A Chinese-language media firm’s “biased” coverage of the Ministry of Environment’s efforts tackling the extensive damage to solar facilities caused by Typhoon Danas was “torture for hardworking public servants,” Minister of Environment Peng Chi-ming (彭?明) said on Friday.
The United Daily News cited misinformation in its mischaracterization of the ministry’s efforts, Peng wrote on Facebook.
About 145,000 solar panels, or 2,800 tonnes of equipment, were destroyed in the typhoon, which made landfall in Chiayi County’s Budai Township (布袋) on July 6, with the debris scattered across ponds and fish farms in Chiayi and Tainan, ministry data showed.
Photo courtesy of Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Yi-yu via CNA
Peng on Wednesday attended a legislative hearing, at which he answered questions about solar facilities.
An editorial in the United Daily News on Friday cited Peng as saying at the hearing that generator components of solar panels “would not result in any pollution,” as they are sealed with glass and protected by aluminum frames.
However, debris from broken panels might be eaten by fish and reach dinner tables, the editorial said, adding that Peng’s claim that solar facilities cause no pollution was incorrect.
“The Democratic Progressive Party described nuclear waste as something extremely bad, but the total mass of solar panels is tens of thousands of times greater,” it said.
“Do we really have to wait 20 years to realize the horrible truth of solar waste?” it added.
The editorial also accused the ministry of delaying until Monday testing for heavy metal contamination at sites affected by the storm and failing to include floating solar farms in revisions to environmental impact assessment (EIA) regulations in January.
Peng said typhoon-related damage is a challenge posed by extreme weather to energy development.
The unusually powerful gusts brought by the typhoon — reaching 17 on the Beaufort scale — were unforeseeable and snapped cables holding floating solar panels in place, he said, adding that Typhoon Danas was the first to make made landfall in Budai in 120 years of records.
The heavy metal testing of water in affected sites was conducted as scheduled on Monday a week after the typhoon departed, as it was still raining in southern Taiwan the previous week, Peng said.
Elevated levels of manganese were detected in soil and water at the sites, as would be expected, but lead and copper from broken panels does not appear to have gotten into the water, with no lead and only traces of copper — below environmental maximums — were detected, he said.
“I told lawmakers on Wednesday multiple times that ... all manufactured items have an environmental impact ... and every method of generating electricity produces pollutants,” Peng said.
Regarding the criticism over the lack of EIA regulations of floating solar farms, Peng said that the stricter rules prompted complaints from the photovoltaic industry.
However, the ministry is consistent in its environmental standards and would invite opinions on whether EIA requirements for solar facilities should be bolstered.
“Up to 92 percent [of the broken solar panels] are recyclable,” Peng said, adding that the ministry would continue to enhance management of the full life cycle of solar facilities.
Some of the United Daily News’ coverage cited misinformation, some of which was generated by ChatGPT, he said.
“I hope the United Daily News’ management would make progress in training its editors, and choosing content and providing critiques based on scientific facts,” he added.
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