Well, let’s be fair, here. It may be “toxic” but at least it’s “green toxic.” Which is like being pleasantly poisoned by unicorn kisses or smilingly stroking out while watching the happy ending of an Al Gore massage.
Three months ago, CBS 5 caught Solyndra tossing millions of dollars worth of brand new glass tubes used to make solar panels. Now the bankrupt solar firm, once touted as a symbol of green technology, may be trying to abandon toxic waste.
It’s a tedious process. Slowly but surely, the shattered remains of brand new solar panel tubes head to a recycling plant in Hayward.
Meanwhile the next phase of the company’s liquidation is under way. It involves getting rid of all the heavy metals left inside the building that were used to make the panels.
[…]
Solyndra leased a building on California Circle for the final assembly of its solar panels. But the cleanup at the leased building in Milpitas is in limbo, because Solyndra doesn’t want to pay.
CBS 5 found the building locked up, with no one around. At the back, a hazardous storage area was found. There were discarded buckets half filled with liquids and barrels labeled “hazardous waste.”
The building’s owner, a company called iStar, claimed in court documents, “there may be serious environmental, health and safety issues” at the premises. According to the documents, they include, “numerous containers of solvents and chemicals…and processing equipment contaminated with lead.”
“Essentially it looks like they left a pretty big mess behind,” San Jose State Assistant Professor Dustin Mulvaney told CBS 5. Mulvaney has written a white paper (.pdf) on solar industry waste for the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.
Small price to pay for being so forward-thinking, “successful and innovative,” if you ask me.
And tell me: if the company wasn’t just what we as Americans were hoping for, why would be give it such open access to the great Bank of Washington?
Yeah. That’s what I thought, haters.
Ugh.
Well, the toxic waste site superfund can be tapped to clean up Solyndra. What’s another 100 million taxpayer dollars?
Anyway, the whole “solar panels are clean energy” crap has always pissed me off, because I’ve long known about the incredibly toxic chemicals required for the manufacturing process.
However, it’s somewhat worth it to get a stunned look from an enviro wacko by mentioning the toxic waste created by solar panel manufacturers.
However, it’s somewhat worth it to get a stunned look from an enviro wacko by mentioning the toxic waste created by solar panel manufacturers.
The whole Green energy movement is a farce, and an expensive one.
Volts run on electricity! Yea! Oh, wait, that electricity is generated from dirty icky coal. Solar panels made of toxic heavy metals? Just what you want on your roof during a driving hailstorm.
Just to be fair, there are toxic chemicals involved in making the solar panels, but I don’t think the panels themselves contain any toxic elements.
Probably, cranky. Isn’t that what they (them guys) said about PVC pipes for replacing lead pipe? Now they are a-killin’ us with their leach-y chemicals.
I can remember being in elementary school when asbestos was being pumped into the buildings for insulation and riding my bike through the neighborhood when cropdusters were dusting the cotton fields by us. Life is finite so I’m not worried about solar panel safety. I’m more concerned with the Greens holding themselves to their own standards.
I’ll most likely have a long wait.
My envirofriends hate it when I refer to their whizzing roller skate as a “coal-powered car.” Abso-friggin-lutely hate it.
“Yup, your car is state-of-the-art. For 1831!“
We’re surprised why, exactly? The green movement was never about protecting the environment, that was just for the rubes. Anyone with half a brain, or who has ever visited Mexico, knows that a clean environment is a luxury that third-world countries can’t afford. Yet these clowns are perfectly happy to try to reduce our economy to that level. It was always about the America-hateyness, Gaia be damned.