UNADDRESSED SOLAR ISSUES
While most of the discussion about AES's proposal centers on problems with battery energy-storage systems, solar panels also pose hazards. Manufacturing their silicon wafers requires burning fossil fuels and trees and mining quartz. Making the wafers electronically conductive requires hundreds of chemicals and guzzles water. The panels are coated with PFAs in four places. When panels crack, their chemicals can leach into the ground. Every substance that goes into making the panels, their glass covers, their electrical wiring and mounts, requires intercontinental shipping. At the end of their usable lives, solar panels are hazardous waste. If we look from cradle-to-grave, we can't rightly call solar PVs (or batteries) "clean", "green" or "renewable".
I notice that everyone involved in discussions about solar and BESS facilities believes that their survival is threatened-- either by climate changes and/or by potential fire hazards and leached toxic chemicals.
In Sandoval County, New Mexico, another proposed solar and BESS project (on 1833 acres with 110 megawatts of battery storage) has drawn opposition.
At this time, what does living within our ecological means look like?
MORE HEADLINES
Historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, author of More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy, says, Forget the energy transition: there never was one and there never will be one.
On December 24th, AES Andes, a subsidiary of AES Corporation, began taking steps to build a massive industrial complex near the Paranal Observatory in Chile's Atacam Desert, the world's darkest and clearest astronomical observatory. AES' facility would include thousands of electricity generation units, a port and ammonia and hydrogen production plants. The European Southern Observatory's general director, Xavier Barcons, says, "The proximity of the AES Andes industrial megaproject to Paranal poses a critical risk to the most pristine night skies on the planet. Dust emissions during construction, increased atmospheric turbulence, and especially light pollution will irreparably impact the capabilities for astronomical observation." The Observatory is urging AES Andes to relocate the project further from the Paranal Observatory to preserve the region's dark skies.
February 5, a massive fire exploded in Poland at a facility housing 1300 e-bikes and additional spare lithium-ion batteries. It took over 150 firefighters 28 hours to battle the flames, while authorities warned residents to stay indoors to avoid the toxic smoke.
GOOD NEWS!
In Kentucky, activists bought a prison site to rewild the land.
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