Landfill begins burying non-recyclable Wind Turbine Blades
The CRL has entered into a deal with three Wyoming wind farms to dispose of decommissioned blades and motor houses.
Waste management experts estimate they’ll take hundreds of years to biodegrade
While nearly 90 percent of old or decommissioned wind turbines, like the motor housing, can be refurbished or at least crushed, fiberglass windmill blades present a problem due to their size and strength.
“Our crushing equipment is not big enough to crush them,” a landfill representative told NPR.
Prior to burying the cumbersome, sometimes nearly 300-foot long blades, the landfill has to cut them up into smaller pieces onsite and stack them in order to save space during transportation.
To make matters worse, the blades aren’t exactly compostable. The Casper Sold Waste Manager tells Wyoming News Now they’ll take hundreds of years to biodegrade.
“So Casper happens to be, I think it is, the biggest landfill facility in the state of Wyoming. These blades are really big, and they take up a lot of airspace, and our unlined area is very, very large, and it’s going to last hundreds of years.”
As if that’s not bad enough, NPR reports researchers estimate the US will soon have to grapple with over 720,000 tons of blades over the next 20 years, “a figure that doesn’t include newer, taller higher-capacity versions.”
So much for saving the environment.
Image Credits: wyomingnewsnow.tv.
Source: Casper Regional Landfill begins burying turbine blades
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Make a good fence to keep people out/in
So I sent this article to a friend who works on windmills for a living and he said this is completely false. They are 100% recyclable.
I would have to agree. Once you shred them you can turn them into anything. Just remix them with resin.
None of these windmills have ever returned enough profit to replace their manufacturing costs, and they never will. I think all of these wind farms should be demolished and the people who set them up should be jailed.
Robert i sense you are someone who did not get selected in your area to have one on your land and earn revenue from them. Not sure why you would be so against clean energy
Stand them on end and use them to build the border wall. If they are hollow enough, cut them up and use for storage buildings or underground storm shelters. But why can’t they just reuse them as windmill blades, what can go bad on them?
All of these comments seem to have solutions, but no one is taking action! Contact people who can!!!
I have read enough great ideas here to make me wonder if the people in charge will listen and do something different. Lets see what they do!
Why don’t they cut them up and make fence posts or guard rails out of them if the material is so darn instructable?
Why don’t recycle them to use in the wall?
Put them along highways for wind breaks or fences
Why can’t they use them in making artificial reefs?
If they dump them in the ocean. It will cause the ocean to raise and flood Florida !!
That is the dumbest response on here. Give your head a shake.
That was my argument. The Gulf Coast west of the Mississippi River needs more erosion jetties. These blades would be a great base.
Why not re use the blades as fibreglass siding for homes for our veterans & homeless!!
So since the person writing this knows nothing about renewable energy! These blades get used in road ways, homes make structures even better. How about people looks things up first before reposting crap.
This opinion article leaves out the ways these are being recycled and repurposed obviously the writer didn’t do any research. I would recommend using Google before writing a one sided article
What’s the other side?
Can you please provide some links because I can’t find anything.
You better think again buddy! I already hauled 18 truckloads to Casper to be buried in the landfill. Not to mention the hundreds of loads that already went there. They are being shipped as we speak right now. They are not being used for recyclable goods or anything else. It is called a state making money off a quabillionaire buisness’ (GE, Siemens, Vesta) and passing the profit to who ever wants to try and stop them.
My god, someone finally said it. This article has no fact attached to it. A bunch of opinion and “experts”. Wow, is everyone believing what they read these days? Come on people, educate yourselves before taking a side…shame on this reporter and the publisher.. unbiased journalism bringing the facts? I think not
Extremely one sided article. Google recycling wind turbine blades and get a lot of solutions including https://www.windpowerengineering.com/recycling-wind-turbine-blades/
From your article.
Most turbine blades are made from composites, materials joined for their complementary properties. Today’s wind-turbine blades are usually made of a glass or carbon fiber reinforcement in a polymer matrix. The composite is designed for optimal aerodynamic performance and lightweight durability. It is not designed for recyclability.
The concern with this is noted in a research paper by global wind-service provider, DEWI, and quoted again in an abstract published Cambridge University and posted on the European Wind Energy Association website:
“Every kilowatt of wind power requires 10-kg WT blade materials, so predicted there will be nearly 50,000 tons of blade waste in 2020 rising to 200,000 tons in 2034. Currently, most waste is sent to landfill, which is not an environmentally desirable solution.” (Albers 2009)
Really. How many are *actually* recycled?
Are the truck drivers that haul this junk to be burried imagining things?
IDEAS don’t mean those ideas are put into practice.
Did you actually read the article? It provides a lot of nothing. The blades aren’t being recycled on any large scale and since this has been coming for 20 plus years why don’t they have a solution? Because it’s not about clean power, it’s just about the money. You might want to read the article or find one that backs you up, this does just the opposite.
I am surprIsed insulation manufacturing hasn’t stepped up to foot the bill and recycle these blades. Burying them is a aweful idea.
It’s not cost effective to recycle due to the stronger polymers and resins that are used.
Can’t they be refurbished? I suppose planting them like Cadillac Ranch could end up affecting the weather patterns of the world. Don’t want to go there.
The people in Kansas have always thought that a wall should be built between Kansas and Oklahoma, to disrupt tornadoes. They thought it should be about 600 feet high, 2 of these end to end would be just right, lol!!
They don’t get buried at all. It’s a holding place until it’s cut up to do just that.
Explain why I hauled 18 loads from Newton Iowa to Casper Wyoming and watched them being buried then. You have no clue so just BUTT OUT!
I can recycle all of them. If they pay me for what they are paying shipping and the land field.
I have recycled tires and plastic plus fiberglass.
Where are you and what do you do with the fiberglass?
You can grind it up and mix it with concrete or mix it with asphalt for the road ways,,, my shop floor has concrete mixed with fiberglass and it is very very strong, we have hauled asphalt that was mixed with polymer and nylon that is outlasting regular asphalt 6 to one. It can be done
They have recycled used tires that they said couldn’t be done,they could be melted down and added to used tires,and that could end these pot holes we are driving on.
The problem with melting them is the very toxic fumes from the polymer and resin. There is not a large enough system to keep the toxic fumes in bay.
This does not take into account the thousands of birds (more often raptors) and bats that have been decimated by the wind farms.
But then they come walking in.
Why can’t they be recycled? What materials are they made from?
Fiberglass.
Read the article!
Why woud they make them unrecyclable? They should be able to chop it up and build roads or side walks. Anything.
You are right… they just don’t want to pay for it. They could mix it with hundreds of materials and do something else. It’s the cost issue they are not solving, or maybe it is just not their bussines to recycle.
Why don’t they bury them in abandoned strip mining locations, with hopes of healing scars left behind from mining operations.
Many of those” scars from strip mining have become beautiful lake areas and wildlife habitats. I live in strip mining area of central Illinois and see many of these lakes and thicket areas. More recent mining operations had to fill in the trenches and replace the topsoil so could then be farmed again.
I made several pictures of wind power in a couple states out west an in Alberta , Canada. Their size is outstanding or outrageous depending on the side of wind power you stand. I will say the vision should have included a way to dispose of the unusable ones. This is topical alternative power. Many are fast to jump on the band wagon without a long term cost of buying , maintenance, disposal, replacement. Believe Solar will soon become the next alternative power to be proven less effective than expected.
note that 90% of the turbines are recyclable. Its the 10% of the that it is going to the Casper facility. Also note that Casper facility is making almost $700k on the project. That profit keeps costs of running the facility down for the other consumers. Yes, we need to look at landfil use for all consumables. Including everything we use in the house, and that includes how we power our homes.
90% is not recyclable. It is able to be crushed or shredded and then thrown in landfill. Which just means taking up smaller space. A small amount is refurbishable or recyclable.
Exactly Carol! The materials in solar panels are a environmental crisis waiting to happen!
Actually we crush and recycle solar panels everything in them is reusable!!! The Composition Turbine parts suck there is a grinder that can be hauled on site and used to make boxcar loads of scrap and it could be incorporated into concrete slurry…
So, why not cut them into smaller pieces so they can be shredded. Can’t they be used with insulation, mixed with concrete, mixed with black-top, maybe that might make the streets last longer from the dreaded pot-hole!!
Solar is becoming more cost-effective. There is enough land area in the state of Texas to provide electricity for the entire U.S. But then we fry birds and anything else that gets to close and at the right angle.