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Comment by ratsmack | Hacker News Reader

I don't have a problem with wind and solar, but I do have a problem with the enormous amounts of toxic waste produced making solar panels and wind mills. Then there is the problem of what to do with the huge amount of waste material once the wind mills and solar panels need to be replaced. It seems that no one is addressing these issues.

On a side note, eWaste is becoming a biger issue every day as we produce ever increasing "things" to make our life easier.

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Ummmm... the machines to mine coal produce even more waste. The same for drilling equipment for oil.

So, what's your argument?

I don't see them making the argument for coal, just pointing out some concerns over solar and wind. And that's fine.

The argument being that when you just replace one type of pollution with another, I'm not sure you're benefiting as much as many people believe. I worry that some of the toxins produced with modern technologies may be worse than what we already have.

The millions of people who have suffered and died as a result of inhaling stuff like uranium from coal soot would probably disagree.

Electronics manufacturing has its risks and concerns, but is an easier problem to address as manufacturing is a centralized activity, easy to regulate.

> easy to regulate.

Theoretically.

> I worry that some of the toxins produced with modern technologies may be worse than what we already have.

Well worry not, as coal is known to be the greatest contributor of radioactive elements and mercury in our environment at the moment.

Even if alternate energy sources were in equal footing with fossil fuels it would still be worth it to pursue them because of diversification. Fossil fuel extraction has been a driving force behind geopolitics for the last century. While the elements behind solar and batteries are similarly becoming strategic resources, at least the list of exploitable resources is growing rather than shrinking.

You can recycle the glass, aluminium, lead free solder and even resurface the wafers in solar panels. They are basically 99% recyclable.

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