The problem with solar energy

The more I look closely at things, the murkier they seem to be. Take solar power, for instance, now much touted as the energy source of the future. The Indian Government itself has set a target, under the National Solar Energy Mission, of 20,000 megawatts (for Heaven’s sake!).
Solar energy is clean, no doubt. The problem is in the manufacture of solar cells.

Currently, much of the production comes from a process in which a chemical called cadmium telluride is used, a highly toxic compound known to be a carcinogen and now being actively chastised by many groups working on toxics. Since the life of a solar cell is about two decades (practically speaking), just where are the cells going to go, once their life is done? There is no recycling plant that I know of, in India at least, and the manufacturers of solar panels aren’t exactly lining up to receive toxic waste.

Nanosolar, a Silicon Valley ‘clean technology’ start up says it has the answer to cadmium telluride, an answer it calls CIGS. This is a combination of copper, indium, gallium and selenium, which will be less toxic and perhaps cheaper, if produced on a large scale. The issue here will be just how these metals will be extracted. Copper mines, for example, have an absymal record of toxic waste in spillage, from India to Malaysia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Mexico and parts of Africa, including Zambia, where copper virtually supports the export economy and Congo. If anything can be said in its favour, it is that copper mines have been impartial in their record of destruction. Indium is a rare metal & its extraction promises to be messy as well.

For the moment, however, we must take away two messages : the first that the cheapest form of solar power is solar thermal power, which involves heating water with sunlight to make steam, using good ol’ lenses. The second that, the only sustainable solution for all of us is to reduce our consumption of resources.
Many intelligent, educated people believe that our species will innovate its way out of this energy and climate change crisis, because we have worked ourselves out of crises, such as the food shortages of the ‘60s that led to the Green Revolution. This is silly optimism, backed by no data to support it.
There is no ‘clean’, unlimited party on this planet. Reduction, I believe, is the immediate answer.