Renewables destroy the environment

Industrial solar and wind farms take up enormous amounts of land, often requiring all wildlife, even all the vegetation, on the site to be killed or removed.

Wind, solar, and hydro energy all have one thing in common: they destroy habitat as well as directly kill wildlife, including listed endangered species and their habitat

Solar panels themselves are made with heavy metals mined by child and slave labor. When hurricanes or tornadoes destroy those panels, the heavy metal from the debris leaches into and contaminates soil and groundwater. Since solar panels cannot be economically recycled, they get buried in landfills at the end of their life, again contaminating soil and groundwater. See this Forbes story, or this FEE story, this Wired story, this Discover Magazine story, or this ScienceDirect story:

Thin-film solar panels (TFSPs) are widely used in integrated photovoltaic and solar power systems...Heavy metals were released from TFSPs in the burial experiment, and the rates of metal release changed with variations in both the amounts of TFSPs in the soil and the soil properties. The increased concentrations of heavy metals such as Zn, Cu, Ni, Ga, Pb, In and Cr in soil samples were correlated to the amounts of TFSPs added. The results of this study confirmed that, when buried, TFSPs polluted the soil.

This article from PV Magazine confirms the problem:

The authors of the paper cited the waste electrical and electronic equipment directive introduced by the European Union as an example other countries should follow to define new policies for the management of PV waste. Otherwise, stated the researchers, the lack of economic value in recycling such products at present is likely to see significant volumes dumped in landfill.

The presence of hazardous heavy metals such as the cadmium, tellurium, indium and gallium used in thin-film products would represent a significant threat to health and the environment if not disposed of correctly...

This Foreign Policy article documents how the solar panel industry uses child labor to provide toys to rich people:

Renewable technologies create ethical issues at both ends of their life cycle. Sovacool was part of a team of researchers who recently visited the two ends of technology supply chains: artisanal cobalt mining sites in Congo, where miners extract the metal using rudimentary tools or their hands, and electronic waste scrapyards in Ghana, a global cemetery for electronics such as solar panels. The team’s findings reveal widespread child labor, the subjugation of ethnic minorities, toxic pollution, biodiversity loss, and gender inequality along the length of the supply chain....By 2050, which is the rough expiration date of solar panels manufactured today, the technology is estimated to produce 78 million metric tons of waste—some 80 percent more than the total annual waste from all combined technologies today.

The New York Times has already documented that Chinese solar panel firms use slave labor extensively in order to feed Western desire for 'clean" energy.

According to a report by the consultancy Horizon Advisory, Xinjiang’s rising solar energy technology sector is connected to a broad program of assigned labor in China, including methods that fit well-documented patterns of forced labor.

And Green Tech Media documents the same problem:

Some of these challenges, such as those around the cobalt used in lithium-ion batteries, are well known. However, while the persistent presence of child labor in Congolese cobalt mines has left companies struggling to address supply-chain traceability, other human rights impacts from renewable energy may be flying under the radar.

Our research shows that labor rights issues are present in renewable energy supply chains, including in the manufacturing of solar panels and the cultivation of palm oil and sugarcane used in biofuels.

Wind turbine blades cannot be recycled. They are cut into pieces and buried in landfills. 

When wind turbine blades are decommissioned they are usually scrapped and thrown into landfill because they cannot be recycled. In the U.S. over the next four years alone that will be the fate of more than 8,000 blades. As wind installations increase so will that number. ...

A recent Bloomberg News article stoked concern by shining a spotlight on Casper, Wyoming, home to a graveyard for nearly 900 wind turbine blades.

Casper’s municipal landfill serves as a final resting place for spent blades, the volume of which has been growing exponentially as wind energy’s robust expansion continues. The article suggested that over the next four years alone, the United States will decommission more than 8,000 blades.

Even NPR admits this is an issue. When you've lost NPR, who is left to support you?

While most of a turbine can be recycled or find a second life on another wind farm, researchers estimate the U.S. will have more than 720,000 tons of blade material to dispose of over the next 20 years, a figure that doesn't include newer, taller higher-capacity versions.

And virtually no one calculates the energy expense in attempting to grind up or bury these blades in landfills. 

So, if you hate, absolutely HATE the environment, use wind/solar.

If you LIKE having children and other slaves work for you, use wind/solar.

Renewables destroy the environment and enslave children.

So, to sum up:
Solar uses child/slave labor to mine the heavy metals used in solar panel construction. Tornadoes and hurricanes shred the panels, resulting in soil and groundwater contamination. Panels cannot be economically recycled, so they end up in landfills where they again contaminate soil and groundwater with heavy metals.

• If you like child labor,
• If you like slave labor,
• If you like poisoning the environment,
• Use solar!

It's the rich man's toy, made by slaves, that poisons the environment!