@junes@todon.nl @gerrymcgovern aren’t you a little well of misinformation.

Global coal use plateaued around 2005. The main driver of increases has been China, who expects peak coal in the next 5 years. It is not “growing a lot”. Oil saw a similar plateau starting around 2018.

Polysilicon can be produced without fossil fuel using green hydrogen, which as it were can be created using solar power. Polysilicon panels can also be recycled.

Some new solar panels come with rated lifetimes of 40 years, and generally solar panels degrade at a fixed rate and continue producing power long after their rated lifetimes, just at a diminished capacity.

@gerrymcgovern

meanwhile...

theguardian.com/environment/20…

...and it's getting more and more that way in europe and america too, with primary goods (food, water) getting more and more costly.

Plague of techno-optimism will destroy us all -> gerrymcgovern.com/plague-of-te…

@junes @gerrymcgovern

The 20 years was just the warranty period.

It currently looks like solar panels last much longer than the warranty period

"Özkalay’s team looked at six solar systems installed between 1987 and 1993 that have been in continuous operation since, and found most panels still producing more than 80% of their original output after nearly four decades."

electrek.co/2026/01/28/how-lon…

I believe the very first solar cell ever made still works.

@alienghic
In much of the world, the exact opposite is that case. Africa, India and Aaia has been flooded with cheap solar:

"In Zambia, where over one million solar devices were sold between 2018 and 2022, the short lifespan of many solar kits, often under four years, has resulted in a growing and unregulated stream of solar electronic waste (e-waste)."

sciencedirect.com/science/arti…

And the recycling is absolutely abysmal. Most get dumped. Cheap solar. Cheap dumping.

@junes @bascule

@gerrymcgovern @junes
I skimmed that science direct article and I think it's possible both statements are true.

An actual solar system consists of several components, solar panels, charge controller, inverter, and maybe batteries.

Many solar panel designs are very long lasting.

I think batteries have the shortest lifespan, then the inverter and charge controllers.

That article is discussing how it's the whole system that's breaking and though it probably could be repaired, no one there knows how.

I am imaging an off grid system being sold to poor parts of the world will have roughly the same structure as our camping systems with a battery pack that integrates the charge controller and inverter with solar panels that plug into it.

I suspect it's the battery pack that's failing.

And failing at 4 years it might even be shoddy wiring or used batteries

@alienghic
Good points. But the poorer parts of the world get the poor and shoddy products and there are millions of those. And there is basically zero recycling; the broken panel is just dumped.

@junes @bascule

@Ardubal That would be bad, very bad. 3 TW of solar proves around 2.5% of all energy humanity uses. It needs to go up a lot more. Adding ~1% every two years would get us to a mere 15% by 2050.

@bascule