SOLAR POWER COMING YOUR WAY
by Sadhu Govardhan
As the worlds
natural resources are rapidly dwindling and fear of peak oil is
beginning to spread, talk about alternative (renewable) energies is on
the rise. The most popular amongst them is solar power and it is
supposed to come your way soon. Already in 1994, Shell International
Petroleum projected that renewable energy, especially solar, will
account for 50% of the world’s energy production by 2050. It promises
clean energy, increased independence from the grid, fast installation,
a good life span (solar panels last 20-35 years, batteries 2-6 years)
– all with low environmental impact.
All of this sounds so good and
promising that the vast majority of people are buying into it.
Fortunately, it is only the vast majority and not everyone. Once you
scratch underneath the surface, you will find a dark side that
wouldn’t be very popular and therefore is mostly hidden.
As a
society, we have been trained to develop tunnel vision and always see
the product only. In order to understand the true benefits or
disadvantages of a product, we need to expand our vision and see the
entire process: extraction (natural resource exploitation), production
(including setting up factories), distribution (which is large coal or
oil based), consumption (the engine of our system of choice:
consumerism) and disposal (toxic materials ending up in incinerators
or landfills).
Every conventional product and many “alternative”
products have to go through this cycle of what is called “materialism”
or “consumerism”. This system is currently promoted world wide as the
most advanced way of life in the history of mankind. Materialistic
capitalism is entirely dependent on consumerism. So much so, that our
entire economy stands and falls with the way we consume. If consumers
stop consuming at an extreme rate, the economy can fall apart “over
night”.
And consume we do – at a higher rate than ever,
condemned to never stop. Corporations and governments make sure that
we remain enthusiastic by all means.
What now about the latest
fantastic energy product on the horizon – solar powered systems?
In March of 2008, the
Washington Post published an eye-opening article about the hidden or
darker side of solar power. China, a sleeping giant that is now
becoming the largest and fastest growing economic force in the world
has finally begun to taste the nectar of life: money. They have lagged
far behind the most “civilized” and “successful” world leader, the
United States for long enough. Now they too, have joined the race to
exploit natural resources at the fastest pace possible. It was no
problem for them to clear massive forest areas to establish giant
factories to produce polysilicon – the main ingredient in solar panel
production - destined for solar panels sold around the world (over 90%
of all panels are still made with polysilicon). In no time, have they
become the largest producers of photovoltaic (pv) systems on the
planet. The main resource these giant factories are after is
polysilicon.
Polysilicon is made from sand. It is complicated
to produce and requires huge amounts of energy. For each ton of
polysilicon produced, the process generates at least four tons of a
toxic liquid substance, called “silicon tetrachloride”. When exposed
to humid air, it transforms into acids and highly toxic hydrogen
chloride gas.
The Washington Post article mostly focused on how
thousands of tons of this toxic substance were dumped over farm lands,
which in turn became like toxic grave yards. But the customer, a
well-to-do middle class man or woman in the civilized west doesn’t see
that. After all, who wants to be reminded that the manufacture of
solar cells involves large amounts of aluminum, glass, mild steel,
lead, cadmium, mercury and other ingredients that consume enormous
amounts of energy and cause carbon dioxide emissions? And who wants to
be aware of the vast amounts of fossil fuels that are used to produce
and transport solar panels and batteries? (Solar PV battery banks are
essentially the same type of lead-acid batteries used in cars, with a
similarly short lifespan).
“Ok, the production part is
bad, but can’t we just save the day by recycling the toxic waste
products and later on the hundreds of millions of panels and batteries
properly?” It doesn’t even sound good, but let’s say it does, and we
just have to recycle as much as we can. There is no doubt that
hundreds of millions of batteries which would have to be discarded
every few years would cause serious environmental problems. In order
to recycle silicon tetrachloride, it has to be heated to more than
1800 degrees – a very costly, time- and energy-consuming process that
would drive the prices of solar panels up extremely. Even with the
prices kept low, the owners of these solar panel factories have become
billionaires within just a few years.
This leads at least me to the
next question: do we really want to remain stuck in a cycle of asking
for a product that makes a few people billionaires at the cost of the
exploitation of essential natural resources and extreme environmental
pollution and destruction?
Yes, the idea of generating
energy from a free energy source – the sun – sounds good. And yes,
while a solar system is up and running there is minimal environmental
impact, but can we forget the price we all have to pay for
manufacturing and disposing of the product? We can’t. We simply can’t
afford to make more fundamental mistakes, especially not on an
enormous scale.
At this point, this “alternative” energy is still
a toxic industry and far from being sustainable. But we are not
supposed to say that because it’s not good for our “economy”. “Just
buy the Goddamn’ product and don’t criticize or ask too many
questions!” is the general attitude of the industry.
Many people
who run their houses with solar energy do so because it eases their
conscience: “I am green, I am alternative, and I care for the world. I
can afford a good solution (to power an average house costs anywhere
between 15 and 40k)”. But what do these same people say when
confronted with the fact that the factory had to burn more than 40kg
of coal to produce just one of their panels? Or what do they say about
the hundreds of thousands of acres of silicon tetrachloride polluted
farm land in China? What about the ammonia, the lung-eating
trichlorosilane and chlorine that are left in the fields?
For decades, Western countries
have been doing much of their dirty work (in terms of extraction,
production and disposal) in lesser developed countries. Now, as Dr.
Wan Gang, Chinas minister of science and technology says, “We are
burning a lot of coal to produce solar panels for Western countries,
so that they get clean air and the reputation of a carbon-free
economy, while pollution and greenhouse gas emissions are chalked up
to our account”.
About 30 million tons of coal, or more than 1% of
China’s output of coal, are needed to keep all the polysilicon plants
hot.
So, the facts are clear: the carbon footprint
left behind this industry is devastating. Why anyone ever called it
“alternative” or “renewable” or worse, even “sustainable” is beyond
me.
All right, but we can’t give up so fast on a potentially fantastic
idea: to get a clean energy from a free source. So, let’s just fix the
few glitches and produce panels and batteries with alternative
materials! Here some good news: it’s been done already. There are
panels made with a compound called “cad-tel” (short for
“cadmium-telluride”. This material allows manufacturers to make very
thin-film PV’s, and the compound is said to render the dangerous
cadmium inert. (Cad-tel would have to be heated to 1,041 degrees
Celsius before it breaks down). Nonetheless, cad-tel is still a
hazardous material that needs to be handled with extreme care and the
process of extraction, production and distribution still remains
severely toxic. And yes, there is a better battery too: it’s still a
bit too large but it can store 20 kilowatt-hours and it runs on sodium
sulfur (instead of lead-acid). Not that the extraction of
sodium-sulfur is environmentally friendly but the battery performs
better! Did I mention that both alternatives also cost a lot more? The
new sodium-sulfur based battery should be around $2,000. It is not
known yet how long these batteries will maintain their storage
capacity and efficiency.
So, what’s the solution? Are there any good
solutions? Yes, there are good solutions and they are all here
already. But only few can see or understand them. The reason for this
is that the energy issue, much like all other relevant issues of life,
requires a certain level of consciousness and realization before one
can understand them. The key to understanding them is to understand
the meaning and necessity of a simple term called “sustainability”.
Since every pure term eventually shares the same fate of becoming
commercialized and twisted, I want to get right to its true essence:
Real
sustainability is based on what could be called “cyclic” thinking, a
thought or process that doesn’t start with its beginning and demise
but a cycle that works from “cradle to cradle”, from birth to birth.
This type of thinking is naturally developed when studying nature in
its pure form. Nature does not entertain the concepts of waste or
loss. Even apparent waste in nature turns into a valuable resource
like food or energy, without any pollution. Truly sustainable thinking
does not entertain the concepts of waste or loss. That’s the answer.
That’s the solution, and it is already in front of our eyes. How can
we see it? By increasing our desire for truly sustainable solutions,
whether it is in the field of energy production, economy, social life,
or any other aspect of life. The price to turn from a blind
materialist to someone who can see solutions is to study nature and
give up selfish, insatiable greed. After all, there is no environment
friendly solution to human greed. Whether this change is difficult or
not makes no difference: if we want to survive, we will have to
develop the ability of sustainable or cyclic thinking. And no, this is
not another product you can buy. Raising one’s consciousness is the
very essence of intelligent life. It’s for free but it is not cheap.
As
long as we are addicted consumers who are perfectly gullible to the
multi-faceted and expert manipulation by our educational systems,
governments, corporations and the media, we can not break out of the
toxic cycle we have built around us. So, the question is not whether
there is a solution to the current toxic disasters we helped to
create, but whether we are willing to purify and raise our
consciousness or not.
© Sadhu Govardhan,
2009 |
I would like
to extend a heartfelt thanks to everyone who has helped out this
project over the years. Even if I can't acknowledge all of you
individually since so many people have supported Govardhan Gardens
in so many ways, I certainly remember every one of you. 
