Newsflash: What to Do With Clean Energy Waste?

Political Climate

Despite remarkable breakthroughs in clean energy deployment, there has been little progress made on the thorny issue of what to do with solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and other equipment when they reach the end of their useful life.

Without proper recycling or reuse, these materials could do real harm to ecosystems and communities. Failure to effectively recycle could also threaten the long-term viability of a clean energy economy that is already facing strains in the supply of some raw materials, such as lithium and cobalt.

In this Newsflash episode, host Julia Pyper and producer Maria Virginia Olano are joined by guest Emily Burlinghaus, who has been researching clean energy recycling as a fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany. As part of Canary Media's dedicated week of coverage on how to make clean energy cleaner, the three discuss opportunities and roadblocks in the emerging field of recycling renewable energy assets.

Listen and subscribe to Political Climate on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or pretty much wherever you get podcasts! Follow us on Twitter at @Poli_Climate.

Recommended reading:

• Canary Media: Recycling Renewables: A special series
• Canary Media: Why we need to recycle clean energy technologies — and how to do it
• Atlantic Council: As the US struggles to “green” supply chains, new EU battery regulation offers lessons
• U.S. Department of Energy: DOE Releases Action Plan For Photovoltaic Systems End-Of-Life Management
• The Carbon Copy: The battery recycling boom

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