Environmental Impacts of Solar Energy - Wei Chou Wang

Description

Solar energy systems offer significant environmental benefits in comparison to the conventional energy sources, thus they greatly contribute to the sustainable development of human activities. At times however, the wide scale deployment of such systems has to face potential negative environmental implications. These possible problems may be a strong barrier for further advancement of these systems in some consumers.

1. Land Use and Ecological Impacts In the point of generating electricity at a utility-scale, solar energy facilities necessitate large areas for collection of energy.

2. Impacts to Soil, Water and Air Resources The construction of solar facilities on vast areas of land imposes clearing and grading, resulting in soil compaction, alteration of drainage channels and increased erosion.

3. Heavy Metals Solar panel manufacturing uses dangerous material such as Cadium Telluride, coal and oil also contain the same substsances, which are released with combustion.

4. Recycling Issue of Solar Panels there aren't enough locations to recycle old solar panels, and there aren't enough non-operational solar panels to make recycling them economically attractive.