Wind and solar power face an end-of-life sustainability challenge
Cars were a novelty once; so were oil wells, plastic bottles and coal-fired power stations. Novelty wears off, though — and, as the industries concerned acquired global heft, the environmental downsides became ever clearer. But it is not only the giants of the fossil fuel era that must confront the loss of innocence that comes with scale. The huge increase in renewable energy in recent years — a doubling of capacity since 2013, with COP28 expected to produce a push for a tripling by 2030 — means that the solar and wind power sectors will soon face their own sustainability challenges. “With average product lifetimes of about 30 years, the young solar industry has not yet faced waste streams that have necessitated the proactive integration of circular economy requirements,” points out Jan Clyncke, a board member at the Global Solar Council, a Washington DC-based industry organisation. That does not mean it will be caught napping, however. “Solar product and component manufacturers are taking the lead and looking at ways to increase the recyclability and end-of-life management of their products,” Clyncke adds. The situation is similar for the wind industry. The lifespan of turbines also often reaches 25 or 30 years, says Alexander Vandenberghe, sustainability manager at WindEurope, a Brussels-based lobby group, which means there is relatively little end-of-life material today. But this will likewise change as wind turbine production rises massively to meet climate targets.
