Wind power's unsolved problem
Wind turbines are playing a big part in cleaning up our energy system. But even the best solution isn't without its problems: the blades are close to impossible to recycle and largely end up in landfills. There are more and more companies promising to fix that. Can they?
#PlanetA #WindEnergy #Recycling
We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world - and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.
Credits:
Reporter: Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann
Video Editor: David Jacobi
Supervising Editor: Joanna Gottschalk
Factcheck: Jeannette Cwienk, Alexander Paquet
Thumbnail: Em Chabridon
Interviewees:
Aubryn Cooperman, engineer, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Claire Barlow, researcher, University of Cambridge
Maximilian Schnippering, head of sustainability department, Siemens Gamesa
Lisa Ekstrand, head of sustainability, Vestas
Read More :
Wind Turbine Blade Waste in 2050 (Liu & Barlow, 2017):
core.ac.uk/download/pdf/96705...
Blade Waste in the United States (Cooperman et al., 2021):
www.osti.gov/pages/servlets/p...
Vestas's press release:
www.vestas.com/en/media/compa...
Siemens Gamesa's press release:
www.siemensgamesa.com/en-int/...
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:01 Blade waste
02:53 Downcycling
05:10 New blades
06:51 Breakthrough?
08:18 What's at stake
Do you have any ideas what other things we could build with old wind turbine blades?💡 P.S. We would love to hear your thoughts about Planet A: what do you like and what don't you like? Let us know in this survey 👉surveys.dw.com/c/dwplaneta
Please see my comment re:Carbon Rivers. Only investment is needed to bring already existing solutions to market.
Please make a similar video about solar panels!
Very important topic to upscale recycling. Same problem with the hulls and decks of leisure boats. An issue nobody really talks about when selling the dream yacht... And now boats of the 70ies to 90ies start to pile up.
Turbine blades can be recycled for glass fiber (glass-to-glass). They're also a viable feedstock for renewable diesel. The same goes for fiberglass boat hulls.
@@ARepublicIfYouCanKeepIt Well, environmentalists look like they are never satisfied. And thus playing the game of the Corporations in getting The People used to live under-graded lives with very little improvement in comfort due to so-called shortages. 🤔 Said shortages mainly due to poor management, lack of investment, funding and maintenance. Etc.
I've never seen a coal-fired power station talk about recycling their structures!
100% correct. 2 standards are being applied here regretfully.
Glad you pointed this out. how many plastic car bodies are being recycled? What a bunch of BS!
True - coal powered generators are not claiming to be environmentally friendly so they don't need to worry about end of life recycling and the impact on their image. However it seems that the critics of renewable energy don't seem to mind if coal, oil, and gas energy facilities are environmentally friendly, it seems like this is only a concern with regard to renewable energy sources.
Coal fired power stations have at least double the life of wind turbines and can be refitted, they are far more efficient so far fewer are needed. Even with all these turbines we will always need fossil fuel power, wind energy is intermittent and unstable so the traditional power stations are still always running to even it out on the grid and to come into play when there is no wind or it is too windy so the turbines are shut down, the wind companies get paid a subsidy for turbines not turning, one of the reasons the price of electricity will never come down.
@@judithmackay7158 wow aren't you spewing a great pile of unsubstantiated garbage. Facts please.
I've worked for the one of the largest wind turbine developers and operations companies, for years, and we recycle 100% of our blades to concrete companies who grind them down and use the glass fiber to reinforce concrete, which makes concrete MUCH stronger. It's a perfect match as we'll continue making wind turbines for may decades, and will continue making concrete. I have recycled wind turbine blade glass fiber mix in the concrete of my own residential wind turbine foundation, in my own backyard. Full cycle life!
do you know, what happens to the fibers, when the concrete is being reused/ground to pieces... i'm just curious...
is using these fibers not the same as the "coral"reef solution that had in the 70s in the USA? en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_Reef there they had the solution to recycle car tires in a eco friendly way, it was the future... which turned out to be a complete disaster. the concrete with the fibres in it, is to me, dangerous waste. when the concrete is shredded at the end of lifetime of a structure the fibers will come free. maybe the fibers will come free after some years being exposed to the elements and people can breathe in the fibers.
@@saschathinius7082I'm thinking the same, it sounds to the next asbestos scandal to me
Concrete comes in many forms with many additives for even more purposes. If a recycled turbine blade can be used instead of new glass fibers for reinforcement, i don’t see why that should be not prefered.
@@saschathinius7082 One can use the fibers for cement production. They become the cement in a chemical reaction. The fibers do not exist anymore after that.
Still better then using the air as a dumping ground.
Insane to think that most people can’t even put their trash in the right bin at home but are then bothered by this. Definitely about the trash and not just about finding anything that can be criticized about renewable wind energy
I would have agreed with your statement... IF putting trash into the right bin actually worked~ Because majority of those separate bins got collected into the same container and go to the same old landfill (or shipped to Asia to be party separated & reused). Recycling en masse is a scam. Recycling plastic is NOT financially valuable for companies & cannot be truly done (you get more inferior product); thin plastics is NOT recyclable at all (i.e. bags) because machines cannot process it (it got stuck in them).
I would have agreed with your statement... IF putting trash into the right bin actually worked~ Because majority of those separate bins got collected into the same container and go to the same old landfill (or shipped to Asia to be party separated & reused). Recycling en masse is a scam. Recycling plastic is NOT financially valuable for companies & cannot be truly done (you get more inferior product); thin plastics is NOT recyclable at all (i.e. bags) because machines cannot process it (it got stuck in them).
Perhaps you could look up the facts and truth about recycling?
The average US household generates 20lbs of trash per day. So in less than 5 years each house is landfilling the equivalent of 3 modern wind turbine blades. But these whining haters are concerned about wind turbine blades?!?
You know why? It’s because most garbage isn’t recyclable and it all ends up at the same landfill. At least a landfill produces methane to be used as a fuel. Fiberglass doesn’t break down.
If only there were equally directed campaigns for the recyclability of other industries. For instance, why aren't there as frequent news 'articles' concerned with recycling of heavy industry machinery, cars, airplanes and ships. A cynic might be left wondering if someone is paying for these concerns to focus only on green industries and look past all the industries fuelled by oil and gas...
Exactly - there’s never an argument to ask how one goes about recycling a coal or gas power plant - even a nuclear plant uses tonnes of concrete and fossil fuels to be built and operate and even to decommission, yet anything renewable has to be greener than green as if the lifetime benefits aren’t somehow enough (that’s not to say that turbines shouldn’t be fully recycled- it’s just another plus point)
"green" whataboutism much?
@@kakikakakukaku Not necessarily. A lot of green opponents use arguments that ignore relativity. They point out any environmental impact at all for renewables while ignoring how they compare to existing systems. Essentially, making perfect the enemy of good. Example, one common point is that wind turbines kill thousands of birds. But that ignores the millions already killed by cats and windows. Death by wind turbines are a drop in the ocean compared to existing causes of bird mortality. Another example, is pointing out that turbines and solar panels use fossil fuels to make and transport. While true, ignores how that compares to existing coal and gas. According to studies by NREL, renewables despite manufacturing and disposal, are still magnitudes cleaner than coal and gas. Source: NREL, Lifecycle Harmonisation
Correct, if only coal and fossile gas power plants were dealing with their waste (CO2, ashes and other micro particules), we wouldn’t be in such mess. Instead, they just dump it into the atmosphere. At least wind, solar and nuclear energy do try to manage their wastes
Germany is heavily invested in Oil and Gas...and the lobby money comes from Oil and Gas...so that is your answer
I wonder if anybody could figure out how many kilowatt hours are produced by a typical generator blade over its lifetime and how that amount of waste would compared to waste from other generating systems per kilowatt-hour.
4500 MW a year over a course of 25 to 30 years before being dismantled due to safety. For the 2MW turbine next door...
@@gePanzerTe W is the unit for power - don't miss your h at the end when you mean it produces 4.5 GWh.
Coal power plants generate at least tentimes much as waste for each produced kwh than windturbines, just by creating ash.
Doesn’t mention anything about recycling the massive concrete foundations.
@@johnsteading8610 id expect them to last a lot more than 20 25 years and could probably handle another wind turbine being installed on them, no? Don't see buildings with concrete foundations having them replaced every thirty years
This really highlights the difference between these windmill companies and oil companies. An oil company would try to hide this kind of thing and play off how impactulfull it really is. Wind is saying "yeah, we have a problem here so lets solve it for a better tomorrow".
There actually isn't a problem. The composite blades get recycled as building material or steel blades just go into the steel scrap process.
I love when people complain about putting blades in landfills. I haul dumpster for a living and each day the transfer station alone does 600 tons of trash. That not including the other 9-12 places that are taking in just as much and more. West michigan i would say is around 8000 tons a day in the 5 landfills i can think of.. that just trash construction waste etc... so how bad is blades really compared to just 1 day of trash... the future $$$$ will be in cleaning up landfills. I bet they get big government grants(aka our tax dollars) along with all the other materials they recycle and make billions on top of getting paid now...
One day the landfills have to be cleaned, no doubt, but lets see how soon or late this will be.
I really like the concrete idea, other people are freaking out about "omg we are out of sand!!!" when we have so many things we can dump in concrete.
It's not just any sand, it has to be a specific kind of sand for it to have good material properties. It's unlikely that the blades are replacing this specific ingredient, seems that it substitutes for lime and/or gravel.
@@vidyagaems4063 it's neither, It's used as an additive. The concrete is exactly the same with sand, lime and gravel and if needed rebar too it doesn't increase its strength by anything significant, either however, by adding glass or carbon fibre to it, it prevents the small cracks forming thus preventing water ingress to the rebar that causes it to rust thus increasing the lifespan of the concrete it also looks nicer. practical engineering has an excellent KZhead video on exactly this.
@@randomcow505 @vidyagaems4063 you guys are both sorta correct but i've never understood the clasification of addative vs main ingredient in concrete, it's all gotta work together. As for the type of sand, that is mainly about the gemetry. Rounder grains make it easier for cracks to bypass that grain, so filiments are not very round, they can be round in one part but very pointy in general on the ends, is like little bits of rebar.
@@vidyagaems4063 btw it's also about energy, you can take the wrong sand and make it into the right sand, or take some waste mat like this and turn it into something physically identical to or better than the target sand, all the atoms are still here and in theory with enough energy and ingenuity humans can arrange all the atoms on earth how ever we see fit... just not by burning oil.
Wind turbines have always been products with a high recycling rate - around 80-95 percent of a wind turbine is completely recyclable. The only challenging part are the blades, which use fiberglass as their material, and have therefore been more difficult to recycle. In Finland, a solution to this challenge has been sought in the KiMuRa project, where a collection and processing network for plastic composite waste was created in which it's recycled 100% in the manufacture of cement, partly as energy and partly as raw material. The first wind turbine platforms went into circulation through the new system during the past summer in 2021.
only one place on the planet looking at recycling blades is in the USA. They are shredded to then be added to a concrete mix not a green answer at all
@@simonbowman6206 Check your facts, is all I can say. There's also a Swedish company Stena Recycling, that operates in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Poland, Italy, and the US.
@@simonbowman6206 That is wrong. The cement recycling is done in Europe for years.
@@simonbowman6206how is it not a green solution? Using shredded turbine blades means less cement that damages the environment and less ressources needed. Using those blades after 25 to 30 years of producing electricity is exactly the green solution we need
@@simonbowman6206 Loits of places are doing it, and the US wasn't the first either. As for not green, it reduces the CO2 output when making cement by about 40%.
Sky News Australia is an absolute disgrace. Thank you, DW, for excellent reporting on this and other issues.
Wow, I went to look at the videos they have on their channel. At least their agenda is clear.
What's wrong with sky au news?
@@roberthiggins6401 Cluelessness, a lot of it and a pro fossil fuel agenda.
Some countries export terrorism - Australia exports Rupert Murdoch’s brand of “News” - we know which is more detrimental to humanity.
@@roberthiggins6401 if you go look at the titles of their videos about wind power, they're all negative. Now, I don't know if they have any positive news at all, but that doesn't seem balanced. Edit: of course they have positive news about coal and oil as well, except when the news are about opposition to those.
Wind power is undeniably vital for a cleaner future, but we can't ignore the elephant in the room - recycling those massive turbine blades. It's inspiring to see efforts and innovation in action, from burning off plastics to turning them into cement.Kudos to Siemens Gamesa and Vestas for working on recyclable blades! Let's keep pushing for a greener future
It is better than burning oil, coal or natural gas to make cement.
Since wind turbines were built to last forever, why not use them as part of seawalls or for sewers? Concrete will only last for around one lifetime before losing all of its strength due to oxidation and salts.
Obviously! And many other applications of big sturdy solid slabs.
Wind turbines currently are built to last a lifecycle of up to 25 years. 🌬 In about 3:50 minutes to the video we discuss the possibilities of old blades in cement production.
Seawalls ? Not the best idea, normaly you just use big stones, because the waves not just crush against the stones, the waves lose their strength in all this space between these stones. If there would be big waves and you walking there and the waves would hit against solid walls you would be wet.
Fiberglass would be rapidly eroded by sand abrasion (infact errosion is the main life time limiter on blades), so a marine reuse senario is not viable. Sewer piping needs to sealed and blades while hollow inside are not pipes and most certainly not the right size, so they would need to be broken down and reformed, but fiberglass loses tensile strength when you break the fibers (for that matter everything made of fiber, be it carbon, glass or cotton will lose tensile strength if the fiber is shreded, it's the nature of fiber after all).
@@kennethferland5579 No, on the contrary the sand abrasion etc. is exactly what you need, so marine reuse scenario is an excellent use case. You need a big pile of sand. End of.
it is funny how in the car and yatch industry, not being able to recycle composites was never a problem... but for wind turbines!
ok, i watched till the end and saw that it is a self-made objective! thats awesome
So to speak taking care of recycling of blades is a positive feedback loop! Nice ending!!! Let’s go!
Fiberglass in concrete makes the concrete much more flexible and less prone to cracking, far less to no steel reinforcing is needed if fiberglass is added to the concrete. Burning the waste makes perfect sense to me, it is the same as all the other waste in the world. I do love those bridges and play structures though, reusing and repurposing ought to come before recycling and incineration
if i am not wrong,it may increase tensile strength of the concrete block created
This is a good overview of the problem with some interesting techniques coming up. But one thing about scale... At 2:40, 43 million tons of used wind turbine blades by 2050 is nothing compared the current worldwide _annual_ emissions of 37 *billion* metric tons of hazardous fossil fuel carbon dioxide right now! And carbon dioxide is a highly diffuse high entropy gas that cannot be collected. OTOH, the epoxy and fiber material of a blade is much more inert and is solid so can be stored for later use when recycling techniques have advanced.
The first turbine recycling plant will be open next year in Denmark, with another four to follow in different EU countries. I read the process for doing this was masterminded at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.
The problem with this concept is how expensive and energy intensive it is to transport turbine blades. The idea of loading up thousands of blades and literally transporting them 100's to potentially 10,000's of kilometers to the nearest recycling facility is insane. Maybe feasible in DK where it's a small country. But somewhere like the US or China, good luck making that business case make sense. My money is on mobile equipment that can travel to a site and grind up the blades into an aggregate for concrete and asphalt. The very best case used as aggregate in the foundations of a wind facility repowering project. Or worse case they get landfilled, but take up little space. In the case of landfill, grinding is probably unnecessary. Because blades are hollow and can be cut into smaller pieces and stacked. Requiring less energy than grinding but still easier to transport to the nearest landfill. The reason I don't care about recycling these things is this... Let's break things down. Let's compare wind energy to say coal. Let's use a 200MW coal power plants production and compare that that a 450MW wind power plant because of lower capacity factors of wind turbines. Let's say the turbines are 4MW each, which is pretty average onshore these days. That's a wind farm of 112 wind turbines that have a design life of 25 years. After 25 years there will be 3000 tons of blade and fiberglass waste needing disposal. That's a big number. Now where does coal stack up? To produce the exact same amount of energy as the wind power plant. The coal power plant will need to burn 44,000,000 tons (yes millions). Producing 4,000,000 tons of highly toxic and even radioactive fly ash. Furthermore the plant will also release 48,000,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. 52,000,000 tons of pollution wreaking havoc on our environment. Compared to 3000 tons of relatively benign fiberglass waste which can safely be landfilled at worst. That's 0.0056% the amount of waste. Just some food for thought before worrying about the wind industry for the waste it creates.
After videos like this I have the urge (sadly not the motivation) to start learning waste management. This problem is way above me. So I only have some really naive thought like: We love glass and metal, because you just reheat and reshape it. The reason archeologists barely find any glass relics, because it either brakes down to sand size or you just melt it and reblow it. Matals are the "same" But I'm sure on molecular level experts will explain that this isn't that simple either. So we have plastic, that made out of oil. Why is it so hard to liquify plastic and just remold it to a new form? Years ago Ive watched videos about anaerob burning of plastic can brake the chains and brake it back to a petrol. Wonder what happened with that experiment? Those ended up that its not viable as fuel, because the quality is worse and would ruin engines. But what about creating new plastic? There are another experimental steps with plastic eating bacterias. So again, feed the tubnines to bacterias, and use the "poop" :D to remold stuff. My concern is to shred things to pieces and use it for construction (houses and roads) we just postpone the problem and just shrug it under the carpet as mcroplastic. And we have the economical dilemma: When they say, its doable, but expensive. This is at least promising, because when it has a price label, the supply and demand will eventually shift. a) Either with technological improvement: same way solar panels became cheap, because engineers made it viable. In 10 years prices dropped by 90% because they found better materials, better way of mass producing, or simply make it viable for mass production. b) supply and demand: eventually raw materials will deplete. When the barrel of oil price will hit a certain point, suddenly every landfill site will turn into a "mine" and these "expensive solution" will become the extraction method.
This is a good piece..
how to deal with this: Giving the nutjobs that claim wind energy is not renewable no air time, put the blades in a landfill or repurpose them and focus research on other things that are more critical
Great video, thanks DW.
Yep, my first thought is vindicated: nothing but an image problem. The cement thing seems nice though
What about building houses or roofs for shadingcar parks/fields.
It has been happening for years.. this story is highly misleading
That's a very good idea. Thanks 👍
@@charlesbrummett4025Could you give some news articles or studies for that? I'd love to read up on it more!
Gamesa has been recycling wtb for years into medical teaching devices exp skeleton... lower and upper g.i. tract.. exploted skull with and with out brain.. some of the fiberglass has been used in concrete for a lighter and stronger base mix. Before any wtg is erected there must be a contingency plan in place for the disposal and or recycling of the wtg after it's useful Life of about 20 years this contingency plan is back up by a surety bond for this reason. Unless you have spent 20 plus years dealing with renewables from the base to the light switch and from actual working from erection to corporate office you will never receive the complete or correct truth. If it does go to the landfill the cost are astronomical due to weight.. composition of the material which is some metal.. basa wood and fiberglass All of which is considered industrial waste.
D.O.E speaks of a company that is grinding the wtg blades and selling them to concrete companies
Glass fibers has been produces for over 50 years for pipes, pipelines, pools, boat hulls, car bodywork, house panelling, etc. And hundreds of times more waste is generated there than from wind rotors. In Europe, large glass fibre parts are burned as fuel in cement factories.
Great video! What about re-using blade materials in disposable technology currently using plastics? In-ear headphone cases? Smartphones? Television housings?
I liked the bridge and play ground idea. Sounds fun!
It’s great to see progress in this area. Hopefully that’ll become the new standard. Thank you DW. Dumping things that have a long life cycle in landfills is never a sustainable solution. Especially when you’re talking about “green energy” products.
Good job Malte!
cement seems to be a good option.
It will be very useful to cut Wind turbine blades into House and home paneling and insulation materials since they are mostly in shape to be directly used in their construction like they are currently used for bridges, walkways/overhead walkways, and parks. The material and processing costs of the blades will be quite lower in the construction industry in comparison to going full blade recycling to its base materials and compounds overall.
Our wind turbines are 100% recyclable, GreeNX
What happens to the waste chemicals once separation has occurred? Sounds like another problem...
1:55 dr claire barlow has such a beautiful accent - it's a pleasure to hear her speak.
So long as the fossil resins used in the blades are kept out of the atmosphere, they sequester fossil carbon. Until turbine blades are made from biomass instead, far better to grind them up for aggregate in concrete -- much stronger, lighter concrete more resistant to erosion due to the fiberglass stapling of this material -- than to burn for energy.
Such an interesting and important topic! I absolutely love the idea of repurposing discarded wind turbine blades. One innovative way I can think of is to use these blades to create eco-friendly boats, perhaps similar to Pacific proas. Imagine sailing the seas in vessels that not only harness the power of the wind but also promote sustainability and reuse. It's a fantastic way to contribute to a greener future while fostering creativity in design.
@@H4N5O1O my idea is to reuse the material from blades to build sailboats for people who go fishing and do it with the power of sails no fancy yachts. So it's yes not perfect but not in one hand putting blades to ground or grind them to pulp. If you can go fishing without engine it mean that you don't need to fish so much. You don't need to fish for fuel or parts for engine. It's like taking a perfect tree and grind it to make MDF sheet from it. It's stupid.
You can't recycle the 8 billion tons of coal that are burned ever year, either. Turbine blades, while definitely a blemish, are hardly a 'gotcha' for fossil fuels. But, I'm glad to see progress being made, and that there's so much effort to remedy the blemish!
I don’t understand how Ørsted says they’re 98% recyclable yet we have this happening.
Every technolgy has to deal with problems. We should keep moving towards renewable energy and end fosil fuels era.
Seems like the blades could be cut into structural beams for housing and other types of buildings. Yes, the blades are curved, but there are relatively long straight sections too. And I know that the blades have relatively thin stressed skin and aren’t solid.
Can glass be recycled into its constituent ingredients? Grinding down wind turbine blades I would consider acceptable so long as the energy for it is from renewable sources. We could also try to improve the efficiency of this. We can also try too make use of more manual labour.
Talk about the petrochemicals in the motor chamber, the resin, the production, and the recycling. And the dead birds.
... and you are deflecting from the much bigger enviromental impacts of fossil fuels.
Use the blades as arms for wave energy generation. Or as beach piers to stop sand erosion.
Dr. Barlow from Cambridge is the Mary Berry of recycling. 😍
Build the blades as aluminum open frameworks, with fabric skins to make them aerodynamic. When the coverings wear out, new ones can be installed in the field. When the whole thing needs to be replaced, the aluminum is fully recyclable.
The first commercial windturbines in the 50s followed that concept, but used steel frames. The industry changed to composite material in 70s, since the frame concept could not endure the size increase.
Yep. Not harassing others that use fiberglass. Don't hear this about surfboards or car bodies
@4:30 So, what are those gasses that blade recycle factory is producing? And where do they draw their energy from?
There was a video where they were being repurposed horizontal as a base for solar cells. Ugly but it did work. Might work in very isolated areas where people won't care about the looks.
What should we do with turbine blades? 1) Never in a landfill 2) Until we have something better, burn it and use the energy. 2b) Carbon fibre should burn, glass fibre is basically rock and can be used in concrete. 3) If we can build new turbines/ cars / houses and so on, that is of course the best
Best thing to do is grind it to powder and use it for casting concrete, precast items or paver blocks
On my view on Wind Turbine recycling it can be combining our ideas create build a big grinding machine it can cut through pieces etc if you ever work Plastic and Rubber industry .
Creating public shelters with them would be welcome.
I think that there is a fallacy that says something like "If you can't conceive of something it doesn't mean others can't".
yes, for a lot of people its the classic "they don't know enough to know they don't know enough"
I want them ! I will make a use from them !!!
while i like the idea of finding a use after the life cycle. if a blade can be put in landfill you can cover it with soil and use the land for farming because there is no toxic waste, that doesent sound that bad. if the other solution is to disolve them with acids, that will have to stored somewhere as toxic chemical waste, then the landfill solution sounds a lot better to me. if u can use them in concrete or new blades without chemical waste that would be first choice though. unless we can use them to maby stabilize the ground under roads that are being built or something.
Cement is a great idea. Making it easely reciclable is the G.O.A.T but, worst case scenario... just store it. Scale will make it more economically viable to find uses.
A move away from fiberglass is certainly needed, an aluminum skinned blade analagous in construction to an airplane wing would be be both more durable, recyclable and modular allowing for easier transport and assembly. Fiberglass made sense when blades were tiny but it's long past the point when other materials should have been used, but the industry always found it easier to stick with what was known and push up the size of molds and blade transporters incrementally rather then switch to different materials.
There are no big aluminium blades strong enough.
@@H4N5O1O The problem is not the skin, but the structure of the blade.
Could we use them to build some form of breakwater in coastal areas?
Adaptive reuse! Why not as tidal energy guides?
As said by another user on the another video about the same topic, "My first thought when they say "used to make concrete" was as an aggregate alternative or filler, like how fiberglass is added to some mixes. Nope. Burning." lol
Nope. It becomes cement.
What's the problem (if any) of refurbishing / repairing old blades to use in newer wind turbines? The designs are changing all the time? You can't repair the structural integrity to close to what it was when it was operating well?
The blades get longer. 20 year old blades cannot be used for newer more powerful turbines. Sometimes old blades, in good condition, get used as replacement on windturbines of the same type. As long as there is no structural damage, blades can be repaired and that is done regularly. Lifetimes of 30 years are possible, but that costs money. But after 20 years new turbines are threetimes as powerful. Currently it is more efficient to replace the whole turbine. In the future, if the power increase slows down, it might be a good idea to keep them running for longer.
Composite structures degrade over time. Resins get brittle, fibers crack and delaminate. Blade design is indeed constantly improving and blades get bigger because the turbines efficiency increases faster than the size does. Also the technology becomes obsolete. Is a 25-30 year old car viable for sale today? The companies that own these wind farms are looking to upgrade using more productive equipment.
Use basalt and epoxy, then it can be ground up and will combine as a filler material with other molded parts (so I’m told) such as molded auto and big truck bodies. Thus, all blade mass being 100% reused there need be no recycling problem for turbine blades, right?
With earthquakes a common occurrence in countries with primitive dwelling construction materials. I'm wondering if scrap turbine blades could be used for a major upgrade in smaller building durability.... I understand getting them to point of use would certainly be an issue....
maybe use the entire windturbine system build some housing in countries that need housing, that would be pretty cool.
Ground up and burned to make cement. Used to slow water run off and rebuild water tables. Erosion control in stream and shorelines Artificial reefs. Grounded up a reused to form new turbines.
Yesterday's news. Vestas is rolling out a process to recycle epoxy based blades and Siemens Gamesa offers at least recyclable blades for new turbines.
Yes we can dump them in the sea,so it becomes a new home for sea creatures, Or we can use them as posts for irrigation systems like Amtaar project in Sudan.
Turned them into road building materials. Put them in use along with asphalt. Then we will have so long lasting roads.
Those blades would make great wall material
Well, you missed out on Vattenfalls latest trials of wooden windmills. Made of wood the way you'd build yachts with. Much more resilient to strong wind and vibrations too, due to natural elasticity avoiding breakeages. And of course fully recycleable. Promising.
How small are they?
Very tall. Check it out online. Anyway, here in northern Friesland some parts of those old windmills are being used as small huts and windshields for our sheeps ;-)))
@@susannepeters5886 A: They are building only the tower from wood B: the wood is laminated C: while using wood saves CO2, it is not better at recycling, as the towers are usually made from steel anyway and the question is how long that woodden tower will last D: the first turbine built is just a 30m tower with a 500 kW turbine... E: admittedly they are currentl building a 2 MW, which is serious business, but we will see how long it will last
Sure... nothing proven yet. Anyway, I do welcome any innovation and will not condemn or despise new ways until proven wrong. Constructive critisism fine. Love open minds. Only way forward. We're the country of poets, thinkers and engineers :-) are we not? Dream, think and realize.
All those degraded landscapes give me nightmares.
I hope those dissolvable blades aren't affected by acid rain.
Wind turbine blade recycling is a problem, but it's not going to be a critical issue, since it won't be as big of a problem as "exponential growth" implies. Unfortunately, wind-power is turning out to be problematic in other ways (underperforming, costing more than expected, especially turbines at sea, killing whales etc.), and simply cannot be scaled up enough to replace a fossil fuel power infrastructure. My guess is that the build-out of new and replacement wind turbines will likely end completely within 10 years, except in a few locations that are both sufficiently windy to provide good power, AND well located in terms of a nearby customer base that can use the power, AND have sufficiently friendly local populations/regulations etc., AND have sufficient alternative "backup/peaker" power production facilities (and/or grid-scale energy storage facilities). That is, we are approaching "peak wind" within a few years, in terms of installed capacity. Wind-power is going to stay around and be an ongoing thing, but the exponential growth is ending. We're going to need other sources of "clean" energy. This all implies that the recycling of wind turbine blades is going to be a problem, but will remain of manageable size. Refer to Doomberg, among others.
The problem is not that vindturbin blades are non recyclable. The problem is that we have this crazy economy where huge nonrecyclable objects are "cheap". Why on earth is it cost efficient to build something, use it for a short while and just leave it on a landfill for eternity?
Very interesting video! Please do the same with solar panels!
We've done multiple longer videos on solar. Please check out our channel and subscribe for new videos every Friday! Here is one of them: 🌞 "How green is solar energy really?" 👇 kzhead.info/sun/eLuPZMlsbGWva5E/bejne.html
Use them as construction fill, in roads, or building sites. No worries.
Simple, just create regulations that wind turbine blade manufacturers and wind farms should bear the responsibilities to follow specific procedures & guidelines to recycle this giant blades. Same standards as we have with fossill fuels, from drilling to transport to engine manufacturers to the end user, strict laws are implemented (i.e. emission control- CO, CO2, Sox & Nox). This industries have all means to make this happen thru their R&D, anyway they always pass the cost to the consumers/ end users. Energy generation will ALWAYS be profitable, that is why legislations should be created to minimize its environmental impact.
Could you do a similar piece on what happens to all of the computers which power data centers when they are decommissioned?
Sold off to smaller data centres who don't need the most modern equipment then sometimes sold off to individuals or recycled for the valuable metals such as gold the plastics and glass fibres from the circuit boards will be burned or landfill
Not a word is mention about micro plastics in this video. These blades while in use throws of a lot of micro plastics due to erosion. This goes directly into nature and is absorbed by everything that lives. Offshore turbines are even worse due to salt and stronger wind. In an estimate from Sweden they reckoned that their 4000 turbine or so have produced about 270 tons of micro plastic, only beaten by artificial grass on football fields.
The amount is much lower, since the outer layers are paint and negligible compared to the human use of plastics in all other areas.
@@old-pete The paint doesn’t stop the spread of micro plastics since gel coat have been used since the first fiberglass propellers . The estimated 270 tons from the land based turbines are not minor. This plastic is spread in the country side and is not from a local dump site like the other plastic. With the offshore wind turbines the amount of micro plastics will be even worse because of the salt and stronger wind. Over the years the amount of micro plastics in fish will increase and be spread up in the food chain.
@@runedahl1477 As I said the amount is lower, as there is barely any plastic in the outher layer. Wear of tyres and roads is estimated to produce 8000 tons of microplastics a year alone in Sweden.
@@old-pete Yes there are things that produce more micro plastics than wind turbines but still they are among the worst polluters. The numbers can be disputed and there has not a lot of research done. A couple of weeks ago I attended a meeting regarding a new high voltage power line that will go across the island I live on. I don’t have any thing against this project because it seems like they are take care of environmental issues. The mast will mostly be made of fiberglass but they didn’t have any data regarding how much micro plastics that will give away. Apparently the producer had no data available. This will be important in the future but is not considered an issue yet. Apart from the plastic pollution there are so many negative sides to wind turbines so I think the whole project should be abandoned. To write them all down in this comment.
@@runedahl1477 If you consider the numbers, then no, windturbines are not among them. The negative sides to windpower are faily limited, if one considers the alternatives.
I dunno, I dont think its healthy to play to the concerns of corporations who are so willing to look past far more harmful industries. Sky News Australia seems like they just wanna grab at low hanging fruit. If we're already recycling 90%, thats a heck of a lot better than we can say about most things. Like you said, the share of turbine blades in trash by 2050 is so tiny. I would just put innovation towards reducing cost at that point.
if you can recycle the old blade it also means that the blade is worth more money, which is in a roundabout way making it a better investment so its "cheaper" thats the main reason the companies do this, the customer will buy the blade that he can later recycle over a normal blade...
If we get the super abundant energy predicted by Tony Seba we'll have massive amounts of energy to be used at times when supply built to meet peak demand at a time of low supply needs somewhere to go when the supply is high and demand low. That can be used to break down the components of waste into constituents again or to refine the chemicals.
How does the recycling of renewables compare to the recycling of fossil fuel generation at the end of it's lifespan? How much of a nuclear reactor, a coal or gas fired power station is recyclable at the end of it's life? What's the cost to taxpayers to clean up disused power stations of old technologies compared to dismantling a wind turbine or replacing a solar panels with the next generation as they come along.
Considering the waste of the fuel, it is easier to recycle windturbines. The dismantling is paid by the owner and most nations demand securities that cover the dismantling costs. In case of nuclear power plants, these securities are often too low.
For the new wind turbine blades with the dissolvable epoxy, I would be worried that the natural acidity in rainwater could compromise the structurap integrity of the turbine blades. When rainwater forms, it naturally reacts with the CO2 in the air to form carbonic acid. If the blades only need mild acid to dissolve the epoxy, then I'd be worried that the carbonic acid in rainwater would be enough to destroy the blades over time.
I would not worry about that. Rain is not exactly a new phenomenon. The recycling process also needs a temperature, which is sigificantly higher than natural temperatures and the solutions are "a bit" stronger.
I see other problem, why only 20 years? Make them durable and actually reuse them in new turbines. They are strong enough not to decompose, but not strong enough to be reused?
They can run longer, when well maintened. There are two problems. 1. The material gets extremly stressed and experiences around 1 billion load changes in 20 years. That is not good for durability. 2. In the last 20 years the average windturbine power increased by 200%. New windturbines are much more powerful and more economic than their 20 year old predecessor. Companies want the new model.
I want to have a cup of tea with Claire Barlow.
The BiocharNow company of Berthoud, Colorado reduces traditional blades to high quality biochar.
they are not bad ,just to old and gob and insurance do not allow them to be use, solution is to convert them as a air compressor ad a few together in a simple air motor ,the half tip can be used as rigid sails on ships
Still better then haivng it in the air where it's Much harder to clean up. At least here, we can do something about it later when we have the technology
Cement is the paste that acts like glue that holds the concrete together. Pretty sure you meant to say concrete.. not cement. What you speak of is called fiber mesh concrete. It has very high tensile strength. In some applications you can get away without using rebar as long as you use fiber mesh. Shits expensive though thats fo sho
But he did not mean that. He talked about cement for a reason.
I just feel like there are so many art and design qualifications for these blades. They should give them away for free to schools and universities, and the only ptice is that of delivery. Some people see trash, some people see playgrounds, II see blank canvases and arichitectural projects.
We could use them as walls for large buildings
Last resort is to melt them and separate the fractions. This would not cost much energy - I guess some months of normal operation - just as their production only takes 3 to 6 months of energy production. Any recycling method must only be better than this.
0:17 houses ?
I don't think they're unrecyclable...if a blade can be broken, it can be broken again... Break it down small enough where you can use it as filler products. Remember when rubber tyres got turned into rubber mats under playgrounds?
Nice new branding
They should make them recyclable to prove the naysayers wrong!
If it's so durable, then it's a shame to waste energy to shred it. It would be cool to use it to build homes or other structures
If they are so strong, make a frame for your house out of them. It's better than being trash.
The resin is made from oil, right? Petrochemicals will never truly go away
That is what synthetic oils are for.