Hot solar manufacturer also produces lots of hazardous waste

Last year, at a ribbon-cutting for the state-subsidized plant, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick called Evergreen Solar as “one of the companies that’s going to help us get clean energy right.” The company boasts that its manufacturing process "has the smallest carbon footprint in the industry."

Massachusetts is such a big supporter of the company that there's been talk of using millions of dollars in federal stimulus funding to add as much as 30 megawatts of solar power capacity at public facilities statewide, boosting Evergreen Solar's stock.

However, according to the Boston Herald, Evergreen Solar is "on its way to becoming one of the state’s top producers of hazardous waste."

"The company generated more than a million pounds of hazardous waste last year, according to a report filed this week with the state Department of Environmental Protection, even though its new $450 million factory ... wasn’t operating at full capacity," the Herald reported.

“It’s the other side of this whole clean energy push,” Liz Harriman, deputy director of the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, told the paper. “Even so-called clean manufacturing uses a lot of nasty chemicals."

The plant is currently running at 40 percent capacity, the paper reported. Once it's at 100 percent, "making some 780,000 solar panels a year, sources say it could be among the state’s top three creators of hazardous waste," the Herald said.

[Image: Evergreen Solar]

--Craig Pittman

Comments

[John Hanrahan]

You should check your facts 100% before commiting libel.

[Tino]

Thanks, John, for providing the proof after making a criminal accusation.

Good job.

[get-smart]

How can this story be inaccurate. The cells are made of chemicals and the chemicals are poisonous! Voilá, hazardous waste!

[SL]

I would like more details, specifically what hazardous chemicals and what quantities

[get-smart]

SL -

The SVTC warns that solar panel production creates many of the same toxic byproducts as those found in semiconductor production, including silicon tetrachloride, dusts, and greenhouse gases like sulfur hexafluoride. These byproducts aren’t anything to scoff at— silicon tetrachloride, for example, makes land unsuitable for growing crops. And for each ton of polysilicon produced, four tons of silicon tetrachloride are generated.

http://cleantechnica.com/2009/01/14/danger-solar-panels-can-be-hazardous-to-your-health/

I hope this helps.

Cheers -

[Andrew Brengle]

Scientific American article offers a little more perspective: Even though thin-film solar PVs employ heavy metals such as cadmium recovered from mining slimes(FirstSolar, not Evergreen), the overall toxic emissions are "90 to 300 times lower than those from coal power plants," the researchers write in Environmental Science & Technology.
That article can be found at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=solar-cells-prove-cleaner-way-to-produce-power
Also, that hazardous waste created by Evergreen Solar is regulated and managed. Certainly that's no guarantee that it can't be spilled or otherwise emitted through 'fugitive emissions', but the article leaves you with the impression that all those toxics are generated...and then what: released, disposed, dumped late at night by the side of the road? Give the folks at Evergreen a little more credit.

[ablazev]

Toxicity of Thin Film Panels (from Wikipedia). "Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) is toxic, but only so if ingested, its dust inhaled, or if it is handled improperly (i.e. without appropriate gloves and other safety precautions). Once properly and securely captured and encapsulated, CdTe used in manufacturing processes may be rendered harmless. The toxicity is not solely due to the cadmium content. One study found that the highly reactive surface of cadmium telluride quantum dots triggers extensive reactive oxygen damage to the cell membrane, mitochondria, and cell nucleus.[2]. Many nanoparticle chemicals have safety issues. In addition, the cadmium telluride films are typically recrystallized in a toxic compound of cadmium chloride. The disposal and long term safety of cadmium telluride is a known issue in the large scale commercialization of cadmium telluride solar panels. Serious efforts have been made to understand and overcome these issues. A document hosted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health[3] dated 2003 discloses that: Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are nominating Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) for inclusion in the National Toxicology Program (NTP). This nomination is strongly supported by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and First Solar Inc. The material has the potential for widespread applications in photovoltaic energy generation that will involve extensive human interfaces. Hence, we consider that a definitive toxicological study of the effects of long-term exposure to CdTe is a necessity."

So it is obvious that we don't know what's going on with those CdTe PV panels. I just wonder what happened to saving the Earth from pollution, if we are going to have questionably hazardous CdTe dripping from our roofs? Who is going to check and control the pollution in miles upon miles of Thin Film PV panels? Aren't we solving one problem by creating another. Maybe more serious? How are we saving the Earth doing this?