First you’re going to need reliable worker safety data and population cancer rate data out of China (which makes almost all panels), which…. Good luck.
Silicon Valley is full of cancer causing superfund sites due to improper disposal of chemicals used to produce semiconductors back in the 70’s and 80’s.
Solar panels are semiconductor based (the actual power generating parts are diodes, specifically).
If the chemicals are disposed of properly and workers wear the correct PPE, there are no measurable increases in cancer.
It’s a whole grab bag of chemicals, from TCE, Chromic Acid, Crystalline Silica, etc. etc. 130+ common ones with significant carcinogenic potential.
Thanks for bringing up the concrete example of Silicon Valley's chemicals.
Btw, just to be clear: overall both solar power and nuclear are very good technologies in terms of overall harm done per Joule produced. Much, much better than coal or oil. But we shouldn't pretend that the harm per Joule is literally zero; and we should also be honest about what harm there actually is, and not just what sounds plausible or good.
What is that 'super obvious' link of cancer with nuclear power?
There's lots of dangerous chemicals involved in both the production of solar panels (and semiconductor technology in general) and also in the production of nuclear fuel. And those have to be handled carefully and responsibly, to avoid causing problems like cancer.
Note: I'm deliberately not talking about radiation, because it's basically not a factor. You can live right next to a nuclear power plant, or even work in one, and your radiation exposure will be indistinguishable from background levels. Working as an airplane flight attendant (or even at the top of a really tall building or on a mountain) is much more dangerous in that regard.
Radiation destroys DNA and directly causes cancer. That's the super obvious link. Your deliberate avoidance doesn't change that fact.
Because of this are a bunch of safety protocols in the extraction, transportation, storage and use of radio active materials and their waste products.
100% sure that all of the chemicals involved in Solar manufacture are less toxic to the human body than handling Plutonium. So, we can probably design enough protocols to make it safe to manufacture given we did it for far more toxic materials.
> You can live right next to a nuclear power plant, or even work in one, and your radiation exposure will be indistinguishable from background levels.
So they dug up and replaced all the surface soil around Fukushima for no reason?
Don’t bet on that plutonium toxicity thing. For one, most reactors aren’t going to have any plutonium (or any other radioisotope) where anyone can touch it or interact with it in any way.
Concentrated Hydroflouric acid, and even pure fluorine gas however? That can be an easy turn of a tap away at most semiconductor plants. And much worse. And if you know anything about Florine, ‘much worse’ should be pretty chilling.
I’m honestly not sure if radiation poisoning (actually quite hard and rare to die from) is worse than dying from fluorine exposure (I’m sure it’s killed a lot more people than radiation), but fluorine is certainly going to be faster.
Most fire departments are going to be a lot more concerned about a semiconductor plant than a nuclear one.
But choosing nuclear power doesn't remove our need for semiconductors, so it's a bit weird to attribute that to solar.
The fabrication of of panels is more analogous to fission material mining. As in you are procuring the materials that will produce energy in the future.
If we get rid of nuclear power, we don't need to mine those things anymore. If we get rid of solar panels, we still need semiconductors. So I don't think you can use it for an argument against solar manufacture.
The more semiconductors you make, the more waste chemicals you produce (and use), and the more contamination and cancer you’re going to have if those chemicals aren’t handled correctly. Aka more solar panels, more waste chemicals.
Same with nukes and nuclear waste by running your nuclear plant longer/harder.
90/10 one way will produce a lot of one thing, and less of another - and vice versa.
> 100% sure that all of the chemicals involved in Solar manufacture are less toxic to the human body than handling Plutonium. So, we can probably design enough protocols to make it safe to manufacture given we did it for far more toxic materials.
So?
You have to look at the amount of chemicals required to produce 1 Joule (or perhaps to install one 1 Watt of capacity).
For example, 1 kg of coal is much less dangerous than 1 kg of uranium. But you need much, much more than 1kg of coal to replace 1 kg of uranium.
Similar for solar power: you need to normalise the amount (and 'badness') of waste by the amount of energy produced. Semi-conductor manufacturing isn't exactly like organic farming, you know?
The best example is perhaps hydro-power: 1 kg of fresh water is basically the most harmless substance you can think of. But you need enormous amounts of water to produce reasonable amounts of electricity. And in these huge quantities water can become dangerous.
> > You can live right next to a nuclear power plant, or even work in one, and your radiation exposure will be indistinguishable from background levels.
> So they dug up and replaced all the surface soil around Fukushima for no reason?
Huh? Fukushima was not a normally operating nuclear power plant. Yes, accidents happen. That's why I'm suggesting to look at the impact of accidents per Joule produced (or per Watt of installed capacity, depending on context).
Nuclear power has had only a handful of accidents and lots and lots of Joule produced.
Right so pick a metric that highly favours nuclear because its been around longer.
And ignore common sense that leaving inert rocks in the sun is fundamentally less dangerous than super heating water with highly toxic and unstable materials.
If you can't see your bias here, I don't think I am going to change your mind.
Even by your joule measure, give it time, Solar will beat that too. And even if the largest solar farm in existence started to fail or "not operate normally" we would not have to replace the top soil or bury it in sand for 20,000 years.
> Right so pick a metric that highly favours nuclear because its been around longer.
Huh? It's the opposite! Being around for longer is worse for nuclear for this metric. Nuclear has a small risk of catastrophic failure (especially when used with outdated, bad designs and when operators make careless mistakes). If you only observe nuclear for a short time, say between inception to 1980, or between 1990 to 2010, that metric would look really good, because we got lucky during those times and didn't have any 'jackpots' in the accident lottery.
> And ignore common sense that leaving inert rocks in the sun is fundamentally less dangerous than super heating water with highly toxic and unstable materials.
Huh? What does common sense have to do with anything? We have actual numbers. The realised dangers come not so much from operating already installed solar panels, but mostly from (a) accidents while installing the panels, especially rooftop residential solar, and (b) the chemicals used when producing them.
Overall solar power is very, very safe over its whole life cycle; and that also includes the two dangers listed above.
> Even by your joule measure, give it time, Solar will beat that too. And even if the largest solar farm in existence started to fail or "not operate normally" we would not have to replace the top soil or bury it in sand for 20,000 years.
I don't understand your point. Yes, solar power is pretty neat, I already agree.
But we already have data showing that solar power is more dangerous than nuclear per Joule produced. We roughly know how many people slip and fall off roofs when installing solar panels. (And we have good estimates for how many people died because of nuclear accidents and because of routine operations etc.)
And yes, I agree, that accidents while installing solar panels are a ridiculously small danger per Joule of electricity produced. It's just that both nuclear power and solar power are so safe, that if you insist on making a comparison between the two, these very tiny dangers are what tips the scale.
You could also just be pragmatic and say: both of them are vastly more than 'safe enough' and any difference is pretty close to zero.
I'm fairly sure solar power will 'win' over nuclear. Mostly because it's actually politically possible to install new solar power quickly and cheaply.
