"Dual substitution" (i.e., clean energy substitution for electricity generation and electricity substitution for transportation) is a key area for achieving peak carbon neutrality.
According to the estimates of relevant institutions, in order to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, the installation of wind power, photovoltaic and other new energy needs to increase 12 times, and the cumulative sales of electric vehicles need to increase 22 times, which will contribute more than 56% of the carbon emission reduction (4.86 billion tons). But at the same time, it will also bring a huge amount of emerging solid wastes such as discarded photovoltaic modules and discarded fan blades (hereinafter referred to as emerging solid wastes).
According to the Report on China's Carbon Neutrality by 2060 released by the Global Energy Internet Development Cooperation organization, China's photovoltaic and wind power installations will reach 1.5 billion kW and 1.1 billion kW respectively by 2035, and the number of new energy vehicles will reach 160 million. At the same time, the annual decommissioning of photovoltaic and wind power installations will reach 110 million kw/year and 0.7 billion kW/year, and the decommissioning of new energy vehicle batteries will reach 2.7 million pieces/year, corresponding to the generation of discarded photovoltaic modules, discarded fan blades and power batteries of about 1.05 million tons, 1 million tons and 3 million tons, respectively.
These emerging solid wastes are endowed with both resource and environmental hazards. Improper utilization or disposal will not only waste strategic resources, affect the sustainable development of the industry, but also pose a threat to the ecological environment. Therefore, it is suggested to scientifically evaluate the emergence of emerging solid waste, plan and layout the development direction of emerging industries and the capacity construction of supporting solid waste utilization and disposal facilities in advance, establish the corresponding technical standard system, and improve the capacity of solid waste utilization and disposal facilities in emerging industries, so as to provide guarantee for the realization of "pollution reduction and carbon reduction".
Emerging solid waste concealment is easy to ignore
The recycling potential is obvious, and the risk of irregular utilization and disposal is large
Solid waste is emerging industry facilities or equipment after a long run, performance degradation, after reaching the service life of the scrap, such as photovoltaic equipment after a long run (25 years or so) power generation efficiency decline and abandoned photocell (also called photovoltaic modules), new energy car after a fixed number of year (5 years to 7 years) falls with a retired battery life. In addition, the blades of wind turbines will be abandoned after a certain period of use (20 years).
Emerging solid waste is usually generated after decommissioning of facilities or equipment and lags behind the construction and operation period of the project, so it is hidden and easy to be ignored. On the other hand, its production increases explosively with the development of emerging industries.
The composition of emerging solid waste material is the same as that of corresponding products, so it contains a variety of valuable metals, and the resource recovery value is very high. Take the photovoltaic industry as an example, the proportion of glass, aluminum and semiconductor materials in crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules can reach 92%, in addition, it also contains about 1% of precious metals such as silver. If fully recycled, 1.45 million tons of carbon steel, 1.1 million tons of glass, 540,000 tons of plastic, 260,000 tons of aluminum, 170,000 tons of copper, 50,000 tons of silicon and 550 tons of silver could be recovered from waste pv modules by 2030. Thin film photovoltaic modules contain tellurium, indium, gallium and other rare metals, mainly rely on foreign imports, so its efficient recycling not only has huge economic benefits, but also helps to reduce the import dependence of related resources, prevent raw material supply risks, and has important strategic significance to ensure the security of national resources.
In addition, the raw material production of emerging solid waste usually consumes a lot of energy. Material recycling or direct cascade utilization can effectively reduce the energy consumption of the production process, and the carbon emission reduction benefit is obvious. According to the prediction of relevant institutions, by implementing the cascade utilization of new energy vehicle batteries, more than 63.34 million tons of carbon emissions can be reduced in the next 10 years, equal to one third of the carbon sink of China's forests. Similarly, for crystalline silicon, the energy consumption and carbon emissions of the production process are very high; Conversely, recycling from waste PV modules is much smaller, so obtaining crystalline silicon material by recycling rather than reproducing it would significantly reduce carbon emissions.
Most emerging solid waste contains toxic and harmful components such as heavy metals, such as lead in crystalline silicon batteries, cadmium in cadmium telluride and copper indium gallium Selenium film batteries, nickel, lithium hexafluorophosphate and other toxic and harmful substances in lithium batteries widely used in new energy vehicles and electrochemical energy storage industry. In addition, new energy vehicles and distributed photovoltaic industries, such as solid waste generation sources scattered, standardized collection is difficult, flowing into informal channels will cause serious water, gas and soil pollution, harm the ecological environment safety and people's health.
Not included in the overall industry plan
The lack of efficient recycling technology and the lack of centralized disposal capacity
At present, the relevant industries have not included solid waste treatment and disposal into the overall industrial planning, and there is a risk that the sustainable development of the industry will be adversely restricted due to the limited terminal solid waste disposal capacity. At the same time, the industry carbon emissions accounting does not consider the carbon emissions from the disposal of discarded and retired products, which may underestimate the industry carbon emissions and ultimately affect the realization of carbon neutrality target. In addition, the supervision mechanism is not perfect, and there is a risk of environmental pollution from illegal collection and disposal.
From the perspective of recycling technology, valuable elements in emerging solid waste are scattered, low in content, and exist in complex forms such as alloys. In addition, the front-end design and production lack of recyclability consideration, which increases the technical difficulty of valuable elements recovery. For example, rare metals (silver, indium, gallium, etc.) in photovoltaic cells usually account for less than 1%, but they are closely combined with glass and other components, making efficient separation extremely difficult. Similarly, fan blades are usually constructed of two-phase fiberglass, where the fiber composition is also difficult to separate effectively.
In addition, due to the current low production, enterprises and markets lack sufficient attention to emerging solid waste, less investment in technology research and development, and serious shortage of recycling technology reserves, leading to the serious lack of key common technologies such as ecological design and cascade utilization of power battery, efficient extraction of valuable metals and so on. With the emergence of new technologies and new products, the types and utilization and disposal characteristics of emerging solid waste will become more complex, and the short board problem of the lack of efficient utilization technology will become more obvious.
Harmless disposal (landfill, incineration, etc.) is the guarantee means for the waste with low or no utilization value and that cannot be reused under the current technological level.
At present, the disposal guarantee of emerging solid waste has the following shortcomings: First, the overall guarantee capacity is too tight. Since 2019, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has issued a series of documents to guide local governments in assessing the matching of the generation and disposal capacity of hazardous solid waste, formulating and implementing plans for the construction of disposal capacity, and improving the centralized disposal support capacity, which has achieved remarkable results. However, due to the low current generation intensity of emerging solid waste, it has not been fully considered in the planning process of various regions. With the rapid increase of its generation intensity in the future, the short board of the overall disposal capacity will become increasingly prominent. Second, at the level of specific projects, in the stage of feasibility study and environmental impact assessment of wind power, photovoltaic and other construction projects, enterprises usually ignore the generation of emerging solid waste and lack of demonstration of its utilization and disposal direction, resulting in the lack of reasonable disposal direction of solid waste. In addition, the regional distribution of emerging solid waste generation and utilization and disposal capacity is unbalanced, and the utilization and disposal capacity of northwest and southwest regions with large production volume is low, which makes the short board problem of emerging solid waste disposal more prominent.
How to improve the top-level design?
Break through the technical bottleneck and make up the short board of basic disposal capacity
In this regard, suggestions are as follows: First, incorporate solid waste treatment and disposal into the industrial development planning of relevant industries, and unify the planning, design and construction with the main project to ensure the timely and safe disposal of emerging solid waste; At the same time, the strategic resource reserves, market supply risks and resource regeneration capacity of silver, indium, gallium, cadmium and tellurium should be comprehensively considered, and the development direction of industries and technologies should be rationally planned to reduce the dependence on strategic resources and reduce the risks caused by resource shortage. Second, carry out accounting of carbon emissions in the whole life cycle of the industry, including carbon emissions from the disposal of terminal solid waste into the calculation, and effectively reduce carbon emissions in the whole life cycle of the industry through coordinated optimization of pollution reduction and carbon reduction in the whole chain. Third, draw lessons from the implementation experience of the Action Plan for pollution Prevention and Control of Waste Lead Battery, promote the extended producer responsibility system in photovoltaic and wind power generation and other fields, clarify the corresponding responsibilities of enterprises in the upstream and downstream links of the industrial chain such as design, production, sales, use, scrap, recycling and utilization, and build a closed-loop management system. Improve relevant management standards, clarify the requirements for recycling and disposal qualifications, and establish national standards for collection, storage, transportation and utilization of disposal process technology and pollution control.
In view of the problem of difficult efficient use, multi-pronged breakthrough technology bottleneck. First, strengthen ecological design, design and manufacture from the perspective of resource recycling, reduce the technical difficulty of recycling process; Second, we will strengthen key technologies, such as accelerating r&d on technologies and equipment such as echelon utilization of retired batteries and efficient extraction of valuable metals. Thirdly, the utilization and disposal technology with high recovery rate and less secondary pollution should be popularized and applied.
In terms of making up the shortcomings of basic disposal capacity, it is suggested that local governments strengthen the prediction of emerging solid waste production and scientifically evaluate the matching between emerging solid waste generation and existing disposal capacity according to the development of relevant industries.
Wuhan Xinshengneng is a professional power testing equipment manufacturer. We pay close attention to the development and trends of power grid related industries. For more information, visit our official website: www.whxsn.com
