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Comment by reenorap

2 hours ago

Are there risks of any poisons or chemicals from the solar panels leaking into the water system over time?

6 comments

reenorap

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pixl97  1 hour ago

Are there any risks of mercury settling into the water system over time from coal power plants?

Are there risks of heavy metal and tire contaminates from vehicles leaking into the water system over time?

Are there risks of dust blown contamination from the megatons of shit humans leave everywhere we go leaking into the water system?

The answer is everything has risks, the risks from solar panels are unbelievably tiny in relation to all other pollution sources and I have to deal with a bunch of redneck solar panel haters that have bought in to massively overblown risks around them.

swingandamiss  2 hours ago

Maybe, but ideas like that are what you all will use to eventually turn against solar and seek to ban going off grid as you see a disparity between those who can afford to buy solar and those who can't. Why's that a problem? Those who can will go off grid and those who can't will be left on a grid that they can't pay for, and it will crumble. We are already seeing the beginnings of this in California.

  • defrost  29 minutes ago

    Off grid? That's one way to go.

      Australia is leading the world in rooftop solar adoption. By June 2025, 4.2 million rooftop solar systems had been installed nationwide  representing 26.8 gigawatts of clean power generation capacity connected directly to local electricity networks that serve homes and businesses.

   “In the evenings homes typically consume power, which flows from large power generation plants, such as wind farms, hydroelectric, coal and gas-fired power plants. Let’s call this the ‘low-tide’ time in local electricity grid operation,” he said.

  “In the middle of a sunny day, however, today about 40% of Australian homes generate their own power from rooftop solar panels. When the rooftop solar generation exceeds the power consumption in the houses, the excess power is ‘exported’, flowing back to the grid, supplying other homes and beyond. Let’s call this the ‘high-tide’ time in local electricity grid operation.”

    ~ https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/articles/2025/october/ocean...

    Grids are useful to balance out sources and sinks, make battery farms economical at scale. You do need smarter grids to deal with phase imbalances.

thakoppno  2 hours ago

This hacker entered the thread thinking this was a good idea but leaves muttering “man, things are complicated.”