Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills

[B00Mer]

Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills



https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills

 

[Twin_Moose]

The Green new deal Lol

 

[Jinentonix]

Wind may be renewable but the resources to replace turbines every 20-25 years are finite. So is the land space that's needed.

 

[NZDoug]

Aircraft prop blades can be rebuilt, hence, there are companies, like Hartzell and Hamilton Standard repair facilities..
What is exactly the problem with the blades?

 

[Ron in Regina]

Aircraft prop blades can be rebuilt, hence, there are companies, like Hartzell and Hamilton Standard repair facilities..
What is exactly the problem with the blades?

Perhaps the issue is the scale. Maybe the infrastructure for dealing with things of the size does not currently exist?

 

[B00Mer]

Aircraft prop blades can be rebuilt, hence, there are companies, like Hartzell and Hamilton Standard repair facilities..
What is exactly the problem with the blades?

I don't know maybe it's right in the title..


Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled , So They’re Piling Up in Landfills

 

[NZDoug]

I don't know maybe it's right in the title..
Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled , So They’re Piling Up in Landfills

I can't read the whole article as my free Bloomburg article monthly quota has been met, but I query why they don't rebuild them.
I got as far as maybe they could be used to "Build the wall".
New wind turbine blade are now in existence, which look like a twisted Spearmint gum stick, only big, and brightly painted, which eliminates bird strike and noise levels are greatly reduced.
My neighbour has one.
Im looking at getting one, as I have solar.
It would get me off the grid!

 

[Twin_Moose]

Aircraft prop blades can be rebuilt, hence, there are companies, like Hartzell and Hamilton Standard repair facilities..
What is exactly the problem with the blades?

Unlike airplane props they are hollow and need to flex to work properly, any major repair will make them brittle

 

[Blackleaf]

That's ironic.

 

[petros]

Fibreglass

 

[taxslave]

Aircraft prop blades can be rebuilt, hence, there are companies, like Hartzell and Hamilton Standard repair facilities..
What is exactly the problem with the blades?

The small ones are 30 meters long. Made from aluminum and a bunch of fossil fuel derived compounds. They crack. The ones on the north end of Vancouver island corroded from the salt air. Who knew? Anyways they can't even be separated economically to salvage the aluminum.

 

[Mowich]

Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills

​

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills

"Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years. Europe, which has been dealing with the problem longer, has about 3,800 coming down annually through at least 2022, according to BloombergNEF. It’s going to get worse: Most were built more than a decade ago, when installations were less than a fifth of what they are now.

Built to withstand hurricane-force winds, the blades can’t easily be crushed, recycled or repurposed. That’s created an urgent search for alternatives in places that lack wide-open prairies. In the U.S., they go to the handful of landfills that accept them, in Lake Mills, Iowa; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Casper, where they will be interred in stacks that reach 30 feet under."

 

[Mowich]

www.appropedia.org/Recycling_of_wind_turbine_blades

 

[petros]

I know what I would do to re-purpose them but I'm a genius so the solution took seconds.

I'd fill them with rebar, a PVC conduit and concrete and use them as utility or street light poles.

 

[spilledthebeer]

Aircraft prop blades can be rebuilt, hence, there are companies, like Hartzell and Hamilton Standard repair facilities..
What is exactly the problem with the blades?

Oh Nut Zone Doug........it seems you are NOT AWARE that most airplane propellers ARE METAL!


While it seems ALL wind turbine blades are fibreglass or some carbon fibre material!


Thus wind turbine blades CANNOT be melted down and reforged as metal can!



In addition -sources say it would take about $200 hundred grand in Yankee dollars to dismantle one of the BIGGER wind towers


and wind tower owners are looking for ways to DUMP THE DECOMMISSION COST onto tax payers!

 

[Avro52]

I know what I would do to re-purpose them but I'm a genius so the solution took seconds.
I'd fill them with rebar, a PVC conduit and concrete and use them as utility or street light poles.

Well then people driving on highways will get cancer.

Some genius you are.

 

[captain morgan]

Wow, wind turbines extra more gooder for the environment AND cause cancer?... What a win-win

 

[spilledthebeer]

I know what I would do to re-purpose them but I'm a genius so the solution took seconds.

I'd fill them with rebar, a PVC conduit and concrete and use them as utility or street light poles.

The general design of wind turbine blades seems to be fibreglass with a so called "hollow centre"


and that apparently gets filled up with styrofoam or urethane to keep water from condensing and building up in them


See the photo I attached to this post.


Thus it seems unlikely that it would be easy or economical to fill in an old blade with cement!


In addition - there might be issues with using them as street poles in cold countries as the buried base sections


would possibly fill with water and be subject to freeze/thaw cycles that would rupture and weaken the blades?


Just some thoughts............ re a not to shabby idea..............

 

[captain morgan]

Lizzy May doesn't seem to be bothered by the fact that so many windmills fill the landfills across the continent

 

[Blackleaf]

Celebrating wind turbines in 1984: