Along with the solar boom, however, comes another surge—the end-of-life solar panels need to be disposed of, and solar panel waste will grow exponentially as installations boom.
"The shining example of the growth in clean energy investment is solar, which in 2023 is set to attract more capital than global oil production for the first time ever. This reflects the changing tide in world energy," the IEA's Birol But the bright future of solar has its dark and dirty secret—the huge amount of waste from end-of-life solar panels.
With a looming shortage of the key metals for the energy transition, recovering and recycling part of the materials used in solar panel manufacturing could be a valuable source of additional amounts of those metals that have already been mined. The problem is scale. The industry is in its very early stages, but it needs rapid development to be able to make a circular economy opportunity out of this waste problem.
Although at first glance glass seems to be recycled, the use of recovered glass is limited to less valuable products, with high transportation costs being an issue, the agency said. by the end of this decade, up from only $170 million in 2022.
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Source: i newspaper - 🏆 8. / 89 Read more »