太陽能電池板 - 即將發生的生態災難？ (1/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Solar panels - an eco-disaster waiting to happen? (1/2)

Daniel Gordon - The Climate Question podcast, BBC Sounds

Sat, June 3, 2023 at 4:01 p.m. PDT

While they are being promoted around the world as a crucial weapon in reducing carbon emissions, solar panels only have a lifespan of up to 25 years.

Experts say billions of panels will eventually all need to be disposed of and replaced.

"The world has installed more than one terawatt of solar capacity. Ordinary solar panels have a capacity of about 400W, so if you count both rooftops and solar farms, there could be as many as 2.5 billion solar panels.," says Dr Rong Deng, an expert in solar panel recycling at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

According to the British government, there are tens of millions of solar panels in the UK. But the specialist infrastructure to scrap and recycle them is lacking.

Energy experts are calling for urgent government action to prevent a looming global environmental disaster.

"It's going to be a waste mountain by 2050, unless we get recycling chains going now," says Ute Collier, deputy director of the International Renewable Energy Agency.

"We're producing more and more solar panels - which is great - but how are we going to deal with the waste?" she asks.

It is hoped a major step will be taken at the end of June, when the world's first factory dedicated to fully recycling solar panels officially opens in France.

ROSI, the specialist solar recycling company which owns the facility, in the Alpine city of Grenoble, hopes eventually to be able to extract and re-use 99% of a unit's components.

As well as recycling the glass fronts and aluminium frames, the new factory can recover nearly all of the precious materials contained within the panels, such as silver and copper, which are typically some of the hardest materials to extract.

These rare materials can subsequently be recycled and reused to make new, more powerful, solar units.

Conventional methods of recycling solar panels recover most of the aluminium and glass - but ROSI says the glass, in particular, is of relatively low-quality.

The glass recovered using those methods can be used to create tiles, or in sandblasting - it can also be mixed with other materials to make asphalt - but it cannot be used in applications where high-grade glass is required, such as the production of new solar panels.

Boom period

The new ROSI plant will open during a boom period for solar panel installations.

The world's solar energy generation capacity grew by 22% in 2021. Around 13,000 photovoltaic (PV) solar panels are fitted in the UK every month - most of them on the roofs of private houses.

In many cases, solar units become relatively uneconomical before they reach the end of their expected lifespan. New, more efficient designs evolve at regular intervals, meaning it can prove cheaper to replace solar panels that are only 10 or 15 years old with updated versions.

If current growth trends are sustained, Ms. Collier says, the volume of scrap solar panels could be huge.

"By 2030, we think we're going to have four million tonnes [of scrap] - which is still manageable - but by 2050, we could end up with more than 200 million tonnes globally."

To put that into perspective, the world currently produces a total of 400 million tonnes of plastic every year.

(to be continued)

Translation

雖然太陽能電池板在世界範圍內被推廣為減少碳排放的重要武器，但它們的使用壽命最多只有 25 年。

專家表示，數十億塊面板最終都需要處理和更換。

澳大利亞新南威爾士大學太陽能電池板回收專家 Dr Rong Deng 說: “全世界已經安裝了超過 1 太瓦的太陽能容量。普通太陽能電池板的容量約為 400 瓦，因此，如果算上屋頂和太陽能收集場，可能有多達 25 億塊太陽能電池板。”

據英國政府稱，英國有數千萬塊太陽能電池板。 但缺乏報廢和回收它們的專業基礎設施。

能源專家呼籲政府採取緊急行動，以防止迫在眉睫的全球環境災難。

國際可再生能源機構副主任 Ute Collier 說： “除非我們現在就啟動回收鏈, 到 2050 年，它們將變成一座廢物山。”

她問: “我們正在生產越來越多的太陽能電池板 - 這很好 - 但我們將如何做廢物處理？”

重要一步有望在 6 月底邁出，屆時世界上第一家致力於完全回收太陽能電池板的工廠將在法國正式開業。

位於阿爾卑斯山Grenoble市, 擁有該設施的專業太陽能回收公司 ROSI希望最終能夠提取和再利用 99% 的裝置組件。

除了回收玻璃面板和鋁框外，新工廠還可以回收面板中幾乎所有的貴重材料，例如銀和銅，這些材料通常是最難提取出的物料。

這些稀有材料隨後可以回收和再利用，以製造新的、更強大的太陽能裝置。

傳統的回收太陽能電池板方法會回收大部分鋁和玻璃 - 但 ROSI 表示，其質量相對較低,尤其是玻璃。

使用這些方法回收的玻璃可用於製造瓷磚或噴砂 - 它也可以與其他材料混合製成瀝青 - 但它不能用於需要高檔玻璃的應用，例如生產新的 太陽能板。

繁榮期

新的 ROSI 工廠將在太陽能電池板安裝的繁榮時期開業。

全球太陽能發電量在2021 年增長了 22%。英國每月安裝約 13,000 塊光伏 (PV) 太陽能電池板，其中大部分安裝在私人住宅的屋頂上。

在許多情況下，太陽能裝置在未達到預期使用壽命之前就變得相對無經濟效益。 新的、更高效的設計會定期發展，這意味著用更新版本替換只有 10 或 15 年歷史的太陽能電池板可以證明更便宜。

Collier 女士說，如果目前的增長趨勢持續下去，報廢太陽能電池板的數量可能會非常龐大。

“到 2030 年，我們認為我們將擁有 400 萬噸 [廢料] - 這仍然是可控的 - 但到 2050 年，我們最終可能在全球擁有超過 2 億噸。”

從這個角度來看，世界目前每年生產總計 4 億噸塑料。

（待續）