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It's a trick question.
I've had solar on my house since 2009. It does not work 24/7.
Most places in the USA only have a yearly average of 4-6 hours of usable sunlight a day. In my state, we routinely go for weeks at a time with grey overcast skies, and fog in the AM. Solar is not very popular here at all.
Solar panels have a life of about 25 years or less. Once they're dead, toxic waste will be left. Very toxic. The EU has laws that ensure solar panels be recycled properly. Japan, India and Australia are in the process of setting up recycling laws for solar. The US? Nope. Only one state, WA, requires this.
But we’ll need to develop one soon, because the solar e-waste glut is coming. By 2050, the International Renewable Energy Agency projects that up to 78 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their life, and that the world will be generating about 6 million metric tons of new solar e-waste annually. While the latter number is a small fraction of the total e-waste humanity produces each year, standard electronics recycling methods don’t cut it for solar panels. Recovering the most valuable materials from one, including silver and silicon, requires bespoke recycling solutions. And if we fail to develop those solutions along with policies that support their widespread adoption, we already know what will happen. https://www.wired.com/story/solar-pa...d-toxic-trash/
I’m in WA.
Solar panel composition:
glass (75%), followed by polymer (10%), aluminum (8%), silicon (5%), copper (1%) and small amounts of silver, tin, lead, and other metals and components. Lead and tin, if leached into soil and groundwater cause health and environmental concerns, while copper, silver, and silicon present a value opportunity if recovered efficiently.
If you think a small amount of lead and tin is very toxic, you’ll be horrified by coal plants.
Most places in the USA only have a yearly average of 4-6 hours of usable sunlight a day. In my state, we routinely go for weeks at a time with grey overcast skies, and fog in the AM. Solar is not very popular here at all.
It’s not like you will get a new connection to a magical solar farm using a completely isolated solar grid. You will get the exact same power as anybody else. They might as well ask if would you like to donate to help develop solar electricity.
Is your utility incompetent? Solar and wind are the cheapest forms of energy in the U.S. or, at worst, no more expensive than natural gas, coal, or nuclear. To charge 25% more means they are doing something wrong.
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