Ronald Stein, P.E.
For the governments that subsidized the construction of wind turbines, itās now time to subsidize the decommissioning and recycling.
Summary: With 43 million tons of blade waste projected to be produced EVERY YEAR by 2050, there is an urgent need to establish decommissioning, restoration, and recycling standards.
Published July 18, 2023 at Heartland Institute https://heartland.org/opinion/will-wind-turbines-be-generating-more-waste-than-electricity/
Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book āClean Energy Exploitations.ā
Wind turbines, once touted by the few wealthy and less populated countries as a clean solution for electricity, are now becoming an eyesore, a hazard, and a significant environmental threat.
After decades of operating around the world for the few wealthy and less populated countries, wind turbines continue to have a live expectancy of about 20 years. To date there has yet to be discovered a financially viable means of recycling those wind turbines. As a result, todayās old wind turbines are being dumped into toxic waste dumps.
Because wind turbine blades are very difficult to recycle, the waste stream created by the retired blades is a mounting problem. Globally by 2050 projections are that there will be 43 million tons of blade waste produced EVERY YEAR — the equivalent of 215,000 locomotives.
By the turn of the century in 2100, the world population is projected to be more than 11 billion from its current 8 billion.
- The worldās population in 2100 is projected to be dominated by India, Nigeria, China, U.S., Pakistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Tanzania.
- Noticeable by their absence from the population list are countries that are wealthier but less populated like Germany, UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, and Russia.
As wind farms age, the turbines begin to break down and require maintenance. However, due to the high costs associated with removing them, many companies are choosing to leave them in place. This poses several problems, including the potential for oil leaks from the turbines, and the overall negative impact on the landscape.
The first generation of wind turbines are starting to reach the end of their service lives, while others are replaced early to make way for newer technology ā including longer turbine blades that can sweep more wind and generate more intermittent electricity ā the question of what to do with their huge blades becomes more pressing.
These abandoned wind turbines pose significant environmental and safety risks, as they can leak toxic chemicals and other hazardous materials into the surrounding environment and can even collapse or catch fire.
The life cycle for renewables runs from design, procurement and construction through operations and maintenance, and repair, as well as the life ending decommissioning and disposal or recycling and restoration of the landscaping back to its original pristine condition.
Itās time for those few wealthy governments to āclean upā their previous subsidized programs for intermittent electricity and act to subsidize the development of methods to properly decommission wind turbines before they become a larger environmental crisis.
The governments that subsidized the designing and construction have the responsibility to seek decommissioning, restoration, and recycling standards down to the last dandelion, just like we have for decommissioned mines, oil, and nuclear sites.
Wind farms are typically located in areas with consistent wind patterns. For the vast acreage required for wind and solar, itās pathetic destruction of pristine landscapes!
The American public has been speaking through the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) individuals, and expressing their discontent with such features as unsightliness, extensive acreage requirements, noise, and environmental risks to the community.
For all Americans, Robert Bryce just finished updating the Renewable Rejection Database to include a spate of restrictions or rejections that have been enacted in Iowa, Illinois, and Ohio.
- The new rejection totals: Since 2015, there have been 391 rejections or restrictions of wind electricity projects and 135 rejections or restrictions of solar projects, bringing the total number of rejections of all sites targeted for the generation of occasional electricity to 526.
- So far in 2023, just in America, thereāve been 24 rejections of wind turbine projects and 24 rejections of solar projects.
Consistent with the NIMBY actions in America to reject so-called renewable electricity, Sweden shocked Europe by abandoning ‘Unstable’ Green Electricity Agenda, and returning to Nuclear Power. Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson cited the need for a more āstable electrical supply system,ā pointing out the inherent instability in wind and solar electricity generating sources.
The energy crisis in Europe is collapsing as countries like the Netherlands, Czech Republic, and Greece are all beginning to realize that everything that needs electricity is made with fossil fuels and theyāre reverting. Theyāre also recognizing that all the components of wind turbines and solar panels are made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.
In addition, Swedenās new government has abolished state subsidies for electric cars and plug-in hybrids.
Another reality is that all the mineral products and metals needed to make wind turbines, solar panels, and EV batteries are mined and processed in places like Baotou, Inner Mongolia, Bolivia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, mostly under Chinese control. Decommissioning and restoration of those mining landscapes back to their original pristine condition is not in the cards in developing countries.
Since Germany shut down its last three remaining nuclear power plants, the country has had to turn to its neighbors to keep the lights on. Germany has gone from being an exporter of electricity to an importer.
For profitability and sustainability, private industry business decisions are based on return-on-investments (ROI) which directly relates to affordable, reliable, continuous, and uninterruptable electricity to support their investments. Thus, Germany should look at Sweden who has just abandoned the idealistic goal of occasional electricity from wind and solar and committed to nuclear for electricity that is not only continuous and uninterruptible but emission free.
It is crucial that we address this issue and find sustainable solutions for decommissioning and recycling of these wind turbines. As a society, we must prioritize responsible and safe disposal of renewable electricity infrastructure to truly achieve a sustainable future.
Shockingly, the recycling of worn-out turbine blades, solar panels, and EV batteries, in the few wealthy and less populated countries that are subsidizing intermittent electricity is not yet in the cards!
Ronald Stein, P.E.
Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure
Energy Literacy website Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā
Ronald Stein (energy consultant) Wikipedia page
Why is this even in question?
“We are sad, but above all we feel proud of what we accomplished,”
More green assets for recycling-
Dutch e-bike maker VanMoof declared bankrupt (msn.com)
Off to coal fired China with them.
Shred wind turbine blades, and use them as boiler fuel? It should be as reasonable as wood pellets.
From the photos I’ve seen, the blades seem to burn pretty well.
I watched a short video not long ago, perhaps from the UK. A company is buying the blades, shredding them, and selling them as fuel to cement making companies. Nothing was said about the economics or pollution control.
as fuel or to add right into the cement mix?
If it’s the one I’m thinking of, it was an anglo-american firm, at least part of which has gone into administration and virtually no recycling has actually been done. They own 2 big blade dumps in the USA that were highlighted on WUWT a while ago and are still there.
Well, but not cleanly.
probably rather toxic too
wood pellets are a great idea- helps to manage forests correctly, producing wealth for the owner, improves the forests, adds wonderful CO2 food into the air for plants
Why, if I have had to submit–and bond–complete post-mining reclamation plans before getting the permits to even begin mining, have ‘renewable’ energy installations not had to produce something similar?–or have they?
BTW, every time I hear ‘governments should subsidize’–I feel another hand in my pocket. I offer no acceptance that I should pay for any of this–nobody else paid for the mine site reclamation, it all came out of the sales of the silver.
When I tried to stop a solar “farm”- as a NIMBY- I settled by making the town force the company to post a large bond to at least remove the solar panels when they stop functioning. And, they agreed to push them back from the homes- and they came up with a nice chunk of cash so we could all landscape our back yards to help hide their “farm”.
…’they came up with a nice chunk of cash’–I clamped my hand down on my pocket as fast as I could when I read that, but those beggars are quick! It was already gone.
Wind: The most anti-green, anti environmental form of energy there is. Wrecking the planet to supposedly save it.
Produces diffuse, intermittent energy, while killing birds/bats and whales. Destroys landscapes and disrupts ecosystems. Tears up the earth for the raw materials, then the blades only last 20 years and get dumped into landfills.
It only exists because of crony capitalists thrilled to exploit corrupt governments that are willing to shower the industry with hundreds of billions of dollars thanks to self serving political agenda.
Using corrupt climate science that was hijacked over 3 decades ago along with absurd, impossible promises of energy delivery.
These are sold to the world by fake green energy charlatans and the colluding media (which greatly profits from sensationalizing the weather/climate and deludes itself that its helping to save the planet.
These wind farm projects and the energy delivery system they claim will result, defy the laws of physics, energy and common sense.
Regardless, most of them get authorized anyway because the rich and powerful gatekeepers with self serving interests have so much control.
The victims?
Everybody else that isn’t on the list above (billions of people), including every poor person on the planet.
Ironically, the fossil fuels they claim can be replaced using this strategy are the only true green energy based on authentic science.
While wind turbines are busy wrecking the planet as described above, the increase in the beneficial gas, CO2 from fossil fuel emissions, has greatly enriched the atmosphere. This has resulted in massively greening up the planet from the indisputable law of photosynthesis.
This massive greening of earth via CO2 fertilization is Gaia communicating a loud and clear “THANK YOU!” for rescuing the planet from near CO2 starvation below 300 parts per million. The current 420 ppm is still not barely half the optimal level for plants.
To define CO2 as pollution, when we know the authentic science proves irrefutably otherwise, is just proof of how corrupted climate science, politics and energy markets have become. Evidence of how dishonest the media is as they sensationalize every extreme weather event as being caused by the fake climate crisis.
Same atmospheric physics as a century ago. Same meteorological principles. Same weather systems………..with +1 Deg.C and +7% more moisture holding capacity compared to 100 years ago.
Death by GREENING!
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/69258/
Plant Growth Database
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/plantgrowth.php
Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
The Positive Externalities
of Carbon Dioxide:
Estimating the Monetary Benefits of Rising Atmospheric
CO2 Concentrations on Global Food Production(multi trillions)
http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/co2benefits/MonetaryBenefitsofRisingCO2onGlobalFoodProduction.pdf
“And as the CO2 concentration of the air continues to rise in the future, this positive externality of enhanced crop production will benefit society in the years, decades, and even centuries to come”
20 Years? Optimistic:
https://stopthesethings.com/2016/05/30/panic-erupts-infigen-set-to-offload-worn-out-australian-wind-farms-to-even-greater-fools/
Where I live, the former liberal government decided to use wind, and back up nat gas to enable the shut down of a grand total of 7 coal plants. Soon the heavily subsidized wind farms started popping up along the shores of the great lakes. Also soon – we started hearing about how this former advisor to the premier, or that former cabinet minister were now on the boards of the companies that owned these subsidy I mean wind farms.
Good news! A Danish company called Vestas is working on a solution.
“Vestas is presenting a new solution that renders epoxy-based turbine blades as circular, without the need for changing the design or composition of blade material.”
“Once this new technology is implemented at scale, legacy blade material currently sitting in landfill, as well as blade material in active windfarms, can be disassembled, and re-used. This signals a new era for the wind industry, and accelerates our journey towards achieving circularity.”
āThe newly discovered chemical process shows that epoxy-based turbine blades, whether in operation or sitting in landfill, can be turned into a source of raw material to potentially build new turbine blades. As the chemical process relies on widely available chemicals, it is highly compatible for industrialisation, and can therefore be scaled up quickly.”
https://www.vestas.com/en/media/company-news/2023/vestas-unveils-circularity-solution-to-end-landfill-for-c3710818
And does this process work with the use of non-fossil fuel or nuclear?
Will turbines suddenly produce electricity non-dependent on the wind?
Will gas, oil, coal or nuclear not be required to back up the turbines when there is no wind?
Wake me up when the miracle happens.
I was addressing the recycling issue of windmill blades. Didn’t you notice?
but if they’re a bad idea to begin with- then the recycling improvement doesn’t help much
Yes, I did notice.
I also noticed you didn’t answer the questions on your “addressing the recycling issue”.
Didn’t you notice?
āThe newly discovered chemical process shows that epoxy-based turbine blades, whether in operation or sitting in landfill, can be turned into a source of raw material to potentially build new turbine blades. As the chemical process relies on widely available chemicals, it is highly compatible for industrialisation, and can therefore be scaled up quickly.”
These “widely available chemicals”.. are not by-products of oil are they? Because we have to stop oil, you know..
I see no mention in that article of what the chemical process is. A description of the process would be more convincing than just a promise. Then, engineers and chemists could evaluate this promised process.
Wasn’t Vestas one of the companies putting those blades into the landfill in the first place? Have they now found that, having failed as a turbine manufacturer, they will succeed as a turbine blade recycler?
Wind turbines suck! Or would it be more apt to say.
The winds of change are blowing through this industry, Whether we like it or not, this growth of public awareness of the inadequacy of wind energy is upon us.
HT to Harold Macmillan
Nobody wants them near their homes. In the coastal town of Scituate, south of Boston- one installed maybe a decade ago is going to be removed due to so many complaints.
Why should those who do not want turbines and solar panels and EVs help to subsidise the recycling? Should it not be those who want these? If this recycling cost was factored in to the price, it would be so exhorbitant and totally unaffordable forcing people to turn to the considerably cheaper alternatives.
Exactly, when installing them- they should have to post a bond to remove and recycle them.
They already are producing more waste, much of it toxic, than electricity. Hell, they don’t produce enough electricity to maintain their own operation, without gas/coal/hydro produced electricity they grind to a halt.
How many are going to wince and come over ‘all scientific’ if I don my tree hugger hat?
Not exactly tree hugger – dirt digger
Maybe not ideal but a lovely way to use old turbine blades would be to turn them into the stuff presently used for house/home ‘loft insulation‘
A variation on so-called Rock Wool
Turbine blades, being a mix of glass/carbon fibre and plastic/polyester resin would make a sort of combination of rock wool meets ‘fleece’ or polyester fibre as we all know and love.
Also pyrolyse some of the blade material = poor man’s biochar
Combine the two parts (charcoal and wool), form it into mats or rolls then bury it, not very deep (12″ is nice) in Dry Places of This World
Seeing as how Everything Is Now – Fake in said World – why not have some Fake Soil Organic Material?
It will not retain the amount of water that the Real Things (Cellulose & Lignin) would but certainly would be a start.
You never know, Ma Nature might follow your lead.
Because and as Water Controls Climate, capturing/adding some water into Dry Places would deprive:
Huge thunderstormsTornadoesPineapple expressesAtmospheric rivers/conveyorsHeat domesRidiculously Resistant RidgesImaginations about The Jet Stream….
…….having water in those Dry Places would deprive those things of the places where they can dump the cold upper-level dry air they create.
i.e. Constricting the exhaust of an engine slows it just as effectively as the throttle does in its intake.
Will never happen will it – just imagine the Pollution Outcry not very least
But just how COā is demonised as pollution – nothing could be more wrong.
Pollution is = Food and is also chock full of Liebig Limiting nutrients.
See this coming up below and weep for Science and Life on Earth – how is it possible to misunderstand something sooo simple and so badly
Silly question but Have You Ever Read such garbage:“āIāve been running simulations that have been telling me for years that these changes in ocean color are going to happen,ā said Stephanie Dutkiewicz, one of the studyās co-authors. āTo actually see it happening for real is not surprising, but frightening. And these changes are consistent with man-induced changes to our climate.ā
IOW Her computer told her that the ocean was going to change colour because of ‘Climate Change’
These are the sorts of stories only children could make up and tell
https://newatlas.com/environment/climate-change-changing-ocean-color-phytoplankton/
Make the ocean go fluorescent – Dump The Entire Turbine (inc concrete base but less its blades as above) into the ocean
<whispers> (You know me by now, Soil Erosion is causing that effect)
Realisation, dumping the concrete into the ocean is a hideous waste.
For the concrete, grind it up into a coarse dust (less than 4mm grid-size) and give it away to farmers.
Two really solid and good reasons:
It will neutralise the acidifying effect of using Nitrogen fertiliser (= free Phosphate)The shale that went into the cement kiln would have contained myriad metallic micro-nutrients and they’d be preserved in the concreteBUT BUT BUT, beware if any Power Staion fly ash had been added into the concrete.
2 Immediate reasons why:
MercuryThallium (of all things)
Bless them – the vegans and organic folks.
It seems that for years and years, Organic gardeners have been convinced that the cinders/ash from coal-fired power stations was a Good Soil Conditioner.
Yes it was and is BUT – it comes loaded with trace amounts of Thallium.
That might not be so very bad BUT, the Typical Vegan’s Most Favourite Food (Kale) also loves Thallium and preferentially sucks it out of the ground
do you laugh or cry
Some blades use balsa core like in boats,wheres that balsa coming from?
“For the vast acreage required for wind and solar, itās pathetic destruction of pristine landscapes!”
Enviros used to be fanatical about protecting such landscapes. Now, they worship these monstrosities. However, here in Woke-achusetts, they have a problem- huge solar “farms” are being built after the land is deforested. They don’t like that because they want to lock up the forests for one and only one function- to sequester carbon. Instead, they say- just put solar on every building and parking lot. A previous state energy czar said even then, the power generated wouldn’t be enough- not even close. As for putting them on parking lots- it’s far more expensive than on buildings. Of course cost is no problem for them. Whether it’s trillions or quadrillions- no problem. And many buildings in this state don’t have roofs facing south and many have big trees blocking the sun- something the enviros seem too stupid to notice. I notice in my ‘hood, many homes have solar on non south facing roofs. Now they are complaining they’re not getting the power generated that was promised. No doubt in the small print- there is no guarantee on that.
Take a drive through West Texas. Windfarms as far as the eye can see for 150 miles or more. Thousands of the things with transmission lines like spider webs. I happen to like desert and semi-arid landscapes and this one has been utterly destroyed. Not a bird in sight as all probably dead. And by the sides of the road in places, old turbine blades stacked like cordwood.
Be nice if someone found or posted a video of that. It’s been may years since I spent any time in West Texas or even drove through it.
“To date there has yet to be discovered a financially viable means of recycling those wind turbines.”
True, but this is not a new issue. There are millions of machines of iron and steel sitting unused and rusting all over the United States. Fortunately, many are hidden by grass and taller vegetation.
Do an images search for “junk farm equipment”, then use “junked cars”.
Equally interesting, try “car crushing and recycling”.
There is a wiki page for “vehicle recycling”. Crush, rip apart, spit materials into different piles.
Steel and other metals can be melted and reused. Plastics are far more challenging to recycle, with epoxy being among the worst, for all the reasons it’s so useful. It burns before it melts, and is highly resistant to dissolving chemically. There are epoxies made from recycled material (but I wouldn’t expect that could be used in a high-strength application like wind turbine blades), but no proven way to recycle it into plastic. The only reuse possibilities I can see are burning it in a power plant (but the pollution from that will be difficult to filter), or chopping it and using the chunks for filler.
If metal is not being recycled, it’s because collecting the junk, sorting it out, transporting it to a foundry, and melting and purifying it cost more than smelting the metals from ore. I think the real challenges there are sorting and purifying: a junk car or machine will typically have several different metal alloys and non-metallic materials all fastened together, and just melting it would produce a useless mixture of all those materials. Even if you can use 3rd world labor to tear the steel from the copper, plastic, and glass, except for auto recycling you probably don’t know the composition of the steel, so you won’t know what to add to get the alloy you need. If every batch needs a chemical analysis, that will considerably run up the costs.
But I think the main reason junk metal is sometimes not recycled is that the profits from the whole process are so low that it’s not worth negotiating with property owners for permission to go get the junk.
Could the blades and towers be used as a border wall? Recycling!
Hopium’s Machina, the hydrogen car supported by the rĆ©gion de Bretagne, isn’t going well:
https://www.caradisiac.com/l-appel-a-l-aide-d-hopium-le-constructeur-francais-de-voitures-a-hydrogene-202251.htm
Hopium lost 23,8 millions euros during year 2022, and only has enough cash until August 2023.
I’m at kind of a loss to understand why aircraft aluminum construction isn’t used for wind turbine blades. We’ve had hundreds of thousands of aircraft racking up billions of flight hours over the past 90 years, and have gained a huge amount of data along the way as to their manufacture, maintenance and durability. Aluminum is the third most abundant element in the Earth’s crust (after oxygen and silicon), and is literally extracted by electricity (through electrolysis). That distinguishes it from composite materials which, for carbon-reinforced plastics, are entirely derived from fossil fuels. It’s easily recyclable, and can be diverted to other uses if need be. There is a weight penalty compared to composite blades, though it isn’t necessarily as onerous as one might think.
I hate to even suggest anything that might enable the drive to more wind power, though I know of several significant improvements that are possible (including energy storage methods). The environmental destruction it brings is awful, especially since it is seen as a solution to a problem that doesn’t actually exist.
Aluminum production has a quite high energy cost. Since we aren’t building nuke power plants, and all the hydro power from places like Niagara and the Grand Coulee Dam is already used, it’s going to require several times as much fossil fuel to make aluminum than epoxy-composites. I think that also, in this application the composites have a better strength to mass ratio, so the blades are lighter, which reduces the requirements for the prop shaft, bearings, and support structures.
Those windmill things will end up like the rusted relics of a Mad Max film.