In a recent podcast interview, Donald Trump dusted off an oldy from all the way
back on the campaign trail — criticizing decommissioned wind turbines as the bane
of the environment. Specifically, he calls out how turbine blades end up piled high in landfills.
But… here’s the thing… He’s not… entirely… wrong on this
one…
Now… there are plenty of things old #45 HAS gotten wrong about
wind turbines — No, they —--can’t cause cancer.
But while critics love to exploit every little flaw that crops up when it comes to renewables,
sometimes green energy propenants can see the emerging technology with rose-colored glasses.
So — what exactly happens when windmills die? How does that
impact the environment? And what’s currently being done to address the issue?
Let’s dive right in. So first things first — let’s try to win some of
your favor back by hyping up all the things we LOVE about wind energy!
According to the EIA — in 2020, wind turbines produced roughly 338 billion
kWh in the US alone — about 8.4% of total US utility-scale electricity generation
Globally, wind produced more than 6% of electricity,
with 743 GW of Global capacity — that’s enough to power over 500 million homes!
Wind energy helps eliminate nearly 320 million metric tons
of CO2 emissions annually — that’s the carbon equivalent of 6 New York Cities!!
One reason wind energy has seen such prolific growth in the last few decades
is that it has grown to be one of the cheapest means of energy production
in the world — according to the US Department of Energy,
wind energy prices has a levelized average cost below 2 cents per kilowatt-hour,
making it highly competitive against other baseload energy sources like Natural Gas and Coal.
Wind energy is completely carbon-free during its lifetime, producing zero greenhouse gas emissions
while requiring little maintenance during their maybe a different word herelifetime.
And what’s best of all is that o? the 8,000 plus total parts involved in building wind turbines,
between 85 and 90% of it can be recycled — things like steel, copper wire, electronics, and gearing.
So — if wind energy is so great… why does it catch so much hate?
You could say wind turbines are like zombies. They
don’t really become a problem until they reach the End of their lives.
And while nearly all component of these massive turbines can either be recycled or repurposed, the
same can’t be said for… arguably the most critical component… and that’s those massive turbines.
It turns out, these massive beasts are incredibly difficult to recycle. Why?
For one thing, today’s turbines are incredibly large — with land-based models reaching 525
feet tall with turbines extending up to 170 feet — longer than a Boeing 747’s
wings. Offshore models can get up to 850 feet tall with blades up to 350 feet long!
That’s about the length of 21 Tesla Model X’s lined up bumper to bumper!
Bigger, taller towers and longer blades are key to maximizing
electricity production. Transporting blades to and from their sites can be a
pretty massive production, requiring multiple diesel-burning trucks, tractors, and trains.
But the issue isn’t so much the size, it's the materials they’re made out of. Wind turbines need
to be incredibly lightweight so as to increase their aerodynamic efficiency, but also need to
be incredibly strong — sturdy enough to withstand hurricane-force winds. The go-to material
for today’s turbine blades is a combination of glass, carbon fiber, epoxy resin, and balsa wood.
By undergoing a process of heating and mixing, the materials bind together,
becoming incredibly strong while remaining light — generally having life spans of up to 25 years.
However, it's those precise materials that make these blades incredibly difficult to recycle
once they’re done. Sawing through the tough blades requires diamond-encrusted industrial saws.
And while it's possible to cut the blades into segments on-site during decommissioning,
they are still challenging to transport.
Then there’s the issue of the composite materials themselves. Separating the glass fibers from
the plastics and resins to recycle into a workable material is incredibly challenging.
This is why so many decommissioned wind turbines… end up in landfills. And the problem… well… it’s
not going away anytime soon. Many first and second-generation wind turbines are
reaching the end of their tenure. And with the 2021 US infrastructure bill allocating
$100 million to expand wind, we could soon be seeing more and more blades end up n landfills.
Current statistics estimate that turbine blades are set to account for roughly 43
million metric tonnes of waste by 2050, making up an eighth of the discarded plastic annually.
Images of dirty turbine blades piled up in landfills like whale carcasses are
often used as fodder for those opposed to renewables, who beg the question,
“How green can a product be if it's just going to end up in a landfill?”
So does that mean recycling them is impossible? Well, not exactly.
In fact, a number of companies are aiming to find ways to do just that. In Germany,
for example, a joint venture between two companies, Geocycle, and , has
innovated a way to recycle these composite materials through cement co-processing.
This is sort of a two-stage process. First, the organic content in the blade is recovered
as thermal energy — basically fuel used in the cement-making process.
Then the inorganic materials, like the glass fibers and fillers,
are used to partially replace raw materials in the cement itself.
The process promises 100% recycling. But wait — Burning the blades? Surely THAT
can’t be beneficial for the environment, can it?
It turns out, cement making has a huge carbon footprint — producing roughly 8% of
ALL greenhouse gas emissions worldwide — that’s nearly 4 times more than the aviation industry!
Replacing traditional fossil fuels like coal with the organic materials found in these turbines
could reduce CO2 emissions by up to 16%. Which isn’t a ton — but it's better than nothing.
Outside of concrete, other companies are working on ways to incorporate
more of the materials. Global Fiberglass Solutions in Sweetwater, Texas,
is developing a method to break down the blades and press them into pellets and fiberboards
which can be used in a number of applications including flooring and walls. According to the
company, up to 99.9% of the blade can be processed, for up to 7,000 blades a year.
There’s also the question of whether we can start making turbines out of more recyclable material
from the outset. A number of companies, including Spain-based energy company Siemens Gamesa,
who have experimented with new types of resins that can be more efficiently separated
from the other components of the blade, making what they claim to be one of the world’s first
fully recyclable turbine blades. Other companies, like German-based WPD has teamed up with a company
in San Diego, California to begin installing more recyclable blades on their offshore turbines.
What it really boils down to though… is cost. As great as all these initiatives are…
it’s still cheaper for companies to just dump their blades in a landfill, at least for now. For
wind to grow as prevalent as it has in the last few decades took a combination of public support
and market incentives. It will likely take those same forces to develop a better infrastructure for
a more circular renewable economy moving forward. A lack of both industry incentive and regulatory
demands makes it all the easier for companies to simply abandon their retired turbines.
But.. is that such a terrible thing? I mean, yes, obviously the goal should be to reduce as much
landfill waste as possible. With recyclability between 85 and 90%, that’s significantly better
than the waste footprint of many other industries. And with the significant reduction in carbon
emissions that wind energy brings, I think its time we stop looking at wind energy with those
green-tinted glasses. Worst case scenario, even if wind turbines do end up in landfills when
it comes to net pollution — they are leaps and bounds better than coal and other fossil fuels.
Then there’s the idea of exponential advancement with technology. As we mentioned earlier in the
video, modern wind turbines didn’t even begin to truly? into effect until the 1970s. Since then,
not only have prices gone down, but the technology has significantly improved over the years.
What adversaries of green energy see as deficits, engineers see as an opportunity.
We need to break out of this black or white, all or nothing thinking. Just because some green
technology isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it should be abandoned altogether. It's not all a “Scam.” And
yes — there have been some major failures along the way — [link to Billion Dollar Failure video].
On the flip side, we don’t have to be blind to the shortcomings a technology might have
in order to get behind it. We have to remember, what’s on the table is the future of our planet!
But what do you think — do the benefits of wind energy outweigh the deficits? What do you think
about recycling or reusing the materials in the blades? Let us know what you think in the
comments below! Do