Wind Turbine Blades Have a Recycling Problem

Wind Turbine Blades Have a Recycling Problem


Wind turbines might not be the green juggernauts many peg them as – where it concerns their “final resting place,” turbine blades are a huge nuisance.

That’s according to an article in Bloomberg, which discusses the blades piling up in landfills around the world.

That doesn’t make wind energy less efficient than fossil fuels (or anything that dramatic). But it does highlight a problem that’s mostly-overlooked.

It stands to reason that, for something made to withstand hurricane-force winds (and longer than a Boeing 747 wing), turbine blades are difficult to dispose of.

Just to transport the blades, you need to cut through lissome fiberglass using a diamond-encrusted industrial saw. Once the blades are in three parts, you can load them onto a tractor trailer for transport.

And that’s just part one.

Because the blades are so rugged, they can’t be easily repurposed or recycled. So they have to be buried in landfills at least 30 feet deep. Needless to say, consigning wind turbines to the same fate as Atari’s E.T. The Extra Terrestrial isn’t exactly a green solution.

“The wind turbine blade will be there, ultimately, forever,” said Bob Cappadona, chief operating officer for the North American unit of Paris-based Veolia Environnement SA. “Most landfills are considered a dry tomb….the last thing we want to do is create even more environmental challenges.”

Wind energy still enjoys a relatively small share of global energy consumption, but it’s growing rapidly (in 2019, wind power capacity reached about 60.4 gigawatts worldwide), and we need to figure out a better end-of-life solution than literally burying it.

Read more here.

 


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