Narrator: Until recently, wind turbine blades
were almost impossible to recycle.
They have to be replaced about every 20 years.
Now, one company is the first in the US
to shred the blades so they can be used to make cement.
But is this the best way to deal with old blades?
Making cement is a major source of greenhouse gases.
Can producing it this way really reduce emissions?
We went to Missouri to see if recycling wind turbine blades
could help reduce a growing source of worldwide waste.
The first wind turbine in the US was built
in the late 1800s.
The tower was 60 feet tall,
and it could power about three modern homes.
Now, land-based wind turbines
have an average height of 525 feet.
The average turbine can power over 460 homes.
The largest offshore turbine
is more than 850 feet tall.
Land-based turbine blades are typically 170 feet long.
That's more than four school buses parked end to end.
The blades are usually made from a combination of
fiberglass and balsa wood.
Chris: This material is incredibly robust.
The challenge is reversing that engineering
and physically breaking the material down.
Narrator: Turbine blades have been piling up
in landfills in recent years.
That's the problem the company Veolia
set out to solve.
It gets the blades from GE Renewable Energy.
These ones are only between 8 and 12 years old.
The blades come from all over the US
to the town of Louisiana, Missouri.
Here, workers cut them down
before sending them to the shredder.
Matthew: The biggest challenge is just getting them
cut perfectly just to feed them through the shredder
without damaging anything.
Narrator: This machine is powerful enough
to crush the 20-foot sections
into pieces roughly the size of a football.
Then, the blade chunks go to another shredder
that grinds them down even more.
Next, a sorting machine filters out
any remaining large pieces.
Chris: It's hard to believe that this was once
a 120-foot-long wind turbine blade.
Narrator: Veolia also recycles
nonhazardous medical waste.
And some of that is mixed in with the blade material.
Chris: So back and forth we'll go until we get
what we think is our correct recipe.
Narrator: Right now, GE pays Veolia
to recycle the blades,
and Veolia pays to send the final product
to cement factories.
Chris: So currently, there isn't a profit associated with it.
The real motivator here is to prevent this material
from ending up in landfills.
Narrator: Cement factories burn the turbine blades
for fuel.
Veolia says their product burns cleaner than coal.
Still, it probably won't make that much of a dent
in the cement industry's carbon footprint.
That's because most of the emissions
don't come from burning coal.
They come from heating limestone inside giant kilns.
Right now, the cement industry produces roughly
8% of all greenhouse gases,
three times more than the aviation industry.
So is making new cement the best we can do
with turbine blades?
It might not reduce emissions from cement-making,
but it still prevents the blades
from ending up in landfills.
But not everyone agrees that shredding and burning
the blades is the best approach.
Larry: Seems to me a tremendous waste of all the energy
and resources that have gone into producing the blade
in the first place.
Narrator: Researchers like Larry Bank say
reusing the blades is a better option.
Larry: Instead of disposing of it as waste,
you look for ways to use it in a second life
or an alternative industry.
Narrator: Larry and other researchers at Re-Wind
are building a pedestrian bridge in Ireland.
And they have proposals to turn wind turbines
into cellphone towers and fencing.
Larry: We're hopeful that these demonstration projects
will convince people that repurposing
is a viable alternative.
Narrator: And they aren't the only ones doing this.
Architects in the Netherlands turned old blades
into a playground
and a public monument.
Another company in Denmark created a bike shed.
So why aren't blades turned into more projects like these?
Larry: The main reason is that it's incredibly cheap
to dump them in a landfill.
And unless there is a regulation in the United States,
which seems unlikely,
a landfill will probably be the preferred solution.
Narrator: After this video was first published, Veolia responded
and said reusing blades is interesting,
but these projects aren't enough to deal with the growing waste problem.
Chris: These other uses do not provide the scale necessary to manage
the current volumes needed for sustainable wind turbine blade management.
Narrator: As America installs more turbines,
the waste problem could grow.
There are already more than 70,000 turbines
in the United States.
And with plans to expand offshore wind,
the US could have 2,000 more within the next decade.
The 2021 infrastructure bill allocated at least
$100 million to expand wind energy.
One study predicts global waste from turbine blades
will exceed 47 million tons by 2050.
But even if that does happen,
it would still amount to about an eighth of the plastic
that is thrown away every year.
Larry: In the scheme of things, it's not much of an impact
compared to most other industrial processes.
Narrator: And for both Veolia and Re-Wind,
figuring out what to do with the blades
is a welcome challenge.
Chris: It's a cliche, but you know,
one man's junk is another man's treasure.
We have a finite amount of resources.
And so we've got to find innovative ways
to find new resources, and those new resources
can come from materials we've already used.
Larry: If we can find applications for these materials
in a second or even third life
after they have been used in the initial applications,
then, you know, it's a win-win for everybody.