We could recycle the world's most "efficient" solar cells when they fail, um, couldn't we?

[NNadir]

They are also the world's most toxic solar cells, but who cares? Solar energy, even if it has failed spectacularly even to slow the degradation of the planetary atmosphere is still, um, "green," right?

The following paper is found in the current issue of ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering:

New Films on Old Substrates: Toward Green and Sustainable Energy Production via Recycling of Functional Components from Degraded Perovskite Solar Cells (ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., 2017, 5 (4), pp 3261–3269)

Organic/Perovskite Solar Cells are latest among the tens of thousands of "solar breakthroughs" of which you have heard if lived long enough, at least as long as I have lived, which is a long time.

And the introduction to the linked paper tells you, almost breathlessly how "breakthroughy" they are:

Organic?inorganic hybrid lead halide perovskite solar cells(PSCs) have recently taken the photovoltaic (PV) research world by storm, with reported efficiencies exceeding 22% after rapid development for only 6 years.1?6 This mainly originates from the excellent properties of perovskite materials that lead to solar cells that deliver the highest possible efficiencies at the lowest possible cost. Given the recent significant progress in terms of the efficiency,6 stability,7,8 device area,8 etc., it has been predicted that PSCs could be on the market in the near future and the use of perovskite materials could soar soon thereafter.9

I just feel all "renewaly" just reading about it.

After only 6 years...

Only 6 years...

In the last 6 years we've dumped over 180 billion tons of new carbon dioxide into the planetary atmosphere, and in the 6 years before that there were (if you looked) all kinds of "solar breakthroughs" announced.

But with these "reported efficiencies" that have "taken the photovoltaic (PV) research world by storm" well, this time we've got it wired, no?

Well there is a little problem, mentioned in the next paragraph in the same paper:

However, the great promise of PSCs is being challenged because of their Pb content and sensitivity to water, which raises concerns about the potential toxicity of perovskites and their behavior in biological systems or the environment.10?12 In However, the great promise of PSCs is being challenged because of their Pb content and sensitivity to water, which raises concerns about the potential toxicity of perovskites and their behavior in biological systems or the environment.10?12 In pair s orbitals and perovskite symmetry, high ionicity, a large lattice constant, and strong antibonding coupling between Pb lone pair s and I p orbitals.16,17 The actual results after the replacement of lead with other cations are not satisfactory;13?15thus, the lead-containing perovskite is still the material of choice for PSCs. Fortunately,...

Fortunately!

...some teams have been (sic) to investigate the health risks and dangers of lead-based perovskite materials by studying every possible scenario through which perovskite materials could enter the soil and groundwater, reach the food chain, and affect biological systems. For example, Hailegnaw et al. have investigated the possible environmental effects of perovskite solar cells by exposing such devices to water with varying pH and determining the amount of Pb loss and found that the amount of lead that enters the soil is not catastrophic for the environment,10 while Benmessaoud et al. have tested health hazards of perovskite through cytotoxicity studies and underscored the critical importance of conducting further studies to investigate the effects of short- and long-term exposure to CH3NH3PbI3 on health and the environment.11While these results are merely based on simple laboratory experiments, we should do our best to avoid lead outflow.

We should do our best...

In former times, one of the main sources of lead contamination in the environment was the use of tetraethyl lead in dangerous gasoline produced from dangerous crude oil. Now the major source is lead from coal mines aerosolized in coal fired power plants...and no...coal is not dead, not even close, unless of course you like to lie to yourself, as many people do.

We should do our best...

Well the "breakthrough" PSC, perovskite solar cells can be recycled!!!!!

We're saved!!!!

That's the topic of the rest of the paper.

Here's a little process chemistry about the "green" recycling:

Organic?inorganic hybrid lead halide perovskite solar cells(PSCs) have recently taken the photovoltaic (PV) research world by storm, with reported efficiencies exceeding 22% after rapid development for only 6 years.1?6 This mainly originates from the excellent properties of perovskite materials that lead to solar cells that deliver the highest possible efficiencies at the lowest possible cost. Given the recent significant progress in terms of the efficiency,6 stability,7,8 device area,8 etc., it has been predicted that PSCs could be on the market in the near future and the use of perovskite materials could soar soon thereafter.9 from degraded devices. Because of the strong solubility of perovskite and lead iodide (PbI2) in N,N-dimethylformamide(DMF), PSCs can be easily separated and recycled into their major components. By a simple and low-energy process, including DMF washing, chlorobenzene (CB) washing, ultrasonic cleaning, and UV?ozone treatment, the used substrate including TiO2 can still be very clean and can be used to prepare the device again. After two rounds of substrate cycling ,the resulting PH PSC and M PSC still presented peak efficiencies of 11.87% and 11.03%, respectively, indicating th efeasibility of the recycling of used substrates for sustainable, energy- and resource conservation-oriented, and environmentally friendly energy production.

Yuuuuummmm...chlorobenzene...gotta love it.

It's, um, "easy." (The authors - and I do not mean this pejoratively even if it sounds so live in China, where - one has to concede - chlorobenzene might be green.

Sigh. I've lived a long time, too long maybe.

If you believe that every lead halide solar cell that ends up "distributed" for "distributed energy" will end up being recycled, I have an orange "President" who will "Make America Great Again" I'd like to sell you.

What will happen is that solar cells now on sparkling McMansions will end up in the very same place they were installed, transformed into future blighted slums a shadow of their former greatness, with the solar cells still sitting on the decaying roofs, until they collapse, whereupon the lead will leach out into the rain water collecting in the cracked and leaking foundations.

Don't worry, be happy. You'll be dead then, and none of those whomever should live in that ruined world will be able to confront you with the failure of what you believed.

Tomorrow is Friday. Enjoy the coming weekend.

[Eko]

1. So,,

coal is better? Or nuclear? its one thing to say something is bad but quite another to put it in context.

[NNadir]

2. Nuclear is infinitely better, infinitely safer, and infinitely more sustainable.

It's not even close.

[Eko]

4. Tell that to japan.

Fukushima?

[NNadir]

5. It's pretty funny how people obsess on the Fukushima reactors while not giving a shit about...

...the seven million people who die each year from air pollution.

The entire nuclear industry in it's entire history for more than half a century hasn't killed as many people as will die in the next 48 hours from burned coal, gas, oil and biomass.

Of course, if we wanted to ask Japan about the safety of buildings in an Earthquake and Tsunami, what would they say?

Which killed more people in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, radiation or buildings?

The problem that is killing this planet is that there are some very, very, very, very, very weak minded people who insist that nuclear energy and only nuclear energy be perfect and without risk or everything else, all of which are worse, will be allowed to kill at will.

Nuclear energy need not be perfect, it need not be without risk to be vastly superior to everything else. It only needs to be vastly superior to everything else.

More people will die in Japan because the reactors were shut - from air pollution and climate change - than will die because the reactors failed.

Nobel Laureate Burton Richter made this point quite clearly: Opinion on the Worldwide Health Effects of Fukushima.


How many people died from radiation at Fukushima again? As many people as died last year from occupational exposure to cadmium? More? Less?

Unfortunately the world is ruled by people with small minds, selective attention, and a poor base of knowledge.

This is why nuclear energy - the only new form of primary energy developed in centuries, this by some of the finest minds the world has ever known - has been demonized much to the loss of humanity.

[Eko]

6. Yup,

I remember distinctly saying "I don't give a shit about the seven million people who die each year from air pollution." Only a weak minded person resorts to straw man arguments.

[NNadir]

8. Maybe you don't KNOW what you're saying, but I know what I heard...

I am always accused of "straw man" arguments by people for whom I have almost no respect, since, as I made clear, seven million people do die from air pollution each year, and their rhetoric makes it very, very, very, very clear that they don't in fact give a shit.

A person who relies on a denotative sense while pretending to not know the connotative sense is either a fool or a liar: It doesn't matter which.

There's no "straw" in this, unless you are referring to the straw that is responsible for major air pollution death in China, as is detailed in the following scientific paper, not that I have ever met an anti-nuke who knows any science or cares a whit about science:

Controlling Air Pollution from Straw Burning in China Calls for Efficient Recycling

Straw, of course, is biomass, which some people call "renewable energy." It, um, kills people.

As for air pollution deaths worldwide, they are reported here:

A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (Lancet 2012, 380, 2224–60: For air pollution mortality figures see Table 3, page 2238 and the text on page 2240.)

The paper includes the work of thousands of highly trained professional epidemiologists, academic physicians and other health authorities.

You give a shit? Really? What would be your alternative to air pollution? Let me guess: Solar will power the world by year XXXX where XXXX is some year after you've died and won't have to answer for the consequences of your oblivious and delusional wishful thinking?

Guess what? I've been hearing this bull for my entire adult life, and no one would confuse me with someone who is young. Hell, I used to spout this horseshit myself, until I did something that no one spewing pablum like "nuclear sucks" and "solar and wind are miraculous," ever bothers to do: I educated myself, by myself.

Solar and wind didn't work. They aren't working. And the won't work, if, in fact, "working" is defined as stabilizing the planetary environment.

If it's not that, stabilizing the planetary environment, if its being part of a mindless set of chanting lemmings, well then, I don't give a shit.

It is easy to show that more than 10% of the mortality on this planet in a given year is linked to air pollution.

I don't think you give a shit, certainly not about human health and the causes of mortality. Giving a shit would involve finding out what is happening, as opposed to offering absurd pontifications about what could happen. You've given zero evidence that you do, nothing, zilch, except a little whiny Trumpian distraction defense: "Straw man."

My ass.

Now, I don't expect a "straw" head to mosey his or her bourgeois ass over to a scientific library to read the Lancet paper, but if one were to do, one could search in vain for a major risk being identified for "nuclear reactors." Not so cadmium exposure. In table 3 on page 2239 - I have the paper open before me - the deaths from occupation cadmium exposure is estimated to have been 555 in 2010.

Tell me once more, how many radiation deaths resulted from Fukushima again?

Talk all you want about "straw." The fact is that you don't give a shit, and in fact, you clearly don't even know what giving a shit would involve.

This conversation is concluded. Anti-nukes are all the same, nothing useful to say, not a reasonable thought in their smoke clouded heads.

Have a nice weekend.

[Eko]

9. You are absolutely precious!

Every conversation I have ever had with you goes the same way with you ascribing a position that I have never taken. Its astounding the consistency you have in that regard. I also never said "nuclear sucks" and "solar and wind are miraculous" anywhere. Honestly the only position I have taken is that solar energy is not bad. Is that really such a remarkable thing for someone to say? search in vain for a major risk being identified for "nuclear reactors? Chernobyl had 56 direct deaths and it is estimated that there may eventually be 4,000 extra cancer deaths among the approximately 600,000 most highly exposed people. At the Windscale fire 33+ cancer fatalities. Does this make nuclear a big bad boogey man? Of course not. I never said it did. Technology is technology, it is intrinsically not bad. Do I think we should use nuclear energy, sure, but to say solar, I mean freaking solar, is worse than nuclear seems,,,, well a little mad. I mean you are talking about the possible leeching of lead into the water from solar panels while completely ignoring the possibility of radiation leeching into the water, you know, something that is happening right now at Fukushima. Does that mean we are all going to die from radiated oceans? Of course not. The levels are very low. On the flip side are we all going to die from lead leeched from solar cells? Of course not. Im pretty sure that we will be intelligent enough to handle that just like we are intelligent enough to handle core meltdowns at nuclear plants. But yes, I want people to die from air pollution, why?, I dont know I just do because you say so and cant handle a conversation.
Thanks.

[ccarrick]

20. Keep it simple

For us poor beknighted unintelligent souls who don't care about anything except feeling good about ourselves.

1) how many of the world's 570 exojoules are attributed to electricity demand annually?
2) out of that portion attributable to electricity, how many new exojoules have been added in the last 10 years (when almost all of the investment in solar has taken place)?
3) how much of the new growth in electricity growth in the last 10 years has been attributed to the BRIC and other developing countries?
4) how much of this new growth has been supplied by renewables, coal, gas, and nuclear, and what has been the investment in each?
5) given the desperate energy poverty in the developing world, which technology is best suited to provide basic needs - solar, wind and storage - whose costs are rapidly dropping and which can provide power close to where people live and which don't require expensive transmission lines, or expensive nukes which adhere to an outdated centralized generation model?

[Eko]

7. And of course

the argument wasn't Nuclear vs coal, gas, oil and biomass but Solar vs coal, gas, oil and Nuclear. Moving the goalposts there NNadir. I wonder how many people solar has killed vs nuclear?

[ExciteBike66]

3. Um

"Solar energy, even if it has failed spectacularly even to slow the degradation of the planetary atmosphere"

Um, can't one say this about any currently-used source of power?

[NNadir]

10. The issue is which energy technology NOT dependent on fossil fuel has done SIGNIFICANT...

...work per unit of cost.

The solar industry soaked up a trillion dollar expenditure in the last ten years. It doesn't produce even 2 of the 570 exajoules of energy humanity consumes each year.

This is a dramatic failure.

[ExciteBike66]

11. Progress is expensive...

how much money did it take to develop nuclear power, and over how many years?

I'm fine with nukes, I wish we had more. I'm also fine with supporting solar.

[NNadir]

12. Nuclear energy has produced more than 25 exajoules of energy every year for three...

Last edited Sat Apr 8, 2017, 09:53 PM - Edit history (2)

...decades, this while people were screaming to cut off all funding for it because solar is so great.

All of this energy more or less was produced using technology that was basically laid out in the 1950's and 1960's.

In the 1950's and 1960's there was no advanced computational technology available, materials science was primitive.

Yet the generations of those times made an investment in the future that is still paying huge dividends, having prevented the dumping of more than sixty billion tons of carbon dioxide.

Nuclear energy remains to day the world's largest, by far, source of climate change gas primary energy, with the possible exception of biofuels, biofuels being responsible for about one half of the seven million air pollution deaths that occur each year while asinine people pick lint out of their navels claiming nuclear energy is not "safe."

Safe compared to what?

The radiation deaths from fracking that has become necessary because the solar industry has not worked, is not working and won't work - primarily radium-226 in flowback water - easily will exceed, form many generations, the death toll from all nuclear operations over half a century.

Nuclear energy is a mature technology. Solar energy is a fantasy.

The generation of the 1950's and 1960's, led by some of the finest minds the world has known, invested in the future and built our existing nuclear infrastructure, which did not, is not, and will not cost one trillion dollars a decade in order to produce less than 5 exajoules of energy for infrastructure that will not last ten to twenty years before coming electronic landfill.

They saved almost two million lives that would have been lost to air pollution, and prevented the dumping of 60 billion tons of carbon dioxide. (We recently reached a rate of dumping 36 billion tons per year, the highest every observed.)

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

This bullshit that "nuclear is too expensive" is the same as the bullshit that "nuclear isn't safe."

It's an argument that what has already happened is now impossible. It's ignorant. It's absurd. It's beneath contempt since it is an argument that kills people.

I live in New Jersey, near the oldest operating nuclear reactor in the United States, Oyster Creek. Until recently, when New Jersey's utilities began into engage engage - under public pressure - the huge and useless investment in solar energy, I enjoyed some of the lowest electricity rates in the world. (They are rising now.)

Suppose we spent billions of dollars (2017 dollars) making Oyster Creek "safer" back in the period from 1965 to 1969 when it was built. How many lives would have been saved? As many as if we spent the same billions of dollars providing septic facilities to the 1 to 2 billion people who still lack it today? As many as if we provided school lunches for free to under nourished children? As many as if we offered free vaccinations to those who haven't had them?

How many people died because Oyster Creek was "unsafe?"

I am sick and tired of hearing how much money solar energy could provide if as much money as was spent on it was spent on solar energy. That much money was spent on solar in just the last ten years, and it's useless. Worthless. Ineffective. Dependent on dangerous natural gas, fracked dangerous natural gas.

The problem with the anti-nuke pro-solar squad is that they get away with falsehoods and outright lies that are Trumpian in scale.

If nuclear reactors cost ten billion dollars each - there's no real reason they should except for the grotesquely immoral and irrational calculation that one death from nuclear energy is worth millions of deaths from other energy technologies - we could have built two hundred of them for the same amount of money we squandered on solar and the equally worthless wind industry in just the last ten years. It's easy to show that these reactors would produce between 7 and 8 exajoules of primary energy if they were built using 1960's technology. They could easily produce much more exergy with modest investments in thermal efficiency - not safety since there is nothing on a 20 or more exajoule scale than is safer than nuclear energy in terms of deaths per GWh - using more modern technology.

The fact that we don't recognize these simple facts is a very dangerous, a very immoral and a completely contemptuous crime against all future generations.

Have a nice Sunday.

[Eko]

13. Totally safe.

Emergency Declared At Nuclear-Contaminated Site In Washington State
The Department of Energy has declared an emergency at a nuclear-contaminated site in Washington state, after soil caved in over a portion of a tunnel containing rail cars contaminated with nuclear waste.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029035820

[Eko]

15. You tried this argument on me before.

I'm not anti-nuke, I am anti-you saying that nuclear is safer than solar. I am also anti-pollution. If it is so safe why are those closest to the tunnel remaining indoors. Have there been times The Department of Energy has declared an emergency at a solar plant? Or somewhere that defunct solar planes are being kept? Maybe you should relax a little, I have not said anything demeaning towards you, insulted you, in fact I am trying to have a discussion with you but every time you seem to fly off the rails. Calm down and talk not insult and be demeaning. Can I be wrong? sure, but you are not getting anywhere convincing me by calling me "primitive and as weak minded, distracted, uneducated, paranoid children,clearly unintelligent, clearly unwise, and clearly immoral.

[NNadir]

16. I couldn't care less if you don't like it. I stand by every damned word. The idea that solar...

...is "safer" than nuclear is garbage, since over a trillion bucks squandered on solar in just the last ten years did nothing to prevent the growth in the use of dangerous fossil fuels.

And dangerous fossil fuels, again, in case you missed it, kill people, not just when there are accidents, not just when they are mined, but when they are used normally.

Since solar is ineffective and useless, it is dangerous since it allows this danger - fossil fuels - to continue to kill people.

The world scientific literature is absolutely filled with references to the tragedy of electronic waste, and just because you neither know about it or care about it, and are only concerned with what you and not I consider an "EMERGENCY" is pure indifferent selective attention, which to repeat, I consider weak minded bullshit.

I never miss reading a single issue of the scientific journal Environmental Science and Technology. I spend at least one full working day, sometimes more in the primary scientific literature, sometimes to do my job, and sometimes because I give a shit about the environment.

What do you do to stay informed? Prowl the internet for nuclear materials leaks?

You after all, dug up this thread to announce the grand fucking tragedy with an ignorant statement that solar is safer than nuclear.

I am not going to calm down.

Like I say repeatedly and consistently, 19,000 people die every fucking day, and if you think I'm supposed to calm down and talk to you as if you're being sensible.

You're not being sensible. It's not even close.

I repeat, in case you didn't get it while worrying over whether or not you like my tone, the solar industry is extremely dangerous not just because it involves toxic materials, although it does involve toxic materials - like cadmium - which kill people regularly if out of your purview. But the most is dangerous thing about the solar industry is that it doesn't work.. The trillions of dollars thrown at solar and wind in the last ten years has not made the slightest dent in the increase in the use of dangerous fossil fuels. The solar doesn't produce as much energy in total after 50 years of hype as resulted from the increase in the use of dangerous natural gas in a single year. As of 2015 the humanity was using 574 exajoules of energy each year. Solar PV energy didn't produce 3 of them.

Because it doesn't work, it follows that it allows the status quo to continue and the status quo is not only killing people; it's destroying the atmosphere for all future generations. Maybe you think I should sit around drinking tea and conversing with you on what is clearly ridiculous criteria because, well, you consider yourself sensible and calm and reasonable.

If that is in fact, your description of yourself, I strongly disagree. There's nothing sensible, nothing calming and nothing reasonable in you pulling up this thread to hand out stupid solar propaganda that is, again, nonsense.

Rather than suggesting that I calm down, I'd like to recommend that instead you have a little passion for decency - maybe even become angry - but maybe that's to much to ask. You fucking think that the tunnel at Hanford is a big deal. I think that racing over 410 ppm of carbon dioxide this year at a rate never seen before is a big deal and the fucking Hanford tunnel is trivial. I think that the 19,000 people who will die today from air pollution is a big deal, and you think that a few microcuries of ¹³⁷Cs that might leak out of a tunnel is the end of the world.

Get it?

No?

Why am I not surprised?

[Eko]

17. Looks like nuclear

energy use has peaked out in the 90's, natural gas and renewables are the ones that have risen since then. That being said what makes you think nuclear has done anything to stop the growth in the use of dangerous fossil fuels in the last ten years?

[Eko]

18. Where are you getting

that over a trillion has been squandered on solar in the past ten years?.

[ccarrick]

19. hey NNadir - no one is buying your bull****

go peddle your crap somewhere else, where your logical fallacies might have some sway - like redstate

you can come back when your fantasy spent uranium reprocessing technology becomes commercially viable and economical.

otherwise, spare us your concern about "toxic" waste

you f'in hypocrite