Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus
For the second 12 months in a row, a Bartholomew County lawmaker is asking the state to pay for a research on the decommissioning and disposal of photo voltaic panels.
Senator Greg Walker, R-Columbus, stated that Senate Invoice 33 requires the Indiana Division of Environmental Administration (IDEM) and the Indiana Utility Regulatory Fee (IURC) to conduct a joint research. If the senator’s invoice is authorised, the 2 businesses have a Nov. 1 to submit the report.
“I simply received the sense from the trade that there is not a robust aftermarket for processing used photo voltaic gear,” Walker stated. “In order photo voltaic gear turns into extra fashionable, I need to perceive that there are alternate options that may be made to place used photo voltaic panels and associated gear in landfills.”
Walker stated his request is similar as final 12 months’s SB 403, including that there are extra issues that have to be addressed.
“While you begin taking a look at a number of the projections of how a lot materials goes into the panels, it may be a major quantity {of electrical} and industrial waste after they full their life,” Walker stated.
Final 12 months’s SB403, which was then despatched to the Committee on Environmental Affairs, by no means made it to the Senate ground for a full vote. This 12 months’s SB 33 is anticipated to be despatched to the Senate Committee on Utilities. Walker was not assigned to that committee.
Walker stated he isn’t towards photo voltaic power, including that he expects using photo voltaic fields and particular person house photo voltaic panels to develop because the trade turns into extra environment friendly and extra productive.
The rationale for requesting the research was to keep away from a repeat of an earlier expertise, when Walker discovered that underground gasoline storage tanks may very well be a major environmental hazard, he stated.
Maybe essentially the most memorable instance in south central Indiana was the extensively publicized 2004 collapse of Kiel Bros. Oil Co., leaving taxpayers on the hook for tens of millions of {dollars} for the cleanup. Greater than 85 contaminated websites in three states have to be cleaned up, together with underground tanks that leak poisonous chemical compounds into the bottom, streams and wells, in accordance with federal investigators.
However many firms throughout the nation have related issues. In keeping with the US Environmental Safety Company, the cleansing of 568,981 tanks has been began all through the nation, whereas the restore has been accomplished in 509,091 tanks.
“There was no forethought about deal with these hazards (below the fuel tank),” Walker stated. “I need an estimate of how we are able to anticipate when the photo voltaic arrays run out of their life and cope with it proactively.”
To assist fund cleanups of the storage tanks, Indiana has begun assessing the gasoline it incorporates, Walker stated.
When requested if photo voltaic panel prospects may very well be charged the identical set up price, Walker stated he wasn’t positive right now.
“There’s potential for that,” Walker stated. “That is regardless of the research finds.”
Walker additionally requested that the research embrace finest practices for disposal or recycling of photo voltaic panels and associated elements.
It is too early to inform whether or not SB33 will obtain stronger assist than final 12 months, Walker stated. Each the Home and the Senate could also be involved with extra rapid issues that lead to pushing the invoice, Walker defined.
“That is what at all times occurs while you attempt to look 20 years down the street,” stated the lawmaker. “The potential fallout is many years away, and it is tough to boost rates of interest. It is also a price range session, so we have now loads of distractions.
This story by Mark Webber was shared from The (Columbus) Republic, a sister newspaper of the Day by day Journal.
