What we call “renewables” currently is not the future because it’s all contingent on having non-renewables to make the “renewables”. We need to somehow invent batteries and solar panels that can be made using nothing non-renewable, but we’re not even close.
There’s more astroturfing for renewables than against it.
If you your saying is true, then the Astroturf campaigns that are funded by the Fracking Companies would focus on the unrecyclability of turbine fins/blades, solar panels and lithium batteries.
In this case, they would be sued by battery and solar panel manufacturers and it would go to court.
Instead, the astroturfing campaigns focus on ridiculous claims like “birds will get hurt when they fly into turbine blades” and “high-tension power lines look ugly and hurt my feelings”.
Solar panels are 90% recyclable and most parts can be easily separated by hand. The aluminum, glass, silver and copper can then be simply melted down. The only reason it isn’t more common is that the labor costs are more expensive than buying virgin raw materials - a capitalism problem, not a technical problem.
Likewise, most batteries are recyclable by simply separating the electrodes and melting them down. For alkali metals like Lithium and Sodium you have the complication of having to work in an inert space but that doesn’t make it impossible, just more work (Edit: Ask a chemistry graduate, they have probably done this in a glove box before). Again, it’s a problem of the labor cost of recycling being prohibitive, not a technical problem. Lithium batteries are 98% recyclable.
The suggestion that 98% recyclable batteries are somehow less sustainable than oil-based fuels that are literally burnt up and completely unrecoverable is ludicrous.
What we call “renewables” currently is not the future because it’s all contingent on having non-renewables to make the “renewables”. We need to somehow invent batteries and solar panels that can be made using nothing non-renewable, but we’re not even close.
There’s more astroturfing for renewables than against it.
If you your saying is true, then the Astroturf campaigns that are funded by the Fracking Companies would focus on the unrecyclability of turbine fins/blades, solar panels and lithium batteries.
In this case, they would be sued by battery and solar panel manufacturers and it would go to court.
Instead, the astroturfing campaigns focus on ridiculous claims like “birds will get hurt when they fly into turbine blades” and “high-tension power lines look ugly and hurt my feelings”.
This is simply untrue. Here’s an in depth Technology Connections video about renewable power, including the ease of recycling both solar panels and batteries
Solar panels are 90% recyclable and most parts can be easily separated by hand. The aluminum, glass, silver and copper can then be simply melted down. The only reason it isn’t more common is that the labor costs are more expensive than buying virgin raw materials - a capitalism problem, not a technical problem.
Likewise, most batteries are recyclable by simply separating the electrodes and melting them down. For alkali metals like Lithium and Sodium you have the complication of having to work in an inert space but that doesn’t make it impossible, just more work (Edit: Ask a chemistry graduate, they have probably done this in a glove box before). Again, it’s a problem of the labor cost of recycling being prohibitive, not a technical problem. Lithium batteries are 98% recyclable.
The suggestion that 98% recyclable batteries are somehow less sustainable than oil-based fuels that are literally burnt up and completely unrecoverable is ludicrous.