> There is never any skepticism about the technology, the safety, the long term impact (as you would have if someone was setting up a nuclear or gas power plant). They simply “get it”
This is also a bad thing, because there are some real issues with PV panels too: leaking toxic materials, recycling problems, environmental side-effects because you need to mine for rare earths and critical metals, etc. It's far from being as simple and as clean as many people imagine, and not taking into consideration all this might cost us all a lot of damage to nature and wildlife in future. I don't want to get into nuclear vs. solar energy flame wars here, primarily because I don't feel that I have enough information and knowledge to be able to perceive all the possible side-effects of each type of energy - but the fact that world is so deeply biased one way for solar, the other way fro nuclear energy definitely will not help the best judgment on this very important topic.
yes, if you don't count in the inverter and charger controller units and the batteries used as part of a common setup... I've got a degree in electrical engineering, but as I've said, I really don't feel competent enough to go into any discussion on a degree of actual threat, if any, as looking into all the side-effects of some tech is really complex task far above my pay grade and it's super easy to overlook something and jump to wrong conclusions. I just wanted to point out that this popular black & white bias between solar and nuclear is not as simple as people think of it.
Batteries are very rare as part of most residential solar installs. Inverters and charge controllers are pretty basic devices, they contain a bunch of high current semiconductors and heat sinks and fans, nothing that I’m aware of that’s particularly hazardous or unusual.
The majority of new solar panels use zero toxic materials.
Old solar panels installed decades ago had toxic materials until the introduction of a ban that banned these toxic materials.
A small minority of solar panels are thin film panels and they use cadmium.
However, since we have started with the "solar panels are bad" bias we are trying to look for evidence.
Selection bias results in a search for "solar panels toxic materials":
The problem? People are mostly getting rid of problematic solar panels in the first place.
Regular solar panels can be easily recycled, you extract the glass, the aluminum, the silver, the lead free solder and sometimes even the wafers and then you are left with some residual problem materials, things like leaded solder or unrecycleable thin film cells.
Those things make the news, grab the clicks and give the appearance that all solar panels are like that, because those articles aren't there to present reality, they are there to lie by omission and misrepresent so that their readership has one more story that fits in with an overall narrative, no matter how misguided that narrative is.
Mostly the impurities coming from contacts and support materials, according to [1] primarily As, Cd, Hg, Se,Pb, Zn, Co, Ni, Mo, Cu, Cr, Sb.
"In the course of the work, it was found that the toxicity
indices of the EVA and Tedlar® components increase
with prolonged exposure to materials in aqueous
solution, approaching values characterizing an unsafe
degree of toxicity to the environment and human health."
This is also a bad thing, because there are some real issues with PV panels too: leaking toxic materials, recycling problems, environmental side-effects because you need to mine for rare earths and critical metals, etc. It's far from being as simple and as clean as many people imagine, and not taking into consideration all this might cost us all a lot of damage to nature and wildlife in future. I don't want to get into nuclear vs. solar energy flame wars here, primarily because I don't feel that I have enough information and knowledge to be able to perceive all the possible side-effects of each type of energy - but the fact that world is so deeply biased one way for solar, the other way fro nuclear energy definitely will not help the best judgment on this very important topic.