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I thought the "why" was in the article:
Maybe there are also other rare resources involved in the production of PV panels?
Cd does not come out of solar panels unless you happen to burn them all in an open pit. Quit sensationalizing.
CdTe cells are made of rare earth metals, formed in supernovae explosions, they are rare, period, but are only needed in dopant amounts around 1E-9 per mol silicon. Therefore the quanitiy being used is very small, I volunteer to lick un-glassed solar panels for a whole day and check my Cd levels later. My 1000$ bet, a sandy tounge and no detectable Cd levels at all.
It's an amorphous crystal for frigs-sake. You have to heat it back to the melt temperature for any appreciable diffusion. The hazard is contained. It is like the nuclear waste they are turning into melted glass and shoving down vents into the earth, it is a GLASS, and a tough one at that, solid diffusion is VERY VERY VERY SLOW.
I worked in a pv mfr lab, and you are soooo wrong
Jeff
Can you be more specific? Gilgamesh's summary is exactly what I would think.
I don't work in PV production but I did do an EE degree in 94 so I have some knowledge.
They're both correct.
Lick the panels all you like - that's safe.
However, at the mfg side you're talking much higher concentrations of really nasty stuff to get diffusion (via high temperature) into the bulk material. If you want to work in a fab plant you've got to be paranoid about everything - leaks can kill you before you could smell or see anything. Using the final product though is a different story except for getting stabbed by pins on an IC.
Then why stop at Cadmium? Electronics is stuffed full of nasty things [at the manufacturing + assembly stage] I dont think you would want Arsenic, Berylium, Gallium, Telurium, Germanium, Phosphorus, Mercury, Americurium, Tantalum, Phosgene, Thorium, CFCs, nastystuffium etc in your Coffee. This issue needed resolving 80 years ago.
ya im an engg too, to purify the waste water stream we need gov costs for different pollutions and the toxicologists to tell us what purification method to use (chemical precipitation, RO, UF, MF, centrifugation, electrodepositation, ion exchange) these processess all require energy, and it is probable that the specific efficiency of solar panels would allow for said filtering.
This is where toxicology comes in to play, we need to know the LOEL and NOEL's for the chemicals to determine economic responses.
I'd happily stir my coffee with a tantalum spoon; the metal is unreactive enough that it's used in medical implants. Also hard enough and refractory enough that making a spoon out of it would be an interesting and quite expensive exercise.
Oliver Sacks has been known to offer guests a gallium spoon for their coffee - gallium melts at about 37C, so the spoon ends up as a little pool at the bottom of the mug - which suggests gallium is not horribly toxic.
I'll spell it out for you...these panels are not just CdTe...they're a combo of Cad Tel, Cad sulfide, and Cad Chloride, lick away my friend, you owe me 1000.00
Jeff
Cadmium is Cadmium. Heat it up...cool it down it's still cad.
CdTe panels are actually made of a cadmium telluride film on glass, rather than silicon; the patent http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5393675-claims.html (by a person who doesn't seem to be involved with First Solar, so the technology may have changed) suggests that the active film is only about a micron thick, and protected on both sides by other cadmium compounds. This isn't a dopant issue.
First Solar seem to be keeping the CdTe step of their work as a trade secret, and are patenting mechanical parts of the apparatus, various laser-cutting processes, chemistry for CVD of materials other than cadmium and tellurium, and a remarkably obvious patent on crushing defective cells and dissolving them in acid before recovering the Cd and Te by electrolysis.
On the whole I'd rather not lick cadmium chloride, since it's reasonably soluble and reasonably toxic. I'd expect any working system to have the CdTe layer pretty well encapsulated.
Tom,
Thank you, a sane person on this thread. I worked for First Solar. 2 years in R & D. One of my tasks was to load the system with cad,tellurinium and sulfide. Chloride was down stream from me...another of my tasks was to measure the surface profile, big bad with that one. Previous to that, I was in the re-cycling dept. I assure U, nothing in that place was recycled...you don't recycle CdTe, you stash it...they still have the cad I wiped off of every panel that didn't make it to Shipping and receiving. Very hazardous, they don't have enough money to throw that sh#t out. Ask yourself this, why bother with the wiping it off of the glass? Cause it's Hazardous!!! Sheesh!!! Plus, it's easier to store. In drums. That are still there. The thing is, if they ever move from that building, the cad's going with 'em. Gee, why's that if it is so friendly?
Jeff