June 3 to 5, 2022^*3. Our showcase is geared toward teaching people about how hydrogen energy works and helping them imagine the countless ways hydrogen can become a useful part of their daily lives.

Source: Toyota and Woven Planet Have Developed a New Portable Hydrogen Cartridge Prototype | Corporate | Global Newsroom | Toyota Motor Corporation Official Global Website