Can this be right?????

Baycott

Baycott

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It seems that the blades from wind turbines have a finite life but they cannot be recycled so are going into landfill 😱
8970A52B-C8F6-46F7-A563-82F9A96602BB.jpeg


www.bloomberg.com

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

Companies are searching for ways to deal with the tens of thousands of blades that have reached the end of their lives.
www.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com
 
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So much for bring "green", not to mention the tons of concrete used in the base. Concrete production causes 8% of the worlds worst gases.

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That reminds me of when I worked in an edible oil refinery. Many chemicals ,including acetone, where used in the process of cleaning various oils. Then final clean ,using seperators, spun out the clean acetone ,leaving the heavy residue to drain down in to 50 gallon drums with the tops punched in , This stuff was like molten chewing gum, had to have super heated steam just to be able to move it albeit very slowly. When cold the stuff was harder than concrete.
The multi national company had tried everything to find a use for it but nothing was found so the drums for years went in landfill.
Some years later they changed to a small 3m3 paper lined tipping skip ,I assumed to save on having it encased in drums if it did break down?

Between these different methods a company came along & wanted to buy it in the 50 gallon drums. A deal was done & for the next 3 years it was sold to them at nominal cost.
Then someone up high in our firm , having remembered that they had tried all & everything to find a use for it, asked the buying company what they did with it?
The company refused to say ,citing the fact if they said what they did the multi national would do it themselves. 🤷‍♂️
So ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, my firm stopped selling it to them anymore & went back to paper skips & landfill.
What a short sighted approach & one that unfortunately is still common.
Point is there is definitely a use for those blades it just needs a bit of lateral thinking .
 
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gus-lopez said:
That reminds me of when I worked in an edible oil refinery. Many chemicals ,including acetone, where used in the process of cleaning various oils. Then final clean ,using seperators, spun out the clean acetone ,leaving the heavy residue to drain down in to 50 gallon drums with the tops punched in , This stuff was like molten chewing gum, had to have super heated steam just to be able to move it albeit very slowly. When cold the stuff was harder than concrete.
The multi national company had tried everything to find a use for it but nothing was found so the drums for years went in landfill.
Some years later they changed to a small 3m3 paper lined tipping skip ,I assumed to save on having it encased in drums if it did break down?

Between these different methods a company came along & wanted to buy it in the 50 gallon drums. A deal was done & for the next 3 years it was sold to them at nominal cost.
Then someone up high in our firm , having remembered that they had tried all & everything to find a use for it, asked the buying company what they did with it?
The company refused to say ,citing the fact if they said what they did the multi national would do it themselves. 🤷‍♂️
So ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, my firm stopped selling it to them anymore & went back to paper skips & landfill.
What a short sighted approach & one that unfortunately is still common.
Point is there is definitely a use for those blades it just needs a bit of lateral thinking .
Click to expand...
Sooner or later they will find a use when landfill tax gets high enough to make sure they do. Same with your previous company if they were paying enough to tip the oil waste and someone just took it away free they might well agree

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They could be upcycled if they thought hard enough, like old tyres. They are shredded and used in child's playground safety matting and even some road surfaces.
 
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Just about everything can be reused
It is the cost of doing so that is restrictive
Example is glass which is cheaper and easier to make from scratch than recycled though there are other uses for recycled glass
Problem is everyone is green until it costs them personally money
 
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Lots of companies are working on recycling them and some are even profitable doing it.

This was an issue that it was uneconomic to recycle them. Too few were being decommissioned that there weren't enough to form a viable company around. this has now changed.
There has always been the means to recycle the blade just not the economics. This is no longer the case due to the huge number of blades now come out of service.

Don't expect to see them going to landfill going forward.

Also new turbine blades are being made with recycling in mind.

Home - Intelligent Living

www.intelligentliving.co www.intelligentliving.co

www.powermag.com

Siemens Gamesa Launches World’s First Fully Recyclable Wind Turbine Blade

Siemens Gamesa has launched what it says is the world’s first wind turbine blade that can be used at a commercial offshore wind farm and recycled at the
www.powermag.com www.powermag.com
 
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Garfields said:
Just about everything can be reused
It is the cost of doing so that is restrictive
Example is glass which is cheaper and easier to make from scratch than recycled though there are other uses for recycled glass
Problem is everyone is green until it costs them personally money
Click to expand...
Could never figure out why they don't just wash it :LOL:
 
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Robert Clark said:
Hopefully some bright spark will find a way to upcycle them and extend their useful life.

I could see then being used as roof beams or furniture legs
Click to expand...
Why not roughly grind then up and use them in reinforced concrete for big infrastructure projects like HS2?

Strength should be on par with steel reinforcement. Issue would be QC.

Cheers James

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Jamesh said:
Why not roughly grind then up and use them in reinforced concrete for big infrastructure projects like HS2?

Strength should be on par with steel reinforcement. Issue would be QC.

Cheers James
Click to expand...
Because it would take more energy than it saves. so much of this " recycling" is being trucked around the country or put in containers and exported to Africa.
 
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Not just wind turbine blades. Modern aircraft use huge amounts of composites, carbon, Kevlar and glass fibre. At the end of its life the aircraft has to make that last landing at an airfield so being so large will have to be partially processed on site. This will have to be done within a controlled environment, not just any old WW2 hangar. Carbon in particular cannot be just burnt on a giant bonfire, the minute carbon particles drift in the air and being conductive short out unprotected electronic equipment. Artificial reef you may say, how many will we need, will only be feasible if aircraft is scrapped near the sea. The wings are the fuel tanks and carry large amounts of special sealants also toxic. Small poorer nations of course will just abandon them to the elements allowing nasty stuff to slowly enter the environment.

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dunnah01 said:
Looks about right to me. Went to watch some being made in the Isle of Wight. Very high tech carbon fibre for light weight but using nasty resins. Presumably suffer a lot of fatigue over their lifetime which is very short.
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Genuine curiosity, could you identify the "nasty" resins please?

Colin
 
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dunnah01 said:
No idea but they had to wear full face feed BA to apply the resins. This was a few years ago so maybe things have developed since then.
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That's not the resin itself that's the solvent base. The solvent evaporates off leaving the resin in place.
 
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pappajohn said:
They could be upcycled if they thought hard enough, like old tyres. They are shredded and used in child's playground safety matting and even some road surfaces.
Click to expand...
I have a mouse mat that proudly states it is a recycled tyre! 😊
 
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Jamesh said:
Why not roughly grind then up and use them in reinforced concrete for big infrastructure projects like HS2?

Strength should be on par with steel reinforcement. Issue would be QC.

Cheers James
Click to expand...
Looks like you were on the money James
Robert Clark said:
Looks like wind turbine blades can be recycled

'Being fully recyclable in theory doesn’t matter if blades aren't recycled in practice' | Recharge

Cross-sectoral partnerships are essential in accelerating the transition to a circular economy for blades, writes John Korsgaard
www.rechargenews.com www.rechargenews.com
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Interesting article Robert.

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jongood said:
There isnt really much point in us doing anything until China India and most of Asia get on board - literally p*ssing in the wind.
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Sorry that is a copout excuse touted about as a reason for not doing anything.
All these things take time
Removal of cfc's almost now done, lead in petrol has just ended world wide this year with one of the African country's having used the last of it.
London smogs don't happen anymore etc
 
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Garfields said:
Sorry that is a copout excuse touted about as a reason for not doing anything.
All these things take time
Removal of cfc's almost now done, lead in petrol has just ended world wide this year with one of the African country's having used the last of it.
London smogs don't happen anymore etc
Click to expand...
I chose my words carefully.

China Is Planning to Build 43 New Coal-Fired Power Plants. Can It Still Keep Its Promises to Cut Emissions? The Chinese flag flies in front of exhaust rising from a coal fired power plant in Jiayuguan, Gansu province, China, on April 1, 2021

It isn’t alone in its reliance on coal, however. China and four other countries, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam, account for more than 80% of the coal power stations planned across the world

https://time.com/6090732/china-coal-power-plants-emissions/
 
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jongood said:
I chose my words carefully.

China Is Planning to Build 43 New Coal-Fired Power Plants. Can It Still Keep Its Promises to Cut Emissions? The Chinese flag flies in front of exhaust rising from a coal fired power plant in Jiayuguan, Gansu province, China, on April 1, 2021

It isn’t alone in its reliance on coal, however. China and four other countries, India, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam, account for more than 80% of the coal power stations planned across the world

https://time.com/6090732/china-coal-power-plants-emissions/
Click to expand...
And as far as I'm aware they all have emissions per capita way lower than us!
 
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Robert Clark said:
Looks like wind turbine blades can be recycled

'Being fully recyclable in theory doesn’t matter if blades aren't recycled in practice' | Recharge

Cross-sectoral partnerships are essential in accelerating the transition to a circular economy for blades, writes John Korsgaard
www.rechargenews.com www.rechargenews.com
Click to expand...
We're obviously reading this differently; I'm reading that the blades can be recycled but aren't because it's not viable.

A lot of energy is being used in recycling things, take your box of household recycling that is collected from your house by a diesel powered lorry. Its then sorted and some of it bailed at the recycling centre before being transported by lorries to the various reprocessing plants where more energy is used to unload, sort, process and reload as material that is generally blended with fresh raw material before then being remanufactured. Yes it's good that we're not burying it but let's no kid ourselves about efficiency.
 
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