this post was submitted on 01 May 2026
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Climate
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
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Smrs are exploding in popularity for this very reason.
Because they don't have to factor in the cost of dealing with the nuclear waste.
This is an error that's been made and still being made everywhere.
Costs are going up regardless of the methods of energy creation. The most important thing is meeting energy demand.
Unfortunately the same can be applied to any equipment that is used in the energy field. How long do solar panels last, how much does it cost to “recycle” them? Same for go wind turbines and anything else. They all have an end of life cost economically and environmentally.
The cost of installing solar has gone down fro quite a while (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices) and depending on your region you can harvest around 1 kWh annually per 1 Watt peak power.
With the price per Watt being a fraction (2024: $0.26) of a Dollar and the life span of solar modules being in the decades, it really is a no-brainer whether you want to install them or not.
While they degrade over the years, they still retain close to 90% of their original power after 20 years and above 80% after 30 years.
They're basically free from maintenance.
The inverters may not last that long, but even for quite big installations at home in the range of double-digit kilowatt peak with annual electric energy procution in the double-digit MWh range, they cost only a few hundred bucks.
The biggest part (by mass) of solar panels is glass, which you are aware can be recylced until the cows come home.
Another big part is aluminum. Recylcing wise the same as glass.
And if you really want to replace them after decades, the amount of material that can't be recycled is quite small and not hazardous. Put it in the landfill.
Wind turbines are in part different as the blades typically can't be recycled afaik. At least they're in the category of non-hazardous waste as well and just like solar panels wind turbines last a very long time plus the towsers and the generators can very well be recylced/reused.
Alas they require more maintenance than solar.
The bigger challenge than finding cheap and not dangerous sources of electric energy at the moment appears to be the storage.
With more and more electric vehicles being on the street and each of them with capable batteries this can be a part of the storage solution alongside of grid-storage.
I choose renewables over fossil and nuclear any time of the day.