Scrapped wind turbines

Can wind turbine blades be recycled?

Turbine blades made from a new plant-based material could make them recyclable. The blades on the newest wind turbines sweep an area longer than a football field and are nearly impossible to recycle. At the end of their life span of around 20 years, they are chopped into pieces and buried in a handful of landfills across the Great Plains.

Are wind turbine blades wasteful?

Current options are not only wasteful but have environmental drawbacks. Incineration brings pollution and, while wind companies say there is no toxicity issue with landfilling blades, Barlow said that’s not yet totally clear. “That’s not as benign as you might think,” she said. Turbine blade materials make recycling hard and costly.

How much waste is generated by wind turbine blades?

Engineers expect more than 43 million tons of landfill waste will be generated by turbine blades globally by 2050, which is about three times as much total waste as New York City produces annually. The cost of discarding wind blades can be much higher in other nations with smaller land area and higher population density than the United States.

Are new wind turbine blades more expensive?

Blades made from the new materials could be 3 to 8 percent more expensive than traditional blades, according to one estimate. As more wind farms are built around the country, disposal of old or broken blades is a concern. Opponents of wind energy have seized on the problem as a reason to try to block new wind facilities.

How are wind turbine blades made?

Instead of using cloth to catch the wind like Prof Blyth and the ancient Iranians, today's turbine blades are built from composite materials - older blades from glass fibre, newer ones from carbon fibre. Such composite materials might be light and strong, but they are also extremely hard to recycle.

How many tons of old wind turbine blades are there?

The Re-Wind Network, the international effort of researchers and entrepreneurs dedicated to finding uses for old turbine blades, and the group behind the bridge experiment, estimates that the world is going to be dealing with about 8.6 million tons of scrapped wind turbine blades by 2042.