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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.
@@carlosesteban5601 Not the best insulation material and even if you treated it to turn it into good insulation material, it would cost more than current insulation and the process would likely be less environmentally friendly. As for @NotQuiteUseful the issue is all the other things that go into the blades, make it less viable for concrete filler (they mentioned wood as part of the stuff in the blades).
@@rodon107 I dunno but wood fibers can be added to concrete but you could probably get the wood sections out. I know more steps more expensive but yeah it seems viable to me similar to hempcrete where hemp fiber is combined with lime to create vastly more insulated bricks. Dunno if you like alternative building materials I would advise you to check out Hempcrete. I'm no specialist in building materials but it seems viable to me.
@@carlosesteban5601 Hempcrete is a fundamentally different material than concrete. Hempcrete is meant to have airgaps and absorb moisture and is not load bearing. And part of what makes hempcrete special is how the silica in the hemp interacts with the calcium in the lime. Wood doesn't give you the same benefits. Concrete you want solid, no air gaps. Organics like the wood in turbine blades reducing the strength of the concrete and makes it more likely to fail.
@@stormelemental13 what if it was made into sawdust could it be used then? What if it was made into like this pressed material like Ikea furniture (forgot the English name)? Would the fiberglass alone be viable for bricks maybe with a different brick composition I'm sure there would be some material combination that could use the fiberglass for bricks. I dunno the person that figures that out will probably make millions.
When they said they were using the shredded blades to make cement, I didn’t even consider it was being burnt. I imagined they were using the fibers as a binder like fiberglass “cat hair” that some companies mix into the cement to reinforce it.
Since the newer ones are made of fibreglass/Carbon fibre then crushing them becomes even more toxic. A simple law would be that no blades can end up in landfill (where they would never decompose). There are aleady lots of coal alternatives for cement making (old tyres/domestic rubbish/construction waste) and the end waste can be mixed into road material compound reducing its carbon footprint (a little). Perhaps asking the motorsport teams who use alot of expensive CF or aircraft manufacturers using more of this in planes what they are doing to recycle it??
"Made from a combination of fiberglass and balsa wood" Immediately shows them cutting it without respirators or other literally any other PPE EDIT: Even if you exclude breathing PPE the dude isn't wearing safety goggles.
@@KevanTess Right?! Wtf, man? Amateur hour? - or are they just CONSTANTLY UPWIND of all their work material...😂... OR - are they the ALIENS amongst us??🤔🤔🤔
yeah madness, imagine driving one of those loaders around that constantly dust filled shed all day, you would never get the smell of fibreglass off your body. They will all get cancer, and this video will be used in the prosecution against veolia I'm sure.
Years ago the best thing to do with car tyres was to make them into ornamental rubber swans. The suggested uses for turbine blades (playgrounds or bike shelters) seem about as useful and sustainable as ornamental rubber tyre swans.
yeah but old tires is an excellent material to build farm infrastructure. you can give it all sorts of use and it's a durable and lasting material. i don't think old blades will have the same sort of second life, as the material itself cannot be broken down further.
one of the best uses I have seen for tyres is a wood basket ,I bought it from "fair trade" about 10 years ago,it is still in excellent condition,I believe it was made somewhere in Africa, search for "wood basket made from tyre"I hope my "fair trade" buy helped somebody out
Yet car tyres is one of the best reusable materials out there. Just not very attractive to the plutocrats. Burning fiberglass instead of e.g. using it as construction material filler seems extra ludicrous.
Building little bridges and fences out of the stuff is cute but it is unrealistic to think that pet projects like those will take care of the industrial scale of used turbine blades.
I reckon there is a big enough market for things like temporary buildings made from whatever (e.g. the tents that company is using). The biggest issue is that they're a really awkward shape, and they're all slightly *different* shapes. You can't scale up reuse if you have to redesign your building for 100 different shapes of turbine blade.
The artists who do these things have very little understanding of industrial scale and way way over-inflated view of their own significance in the world. You gotta be to think the world needs your art, right?
I drove up the San Fernando valley 18 months ago and passed by dozens of wind farms. I was shocked to see about a fifth of the turbines visibly broken. Blades missing, heads bowed, etc... and additionally up to a third of the total turbines were not turning. There doesn't seem to be any maintenance at all going on.
Where I used to work there were three wind turbines. Very very rarely were all three turning. About half the time only one was turning and the other half of the time two were turning.
Wind turbines may be left 'dead' or mothballed for a variety of reasons. Usually, the company determines that repairing it or further maintenence is more costly than the projected revenue they can get from the remaining expected life of the turbine. Another is that the company that manufactures them has gone out of business, or exited the sector. Or the model is obsolete & replacement parts are very hard to source.
I can only imagine that certain companies get subsidies or investors who are willing to pay them to set up the turbines, but there's no money in maintaining them.
@@PeteRoe im going to have to guess its because people dont stick around to hear what they are doing with their millings. a lot of people will have watched to the boring part and never got to hear that the final disposition of the material is burning. people are walking away from this video thinking its used as aggregate. that is one of the angles of this propaganda. the other is a call from the industry to appeal to the masses in search of better alternatives because their arent a lot of creative people working in the waste industry - usually a good thing.
@@PeteRoe I work with biomass boilers and plastics and resins absolutely ruins the inside of the boilers and covers it in burned plastic that's near impossible to remove so it's not just as simple as dump and burn without ruining your burning area unless you pay to modify it or the process. There are actually blower fans that need clean passageways as well as grates that let air circulate and plastics just burn and gum them up and stopping to repair is such a ball ache.
@@biggerminds523 Two new-gen reactors that are 100 times more efficient (long-term) and are completely clean were launched recently. But you won't hear that in the "news".
@@zbaby82 there are already plenty of systems in place for removal, containment, and storage of waste in strict manner. Reality is every form of energy production has different forms of waste/ hazards and different stages and efficiency.
The solution is to design the blades, initially, with the intent to recycle. The manufacturing process should be dictated by the ability to disassemble the blades to maximize the individual material recyclability.
True, sustainability is a misused term. We need to consider a circular economy where engineering components at the end of service can either be decomposed or used elsewhere.
The company needs to make the _first pass_ crusher machine portable so they can bring it to the turbine site. Transporting intact sections of blade is incredibly inefficient.
@@timhinchcliffe5372 most of all costs, huge upfront & upkeep costs which will deter companies, trucking is just easier, doesnt take as long to build, not as complex, and covid is not a good reason
Use it for the production of stone matrix asphalt that our high traffic interstates are paved with, which uses "cellulose fibers" specifically made to add during production to prevent the drain down of liquid asphalt through the open graded aggregate structure of the mix. The added fibers offer no structural advantages other than keeping the liquid asphalt suspended in the mix until it cools. The shredded fibers of these blades may offer the same useful purpose.
Fiberglas and 150 kubikmeter Balsa wood per blade. For this to grow tropical primeval forest is cut down and to build the turbines they clear large areas of forest here with us. But hey it's green energy
Another example of how all this "green energy" solutions aren't green as much as they say. One has to think the entire solution all the way through. Are we just creating more pollution trying to avoid pollution? Creating more green house gas trying to avoid it? I was shocked to hear they were replacing blades only 8 to 12 years old! Not only that but wind power is only affective when the wind blows. In my opinion, they have become a blight on the landscape for what little they produce.
Thermoset plastics like Epoxies and Polyesters are nearly impossible to "recycle" by melting. During the curing cycle, the ingredients chemically change into the finished plastic. Design for disassembly is the closest you will get!
Harold , I'll replay to your thoughts. And add a couple. Your right about the chemicals used. Filber glass should never be ground up. This is what we learned in a MEGA humen screw up. ( black trash bags 1970s , biodegradable) Everybody jumped up and down. Land fills would now break down trash faster. Before black trash bags lasted a 1000 years. ( note the 1000 year black trash bag if we keep USEING it would have saved 10s of millions of lives. See the HUMEN race is drinking water from deep well. Guess what. 3 main plasticizers used to make degradable trash bags. Breaks down, then leaches in to the ground water. 1 molecule at a time. 600 feet below earths surfaces. BILLIONS Of plastizer molecules, gather like big blobs of crap. They 100% float on top of the water, deep rivers, ect ect, they line the tops of caverns that for a million years, have been keep clean. Pure pure drink water. Humens drill the wells. The well heads go thru the toxic crap. Then they suck it up. And humens drink it. Pretty dame wild. At HEFTY trash bags, 70s.... no one cared I walked out and quit. Started bottle water COMPANYS with reengineered H2O.
@@phillycheesetake some wind blade producers are working on resins that when exposed to specific chemicals and heat will decompose the resin, which would leave just the fiberglass and balsa/core. much easier to recycle that way.
@@CircularSolar1 Or how about instead wait till the technology is mature enough to be economically and environmentally sustainable. We will also never be in a position to replace coal and nuclear with solar and wind, it would require massive battery banks and A: that's very hazardous, B: there isn't enough of the elements and compounds needed on the planet and C: terrible for the environment. Instead the sensible route would be to leave solar and wind for small-scale, niche applications, make our use of fossil fuels clean and efficient as possible, restore habitats across the world instead of paving them over to house ever increasing numbers of people, and massively invest in nuclear to make it safe and sustainable as possible, and other alternative energy sources.
I'm always amazed on how much resources are on this planet. The way people explain waste and the way we use things. Youd think it would be gone long ago
We humans have a problem with big numbers, scale and changing our thinking. Sadly it cut both ways: We can't wrap our heads around running up against physical limits and when we _do_ run our collective heads against a wall, we can't imagine the transition needed to mitigate the problem. That is why we need to listen to experts trained to handle scale and big numbers. We can still prevent the worst of the climate crisis and an ecological collapse, but we have to get our sh*t together asap. Yes, it will be different. No, different doesn't equate "bad".
@@seetheanimal5867 You have a foggy notion of democracy I see :-) There are things we can vote about and things we can't. We can't vote about science. We can vote for providing resources to a variety of different scientists, but we can buy a result we like, no matter how much money we plow into a research field. If we could, don't you think the fossil fuel industry would have sponsored some solid science by now? :-) Suppressing results you don't like is not democracy, it's criminal. Politics starts when the scientific consensus is reached. We can't cling on to outdated petrol cars - _unless_ our stated goal is the end of a human friendly climate and a 100 million climate refugees. We can vote about whether we change tech or accept going to hell in a handbasket, but we can't vote about whether the science is accurate. That's what I mean when I say "listen to the experts". As does everyone else who knows the first thing about reality.
@@madshorn5826 oh wow u r lost, and speaking about fake #’s and speaking of science when u have no concept of the process and purpose of science… U should consider willingly giving up ur right to vote for the common good
"can making cement this way really reduce emissions?" i think the real question is what in the name of all that is real are we supposed to do with the turbine blades that doesn't involve mulching them? they are made from composit materials that are nearly impossible to re-use and the few ways it can be done are so energy intensive it's a silly choice and the only other alternative is to just let them lie there in a pile doing nothing but take up space
Exactly. And as the guy said until there’s an actual demand for the scale of used blades from other sources, which there won’t be, that shredding them is the best option
Well the shredded material produces less emissions than the coal it replaces in the cement kiln, less SOx and less NOx. The shreds are low ash compared with coal, and allow other ash type wastes to be used in the cement process to replace the coal ash. If we want to continue using cement, then we should make it in the most efficient, and least polluting manner possible, so it makes sense to use the blades as fuel. Yes, I know the fuel burning CO2 emissions are very small compared with the calcination of the limestone. Second life projects are fun, but way too limited to tackle the problem. And no, I do not work for a cement co.
@@Elemblue2 a very good idea. Rip them along the blade, laminate into rectangular or I-beams. No rot, no sag. No drying and distortion. They will be quite flammable though. I doubt it would be cheaper than 2x4x8' at $5, but quite possible for longer/wider boards
Are we seriously being told that 48 million tonnes of non recyclable toxic waste a year is okay because it only accounts for 1/8th of plastic “waste” which is perfectly recyclable?
@@joaomoraes9323 it’s 12.5% of plastic waste. and the only thing we can realistically do is grind it up (a lot of energy consumption) and somehow that’s okay? plastic straws are only 3% of plastic waste and we banned them….no sense, all a political agenda
Plastic straws cause ecological damage due to a combination of both their material (making them long lasting), as well as their shape (easily lodged inside of living organisms). There's still some hypocrisy here to be sure, but the reasons for banning straws are not directly equatable to arguments for banning turbine blades. As for plastic being perfectly recyclable.... that's far from the truth. We should really be focusing on greatly reducing our plastic production across the board if anything. With *that* said, many green technologies rely on high performance materials, and composites are some of the highest performing materials we have. All of these problems are related and none of them are easy or simple to solve.
I have worked in a glass fibre industry and you DO NOT want to be near when it is cut or ground. Breathing micro glass fibres into your lungs is a DEATH sentence.
We have a new company that has moved next door to our home. We are getting a larger amount of fiberglass on us our pets and our livestock. We are very concerned about our health and well being. We are trying to get them stop and are having a hard time! They are working without permits as we speak and still no one has stopped them!
My plan is to destroy the earth for the next generations, our children and grand children. More waste like wind turbine so next generation will suffer.
@@Infinitynous-gg6vs actually im not using air conditioner or cars or littering plastic. Only electricity to power PC, smartphone. Im not contributing greenhouse gas for climate change.
It would be helpful to know exactly how much energy is required to turn the blades into burnable mulch + the energy required to make each blade. Last but not least how much "GREEN" energy that blade produced during it's useful lifespan. Then with simple math we could see exactly how green each blade is or is not.
Also, how much energy could it produce in an ideal lifespan? Also how much does it cost to remove the infrastructure, when don't want it anymore, like the turbine's foundation?
I was thinking the same thing, considering these things have to be changed so frequently and are difficult to get rid of in a environmentally way they should either make them out of different longer lasting materials or stop making them all together.
@@eugenetswong There is nothing in this world that is cheaper than natural resources. We need to find bio solutions, period. Anything you build, metal, aluminium, brass, whatever, degrades over time, it costs way more. I have worked in recycling industry, my dad as well. Hydroelectric is the best option in the world with the least pollution created. Bio energy is what we need, something that can be used like gas, put in tank, deliver, done. The first one to do that, would be a trillionaire. Because all we are doing now, is putting a filter, but the demands would only go up, and more filters require more materials burning more resources. Other than bio energy, it’s only delaying, because the only infrastructure that does it with minimum effect, is Hydroelectric, dams. The funny thing is, why is only China spending billions on this two research while everyone else try to implement these half ass back up plans?
Common error made with this : Recycling is making new products from the same materials like making aluminium cans from scrap aluminium. Upcycling is making something from a lesser material like making a handbag out of scrap piecies of fabric and downcycling , that is using a more expensive material to replace something that has less value, like grinding down old windturbine blades into a fine granulate and use it as a building material in cement or filler in glue’s . That turbine blades are not recyclable does not mean we cant do anything with them. It is a problem that the old turbine blades are mostly in area’s where transporting them back for reuse has so much costs it is cleaner just to landfill them as transport and processing them are not clean, once transport is also clean by using 100% green energy they can dig the blades up and still process them for other uses.
we chase the hope and ignore the true accounting. we don't have the technology and don't fund research that interferes with the economic imperative of consumer capitalism
When you think about it, everything we do is recycling, even burning fossil fuels or using landfills, it will become a tar pit or crude oil at somepoint in time. Haha
Oh, like the three pounds of re-usable (like the French do, but the left outlawed here in the US) nuclear waste from producing more energy than ten wind mills over thirty years? That waste? Nah, you don't want that to be shown.
@@gmarie701 I should have said "rather than fossil fuel methods" Nuclear, on paper, is the cleanest and most sustainable source we will likely ever find
Ppl got scared of nuclear for some reason 🙄 To be fair, the old facilities weren’t great hence the meltdowns but new nuclear is completely different. One big problem is maintenance… the US isn’t great at that or staying on top of things. Sucks that our universe is full of energy but we been in an energy crisis for decades
That is why USA needs to up the cost for landfills and make companies pay for recycling. In my country you only pays for the pick up of the recycling bin not the contents of the bin. You can even go to the recycling centre for free and leave recyclable materials.
Any product that any company every makes should have a recycling plan thought out before the product is distributed. That is the company that makes the product's responsibility.
Surprisingly, as the video says, GE is the one paying Veolia to recycle these blades. Definitely agreed, however. Just wish that there was an international solution.
@@AquaStockYT no, i don't know what you're talking about and how you came to that conclusion, but it's possibly because you misunderstood what i said, which if you did, you must be somewhat uneducated.
Never cease to amaze me how we invent these things and not think about what to do with them after their end of life run.. This should have beeen thought out at the time making a so-called green technology.
Wind turbines were not created to decrease carbon footprint, they were created to maximize profit .. developing it in a way that means u can reuse it after the fact is more money, and god forbid someone find a way to use there old ones instead of buying new ones, well that's even less money for us!!! You see the problem ?
I imagine if it was mixed together with something similar to expanding foam then a reasonably sturdy, light weight brick could be formed. These could be used for temporary structures, as the bricks could just be shredded afterwards and reformed again. I'd guess they would also work well for insulation or soundproofing.
This video is not quite informative,if not misleading. US wind turbines even though somewhat commercially competitive, they are definitely not the first option when you want highly competitive wind turbines you definitely take a look at the Scandinavian countries as well as the Netherlands Finland and slightly Germany and Japan. Most of the technological leading companies on each of these countries has a run and going recycling program for their constructions. Now keep in mind that when someone installs a wind turbine park he has to pay on the initial price the suggested recycling program that the company he chose is offering,every company is obligated to sell wind turbines with a recycling program. Now what the video fails to mention is that the problem is not if wind turbines are recyclable but how sustainable the recycling is, which yes a lot of times the recycling of wind turbines is effective only when high demand of what they can recycle them to is in existence. So far they are recycled into a huge variety of low quality construction materials, high end construction materials for products like cars, noise cancellation panels and many many more,but the most effective recycling is the one that has consists of the least possible process and the least possible cost, that's why the park and the bike stant was so effective. The only legit problem of wind turbines as a mean of energy production is the installation process and the de-installation process, which a lot of the times it is the most expensive part of their lifespan, the most harmful to the environment and the toughest part to plan and deal with.
@@garthwright4064 water and sun is much more common and practical, I live in British columbia and all of our power for the most part comes from hydroelectricity. that man has a point wind is not really the way to go if it produces all this crap with it
None of the proposed uses are in any way industrially viable. They either need to find a direct second use, or they need to actually break them down into ressources, and recycle them as best as possible
yes; they are very lazy, shreading and burning. they could very easily turn it into a slury and extract various materials from it; sort of how sewage is done. they could also very much turn it into a different product as-is, similar to say OSB? from there, the operation could be "profitable." it's clearly just an operation to improve "enviornmental image".
@@moltoniron633 what would be the advantage of that over just burning it? You're still releasing gasses into the atmosphere and the cost of bringing it to space is a lot
@@moltoniron633 Launch them? Rocket fuel is expensive! Besides, Earth's orbit is FULL of dangerous debris already. As much as I enjoy reading about space, satellites and exploration, we really trashed our orbit, lol. When you get a chance, take a look yourself.
It was the biggest mistake in the world of energy production to build those horrible turbines in the first place. They destroy vast amounts of square kilometers of landscape - beautiful landscapes will soon be a thing of the past; they kill innumerable birds which are constantly being shredded by the suction of the blades; they are noisy and when there is no wind they produce no energy. The energy production is disproportionate to the energy consumption, which is used in both production and recycling. There will also be gigantic areas for the waste dumps of the turbines. They are destroying the environment in a catastrophic way. which we will see more of soon.
I really think they need to re-think how they are made in the first place. Why can't they be built to last 50-60, maybe 100 years? Doing that would make wind turbines a cheaper source of electricity. Something that costs 3 to 4 million should last more than 10 years.
You can't make fibergalss last 50 years. It's actully very fragile. Even a birdstrike could take out a whole windmill by cracking the blade. Fiberglass is very high maintenance. Just look at how much goes into boats!! Windmills are to big to be made of any other material that would have the strength, without the weight. Plus the cost ratio would be skyhigh made out of metal or any other product. Windmills are not the answer!!
@@scrapcash2421 Windmills absolutely is a big part of the answer :-) While fiberglass is currently the only material strong enough this will change when R&D gets funding on par with the obsolete and failing nuclear industry. Some day we'll crack how to make cheap carbon fiber sheets or new materials will appear. Recycling is slowly happening today and will take off tomorrow. Still no comparison with dismantling nuclear power plants and recycling used tires. If processed blades can be burnt in the cement industry, surely they can be used for energy production too. All it takes is regulation to prevent dumping used blades in a landfill. This will add to the cost of new turbines, but this will not be a serious problem with wind turbines being way cheaper to install than fossil fuel and nuclear capacity. And before you start the talking point about wind being intermittent: we have flow batteries and liquid metal batteries up and running. We just need to scale up from here. Search for 'Ambri' here on UA-cam.
@@AnemonLaut50 There is nothing wrong with wood, it just isn't strong enough. For small turbines you can use wood just fine, but small turbine means small energy production. When you double the radius of the blades you quadruple the area swept by the blades and therefore you get four times the energy. (It is simple math : _Area = pi × radius²_ :-) On the other hand the materials needed for a generator scale linearly, so the bigger the turbine the better the economy. The newest (and biggest) turbines right now produce north of 7 MW. When you make the blades longer you run into bigger forces though Remember the merry-go-round on the playground? When you leaned away from the axis the strain on your arms got bigger. The strain of a 70 m rotating blade is enormous and currently fiberglass is the only (cheap) material strong enough. Fun fact: The top rotational speed is limited by the need for the tip of the blades to move well below the speed of sound, lest we'd have a continuous sonic boom from the wind turbines :-) The speed of sound is just 340 m/s so 100 m blades have to spin less than twice per second because _Circumference = 2 × pi × radius_ In practice the rotation speed is a lot slower as the real cap on rotation speed is the forces on the blades :-)
@@AnemonLaut50 🙂👍 Underline "other material". Metals aren't strong enough or cheap enough :-) Edit: A lot of metals "creep" under stress, just like caramel. Try tugging at a warm caramel ;-) Long lived would be nice, but "easily recycled" would fit the bill too :-)
Vestas is working on a technology to seperate the resin from the glass fiber, allowing for true recycling. Siemens-gamesa is working on new materials for rotor blades that can be recycled more easily.
It's rather annoying that people expect solutions to be perfect at the offset and if they aren't it's, "Oh well, this has some downsides so...let's give up."
@@e.turduckeny630 Well, of course renewables have issues. But nuclear is safe, clean, and reliable, and can easily replace fossil fuels for as long as it takes to make renewables practical.
@@jamesharding3459 Yes, sorry if my tone made it seem I was anti-nuclear. More that I've seen a a growing trend in some people I know that see the issues with renewables and immediately discount the idea of all renewables. As if anything other than a perfect solution means we should just give up and preserve the status queue of fossil fuels with no deviation. I want to scream, "Do you understand how innovation works?"
The issue I have with reusing them is that it’s just delaying the problem for someone else in the future. All those reuse projects won’t last forever and then what happens to them? They’re disposed of one bit of blade at a time which will be even more energy intensive.
The big idea with reusing is to also reduce. By repurposing something you take away the need to source that item with raw materials. Like if you made a play structure with the turbine blades that's replacing the need to cut down a tree to use lumber to create that structure. Expanding the lifetime of one item makes it so that there's less need to draw raw materials from the environment
I would think that most of these re-use projects are really trying to get people to think more about a circular economy in a creative way rather than offering a large-scale solution to this particular waste problem. The hope being that designers, engineers and planners will see re-use in action and can come up with better solutions in the future.
Using you reasoning then we shouldn’t make any kind of product? Because someday it will have to be disposed of. I think you are only looking at a narrow view of things. After initial investment, The fuel for wind is free. Same for solar.
Yes, delaying is what we need now. repurposing doesn't mean we're not gonna be thinking about how to deal with them in the end but it buys us time to develop new processes and technologies to eventually deal with the waste the best way possible. Anything that doesn't need to be burnt now can potentially be disposed of much more efficiently and environmentally friendly in the future than we are capable of today.
I think both approaches have merit. The fact that the companies are willing to pay to shred and reuse the blades is great, and I think both ways are a hood start.
Sometimes, paying to recycling is cheaper than paying to bury in landfills. People don't understand that some recycling is not exactly profitable to anyone.
Burning is the ultimate recycling, because you're reducing it to its component atoms, and returning them to the environment. It's essentially the same process that happens in a landfill, just much faster.
It is if your using them in a process that currently has to have a fuel combusted as part of the process - far better to use a waste product as fuel than extracting/mining/transporting new fuel sources - such as fossil fuels.
The result: a 27% reduction in CO2 emissions and a 13% reduction in water consumption. A single wind turbine blade that weighs 7 US tons recycled through this process enables the cement kiln to avoid consuming nearly 5 tons of coal, 2.7 tons of silica, 1.9 tons of limestone, and nearly a ton of additional mineral-based raw materials.
@@TheRealE.B. Most apartments and homes built next to freeways are for poor people and in my 6+ decades on this spinning rock it's quite apparent no one really gives a shyt about poor people, or else Ethiopia and other nations would have all the food and medicines they need and everyone in developed nations would also have affordable healthcare and access to food for their families.
None of the “recycling” options actually recycle, they merely extend the life of the product, passing the waste issue into the future and make people feel good now. 🤔
Yes, well the word recycle is used arbitrarily in these circles just like the words "clean" and "renewable". These words don't have meaning anymore because green energy idiots just throw them out to give themselves a warm fuzzy. In the end, the consequences must be paid all the same. They would rather bide time indulging one another in ignorance though, than actually face the fact that solar and wind are a waste of time and that nuclear is, was, and will always be our best energy solution.
@@GeorgeRobson4 Not always. Recycling happens because people see the word and think, "oh that's good." In reality, some recycling processes are more consuming than producing new product. People lean toward recycling because they say at least there is less trash filling up the holes in the ground. If I had to pick between buried trash or greenhouse gases I'd say bury it. We need to put more research into biodegration.
I wonder if the ground up blades can be used for insulation for buildings. Or if there is a way to strip the resin off the fiberglass and wood. I have heard that fiberglass boats used to have gas tanks made of fiberglass. Over time, the gasoline, a solvent, would break down the fiberglass and clog up the fuel lines. If the blade can be taken apart, then the materials can be used somewhere else.
Thanks for this, it shows clearly that no industry for producing energy is actually zero impact. Besides the turbine blades issue there's also the immense land use and need for certain materials needed for the renewable energy industry (like the neodimium for the super magnets). As thousands of wind turbines and thousnds of sq miles for solar are required, the enviromental impact os such technologies is actually a global issue. Not saying that we should not use them, but it is unrealistic to think that they would be provide all the energy we need alone. One for all, we still need to resolve the lack of energy storage capacity that is necessary to supply the grid when there is no sun nor wind. If the aim is to stop the use of fossil fuels and achieve the net zero carbon emissions we should really re-think nuclear energy as the amount of material needed and the waste is relatively much smaller per energy unit produced, and it can produce 24/7.
You are missing a huge component to your statement here. Reducing overall consumption should be a global target. Instead of generating thousands od turbines to meet unrealistic and unsustainable consumption rates only makes the problem worse. Replacing a turbine every 20 years is also nothing compared to fossile fuels.
and they are manufactured w/ fossil fuel, shipped by fossil fuel trucks, have 100’s of gallons of oil in gears, & balsa wood means trees cut. Then there’s the bird kills.
So wind and solar are already the most expensive sources of energy by far, and then we have the incredible problems of disposing thousands of tons of retired equipment that only lasts 20 years or less. None of this krap would have ever gotten anywhere unless governments had spent YOUR hard-earned tax dollars on it.
Yes, lots of times. You can google it using 'net lifecycle carbon per kWh' for various sources of electricity. Wind is about one hundredth the amount per kWh that coal produces, and about a fiftieth of that produced by natural gas per kWh. It's also a quarter of solar. It's about the same as nuclear, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, depending on the specific type of reactor and location of the wind turbines.
@@jhhggygghchdlfyggxzgdltfugc I just tried that and got millions of search results, each was just a clone of the same source and when find another fresh source doesn't corroborate inconsistent and don't seem to include the full life cycle cradle-to-grave carbon used like mining for msterials construction maintenance etc etc etc
@@jagmarc The first result I clicked on had about 20 links in the references to peer reviewed papers, respected international journals, ngos etc. Try using a different search engine, maybe your results are being influenced by the sort of thing you usually search for. (Luddite nonsense and for-profit anti science propaganda, apparently.) Slight variations in results are normal and expected; that can't explain 100x difference in the figures from multiple sources. There's no credible science supporting the speculation that wind is worse than fossils for carbon. That's entirely made up, with no supporting evidence.
I used to build them. Most people don't see that you end up with a 40ft dumpster of chemical-laden garbage to make every blade (each turbine used 3 blades). Our blades were 100% fiberglass and then coated with paint, no balsa wood.
@@stevenwhite3.1415 Fiberglass is expensive for a reason. There is loads of waste and lots of nasty chemicals involved. However, it has a very high strength to weight ratio which is critical in these sorts of applications. The heavier the blades, the higher the wind forces needed to start moving ergo they can't operate as well at lower wind speeds. It also limits performance at high speeds since heavier blades produce more force for a given rotation speed, capping the maximum speed they can rotate before breaking.
to make, install, maintain one blade cost about 154,000 bucks. A windmill needs 80 gallons of oil, which needs to be changed yearly. so much for "green" energy
Figure out how much power they produce over their life span then figure out how much power it takes to use the machinery to manufacture, delivery , install, uninstall, bury, dig back up , delivery to recycling location, grind up, and deliver to concrete manufacturer to use
Wind turbines are a scam. People have no idea how much energy and polution is used to make them, tramsport them, assembly and to keep them running. Also the hundreds of birds that every windturbine kill in it lifetime. And every 20 years you have to build new ones.
@@domitravel795 not to mention the efficiency for a lot of those. We have at least a dozen in the area that barely run at all, two of which collapsed due to production issues (Germany). But boosting green energy - in whatever form that may be, is a must to reduce our ecological footprint
Domi Travel Actually scientists have already calculated the carbon Footprint for different types of renewable energy production. And wind is only marginally worse then nuclear at around 11g CO2 / kWh (and theres still room for improvement with bigger&more efficient turbines) . Compare that to 450g / kWh for Natural Gas and more than twice that for coal. And they do kill birds. An estimated 500,000 a year in the US. Sure, that is alot of birds. But at the same time up to 1.5bn Birds are killed by cats and windows each year.... So yeah, Wind turbines aren't perfect. But they sure as hell are way better then fossil fuels.
The fact that it's not much of an impact compared to other industrial processes is ridiculous statement. It has ADDED to the waste regardless of it being an eighth of the discarded plastic... it has ADDED to the problem.
@@Roukle eh the turbine blades are resin fiberglass and wood with minimal amounts of plastic involved, for the amount of energy produced outside of geothermal and hydro I'm fairly certain you create more waste of actual plastics and materials just for transportation of resources, coal power plants require cars to drive the coal there those tires are waste as well as the gas to transport it on top of the coal emissions, nuclear probably creates just as much in plastic waste alone as the entire wind turbine farm to produce equivalent power being scrapped just because of radioactive contamination, It's not that I don't understand your viewpoint but outside of entirely removing the entire power grid and everyone going to hunter-gatherers and building their tools from wood and Stone (which still destroy the environment and create waste we can find waste from civilizations 20,000 years ago from archeology sites) everything is going to be just a lower amount of waste the fight isn't to get rid of a waste entirely that's impossible it's to get it to a state in which it can decompose or be reabsorbed by the environment faster than we produce, at some point regardless of how long lived the waste we create is the Earth is still going to naturally bury it and pull it underground with the plates (coal and oil are technically waste from millions of years ago they got pulled underground and decomposed) the Earth can deal with almost anything eventually
In a cost benefit analysis the whole wind turbine energy project is a huge waste of money that could be better used to work on nuclear solutions that don't rely on when or where the wind blows.
@@davidwhitten3596 well that is one motivation, i suppose, but the willingness to stop the destruction of this planet is not virtue signalling, its just a virtue.
Whoever buys them should have to pay to get rid of them. It's a rounding error compared to the cost of buying them. Each blade costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and only $3000 to get rid of it.
And this is only one part so if you add solar and batteries from all sectors it means the problems grows bigger in how to recycle or dispose of these "Green Energy".
A huge problem with going green is everyone says “let’s turn product A into product B” when the solution should be keep making product A, but make it recyclable.
To be fair, most of the material by weight (80%) is steel which is 100% recyclable. But ideally we need to expand research and make blades fully able to be recycled or repurposed.
It probably still is cleaner tho but a stupid way to recycle. They could have made bricks with the added fibers that would have great insulation conserving energy even after the turbine finished it's lifecycle just sad to see the easiest solution of burning succeed
@@Truthpatriot62 how? All I see is an energy company being cheap but not the technology failing. Like how is coal better when you have to burn 1ton of coal for around 8,141MWh of energy compared to a turbines average yearly output of around 6000MWh annually and you can still burn the waste instead of coal? Sure I would like it to be recycled properly but unless the government mandates it which it does in some parts of the globe companies won't have an incentive to.
"Green energy" isn't always. People look at the end product. But they don't look at the before, and they don't look at the after. They look at the product itself as it is right off the assembly line.
While true, there are pluses in addition to the minuses. This is a copy of my recent comment: On the plus side, 85% of windmills can be reused or recycled. The blades are only 15% of the deal. If we can figure out eco-safe ways to recycle/reused blades, we’ll have a completely renewable form of energy. Another plus: it’s way quicker to erect windmill farms than it is to construct nuclear power plants, and the windmills will produce the same or more energy than nuclear plants.
@@MusicfromMarrs nuclear capacity factor 92.5% and wind capacity factor is 35.4%, you do the math. Not here to start a debate or argument just debunking misinformation so others aren’t misinformed. Yes I see the pros you bring up like time to construct but you’re way off actually comparing the energy.
@@conbro0985 it may take more land to produce the same energy, but wind goes up in unpopulated plains areas, or in the ocean. It’s also safer. There’s a link in my next comment; I do t know if it will stay.
@@MusicfromMarrs "and the windmills will produce the same or more energy than nuclear plants." - but not within nearly the same amount of space - by like a factor of thousands - how much do you want to dedicate of the different animal habitats to spinning blades and noise pollution?
@@MusicfromMarrs No one has calculated the effects of erecting all of those towers in the ocean on the currents, environment or marine life. Plus those plains are unpopulated by people - but not animals.
I love seeing the industries in the Midwest being highlighted. There is so much potential for these states to boost the nations economy. Once we stop hating on the coasts, south, and Midwest, we will start to really be great!
@@carlosesteban5601 Don't know anything about bricks, but it sounds like you do. I'd like to comment and like a video of you revolutionizing industry. I'm all about looking to future success
@UCfPgv0aY-kw0umSSbXmHUKg That's unfortunate. There are problems everywhere, some just get highlighted more then others. There is a reason the computer/phone/tablet and app or internet you're using came from an amazing idea. We just need the input of all of us not the separation.
Unfortunately it is rather difficult to acquire turbine blades where I live because I would really like to test my theory or make a different project like a shed or something out of them since it seems like the company is paying to have them disposed it would be a great free project. I will ask around maybe I can get access to it through my university.
@@youxkio Except all plastics and fiberglass degrade from the sun's UV rays, it tends to "chalk" and then get very brittle and crack unless completely protected by a paint or something. You def don't want a blade repurposed bus shelter to suddenly crack apart because some wind hit it during a storm while people sheltered under it
@@HobbyOrganist Now that explains the insisting explanation of using those blades for cement.... Yes, I guess it may be the only solution for those blades; very difficult to find a circular solution for them.
@@youxkio Yes, and when you think about it ask WHY they have to replace those blades in the first place, unlike a car engine or light bulb, the blades don't just "wear out" what happens is they get damaged- they are out there is the direct sun all day long, and like the paint on your car, dashboard, plastic trim etc- they get UV damage as well as I believe they start chemically breaking down. Look at those "Rubbermaid" plastic garbage/wastepaper basket cans and laundry baskets, notice how nice, strong and flexible they are when NEW, but ever notice how once they get some age on them the plastic CRACKS? Why would formerly flexible plastic get brittle and crack like that even tho those two items are typically not out in the sun? the answer on those (and that hich is in the sun too) is that the plastic itself is chemically degrading. Add the chemical degregation to the constant UV exposure and you get cracking and structural weakness, THAT is the main reason the blades have to be replaced. Even if they were metal, there's corrosion or metal fatigue to contend with- bending and flexing causes metal fatigue, its a main reason why jets have to be scrapped after a certain number of flights/hours- the wings and body get metal fatigue
@@THEGOOD360 I don't have numbers, but probably a lot. As of today, it's much cheaper to leave the blades in landfills. Not sure which cost benefit you're referring to.
Yet another cost negative solution for renewable energy. If we really care about emissions, we ought to just go Nuclear, with perhaps a natural gas or hydro backup/regulator for rapid variations.
I agree with this. Endless rational discussions available on the internet why this may be a good idea.... the discussions against it are based on fear without knowing much. Fukushima, Chernobyl etc. Scared people. They were both preventable. And we have better technology. As long as no government burocrats or crazed psychopathic oligarchs prevent it, we can do it. But no, that would make people too free. Maybe in 10 years after we remove psychopaths from gaming us
So littering...I bet your a fan of "modern art" installations that are twisted amalgamations of metal that don't represent any aspect of the natural world. "Art" that doesn't represent nature or God's creation isn't art. It's garbage.
The fundamental problem is with the turbine blades themselves. The fiberglass material itself is not durable as an airfoil. It de-laminates due to weathering effects and friction with the air. Wind turbines in it's current state will not be viable until a lightweight durable material is found.
Nice story. However, you didn’t mention there is a huge amount of chemicals (Resin, glue, gel coat, etc.), glass, and plastics waste associated with the manufacturing of large wind turbine blades. Therefore, baring the plastic, those same materials are in the blades when they are to be scraped and recycled. These materials are very hazardous or dangerous for humans to handle. Let’s find ways to design, manufacture and dispose of these critical clean energy resources with clean and safe materials. Just saying…the same manufacturing materials and processes from twenty five years ago (Just making them longer) is not innovation. If we can land and reuse a rocket stage we can make clean energy with clean safe materials.
I didn't have to scroll far to find what I was thinking. There are So Many Issues people overlook in this current Green Regulation's nightmare. What I think is being missed is the driving force behind all the fears with Carbon Footprint talk is a very small elite group of people who don't want society to be able to function on any level. Kids are being weaponized to carry the message, and they are completely unaware that they are being used to destroy their own lives. Georgia Guide Stones declaration.... Bill Gates "P = people" equation. Psalm 19:1 John 14:6
@@jaredf6205 hey Jared I understand your thinking. Underneath all this are extremely clean Coal Fired Systems that produce Jobs, Energy, more Jobs. Same with Oil, Propane and other natural resources in abundance that Green Demoniacs have convinced kids and their adoring parents are too filthy to run and are killing Polar Bears ad infinitum..... We have allowed people to Govern us that Do Not have anyone's best interest in mind but their own desire to own the whole thing. I don't know where you live, I travel between Colorado and The Midwest. If you have never witnessed the "Wind Farm" in action, I became painfully aware of so much for so little. The; Global warming To Sustainable development train is one of the greatest scams in the History of man. Do you have a Big yard?
Yes we can it just won't be profitable for current business or industries. Make Tesla turbines, Howard Johnson's magnetic motor, Stan Meyer's water engine, etc. There are ways but will never happen in today's society.
Just because the percentage of total plastic waste produced would only be less than 10%, doesn't mean it's a good thing. That's the same logic as "why start recycling now if millions others don't?"
I think it was more or less meant to say while wind turbines produce waste the overall positive is far ahead of most other. Still poorly phrased and easy to interprete which way one would like.
@@tmiranda1379 like the 95% of roads being recycled to make the same quality or superior new roads if done right it brings costs down while performing the same or better dunno how that's a scam.
The mantra is "reduce, reuse, recycle" in that order for a reason. Reusing will nearly always be better than recycling. It would take a non-profit to find enough uses to reuse nearly all of them for other projects, but it could be done
A non profit is a terrible option to figure this out. They come up with wild ideas that are expensive and impractical. A for profit company would find the most efficient way to do this.
This wasn't true recycling. They were reusing them as a fuel. They weren't recycling them into more wind turbines. I feel if its actually greener fuel there are more opportunities to use it that way than building bridges or any other contrived project
I would cut the blades into segments of uniform size and use them as structural supports for low cost utility buildings. This would seem to be a decent way to repurpose them and get extra decades of use out of them without having to grind them up.
This problem, and the problem with most other toxic waste, needs to be addressed by congressional federal law which would disallow the manufacturer to produce these products UNLESS they are designed with 90% recycle materials. If left to the MBA's in a company like GE, they will ALWAYS take the cheapest way, which is to say, it's someone else's problem. Namely, every living person on this earth.
We needed such law for doing something about dead horses left lying on the streets 120 years ago, instead the companies owning horse drawn carriages started making up lies about how automobiles are too dangerous and there should be a man waving a red flag walking in front of any car. We needed such law for pollution caused by fossil fuels 70 years ago, but the oil and coal companies lobbied against it. Unlike corpses spreading disease and pollution killing people and changing the climate, both of which were clearly known to be true by the FF industry, being made of materials that are little hard to recycle is a very minor issue. The only reason why people have spent 20 years trying to make it seem like windmills and solar panels are toxic and we should ban them because they aren't made of unicorn farts and pure magic like oil is, is that the lobbyists trying to oppose renewable energy couldn't find any real problems so they had to make shit up.
And the alternative being? Unlike you people who work in renewables are looking for ways to solve problems and this is just another problem that needs to be looked at
There is nothing bad in creating waste as a by-product of something thats how things work, it only becomes a problem if its not tackled in due time. And using green energy to expand green energy is way better than using fossile fules to expand green energy.
@@kregadeth5562 Thats assuming the system will work the same horizontally, may not clear debris as efficiently or something like that, but from the outset, it looks like a plausible solution to improve the efficiency of the process.
Feel like the trick is to separate the balsa wood and fiberglass sections cost effectively. Then its just mostly normal recycling/reusing the components from there.
Did you note that none of the uses those de-commissioned and cut-up blades are put to involves any real load-bearing? I think that's due to structural weakening by de-lamination (flexing) and pitting (birdstrikes, hail, dust, salt particles). If so, there really isn't much use for them. A boat hull for instance really mustn't have holes or cracks in it. A bridge should be short and not very far off the ground.
Yep, but for fencing the material is perfect. Or for walking paths, even for roofing. Just cut the appropriate length and width. I am sure that farmers will appreciate these free planks. But everybody is for profit, and the cost of disposal was not considered from the beginning. So if they cut into planks, then they want profit, and obviously farmers will prefer traditional material that do not come with inerrant issues of as recycled material.
Use microwave assisted pyrolysis to decompose, into oils/solvents. The epoxy and balsa wood transforms easily. The fiberglass will be cleaned, sorted and can be reused.
@@t3hpwninat0r On the contrary. Microwaves are likely the most efficient way to strip off the hydrocarbon based material (epoxy) also with uniform energi distribution meaning predictable fractions. The key is the dielectric properties of the material. Hydrocarbons react immediately. The glass fiber is inert and absorb nothing. Exoterm decomposition will heat it all, unevenly thus higher energy consumption.
Solar panels also have recycling problems, but their life span is twice that of these blades. Solar panel efficiency keeps rising. Efficiency is around 23% now, but 39% has been demonstrated. That's lower than wind which is at about 50%. There's a lot to consider, and we need regulations that force related businesses to take into account the entire life-cycle of the system, not just the part that looks best to the stock market.
Solar power and wind have different niches in the power grid. Solar power only generates power during the day at mostly at non peak hours. Wind can generate power anytime of the day or night as long as there is a high enough wind speed. What we need most is lower cost environmentaly friendly energy storage solutions. With a proper efficient and low cost energy storage solution it will become cost prohibitive to use fossil fuels.
Then we should also force companies that use fossil fuels for power generation to account their 'life cycle' which includes carbon dioxide emissions and related problems caused due to climate change.
The reuse guys fail to recognize that their premise has limits. There's only so many things that can be built with the blade structures. Grinding it up for fuel, or as an additive may be the best solution.
To be fair there is a lot of things that we could use them for still. Lots of highways without sound barriers or bus stops without shelters. Honestly they would make a good wind barrier for your house if you live in the country with not a lot of trees around.
I thought that they would grind up the fiberglass and put it INTO concrete. Fiberglass reinforced concrete is already a thing, just use recycled fiberglass. I don’t know, maybe the fibers aren’t good after grinding.
Maybe cut the flat sections of the blades into long boards and then put a paint, coating, and/or a sealant to further weather protect them add some color and use it for housing and barn siding.
This really easy to resolve if you stop putting up these obsolete wind turbines and start putting up the more efficient wind turbines. The improved wind turbines can be made from recyclable materials, won't kill birds, last much longer, cost less, etc. For example, the windspire doesn't have blades that stick way out since it is vertical and has a slim footprint of 4 feet.
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Was this video sponsored by Veolia or GE?
This is just ridiculous. All of this combined wastes more energy than it produces.
"Greenhouse gases". 🙄 care to expound on that?
Maybe use the materials for Houses
@@tuscan9617 The fossil fuel industry.
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.
Exactly my thought I even thought it would be great for insulation but what do i know just burn it.
@@carlosesteban5601 Not the best insulation material and even if you treated it to turn it into good insulation material, it would cost more than current insulation and the process would likely be less environmentally friendly. As for @NotQuiteUseful the issue is all the other things that go into the blades, make it less viable for concrete filler (they mentioned wood as part of the stuff in the blades).
@@rodon107 I dunno but wood fibers can be added to concrete but you could probably get the wood sections out. I know more steps more expensive but yeah it seems viable to me similar to hempcrete where hemp fiber is combined with lime to create vastly more insulated bricks. Dunno if you like alternative building materials I would advise you to check out Hempcrete. I'm no specialist in building materials but it seems viable to me.
@@carlosesteban5601 Hempcrete is a fundamentally different material than concrete. Hempcrete is meant to have airgaps and absorb moisture and is not load bearing. And part of what makes hempcrete special is how the silica in the hemp interacts with the calcium in the lime. Wood doesn't give you the same benefits. Concrete you want solid, no air gaps. Organics like the wood in turbine blades reducing the strength of the concrete and makes it more likely to fail.
@@stormelemental13 what if it was made into sawdust could it be used then? What if it was made into like this pressed material like Ikea furniture (forgot the English name)? Would the fiberglass alone be viable for bricks maybe with a different brick composition I'm sure there would be some material combination that could use the fiberglass for bricks. I dunno the person that figures that out will probably make millions.
When they said they were using the shredded blades to make cement, I didn’t even consider it was being burnt. I imagined they were using the fibers as a binder like fiberglass “cat hair” that some companies mix into the cement to reinforce it.
I thought the same mate!
How is burning them useful? Edit: it was a genuine question, and I clearly wasn't paying attention when they stated the reason 🤷🏽♂️
@@theoneed2051 They're using it as fuel for the production process instead of as an additive.
Since the newer ones are made of fibreglass/Carbon fibre then crushing them becomes even more toxic. A simple law would be that no blades can end up in landfill (where they would never decompose). There are aleady lots of coal alternatives for cement making (old tyres/domestic rubbish/construction waste) and the end waste can be mixed into road material compound reducing its carbon footprint (a little). Perhaps asking the motorsport teams who use alot of expensive CF or aircraft manufacturers using more of this in planes what they are doing to recycle it??
Me also!
"Made from a combination of fiberglass and balsa wood"
Immediately shows them cutting it without respirators or other literally any other PPE
EDIT: Even if you exclude breathing PPE the dude isn't wearing safety goggles.
Great observation. Their lungs would get wrecked.
Also touching the shred fiberglass without gloves.
I noticed that also.
@@KevanTess
Right?! Wtf, man?
Amateur hour? - or are they just CONSTANTLY UPWIND of all their work material...😂... OR - are they the ALIENS amongst us??🤔🤔🤔
yeah madness, imagine driving one of those loaders around that constantly dust filled shed all day, you would never get the smell of fibreglass off your body.
They will all get cancer, and this video will be used in the prosecution against veolia I'm sure.
Years ago the best thing to do with car tyres was to make them into ornamental rubber swans. The suggested uses for turbine blades (playgrounds or bike shelters) seem about as useful and sustainable as ornamental rubber tyre swans.
yeah but old tires is an excellent material to build farm infrastructure. you can give it all sorts of use and it's a durable and lasting material. i don't think old blades will have the same sort of second life, as the material itself cannot be broken down further.
I remember back in the sixties, door matts made of old tire strips to wipe your feet on were common.
one of the best uses I have seen for tyres is a wood basket ,I bought it from "fair trade" about 10 years ago,it is still in excellent condition,I believe it was made somewhere in Africa, search for "wood basket made from tyre"I hope my "fair trade" buy helped somebody out
Yet car tyres is one of the best reusable materials out there. Just not very attractive to the plutocrats.
Burning fiberglass instead of e.g. using it as construction material filler seems extra ludicrous.
I'll take concrete over the cheesy lawn ornaments.
Building little bridges and fences out of the stuff is cute but it is unrealistic to think that pet projects like those will take care of the industrial scale of used turbine blades.
Got that right,this "green"energy isn't so green
I reckon there is a big enough market for things like temporary buildings made from whatever (e.g. the tents that company is using). The biggest issue is that they're a really awkward shape, and they're all slightly *different* shapes. You can't scale up reuse if you have to redesign your building for 100 different shapes of turbine blade.
Looks like they might work for sound barrier walls along the interstates
Just smile and nod, enjoy the koolaid, and keep using words like "green", "clean", and "renewable." The truth is too much reading anyways.
The artists who do these things have very little understanding of industrial scale and way way over-inflated view of their own significance in the world. You gotta be to think the world needs your art, right?
I drove up the San Fernando valley 18 months ago and passed by dozens of wind farms. I was shocked to see about a fifth of the turbines visibly broken. Blades missing, heads bowed, etc... and additionally up to a third of the total turbines were not turning. There doesn't seem to be any maintenance at all going on.
Where I used to work there were three wind turbines. Very very rarely were all three turning. About half the time only one was turning and the other half of the time two were turning.
@Oliver Twist amen
Wind turbines may be left 'dead' or mothballed for a variety of reasons. Usually, the company determines that repairing it or further maintenence is more costly than the projected revenue they can get from the remaining expected life of the turbine.
Another is that the company that manufactures them has gone out of business, or exited the sector. Or the model is obsolete & replacement parts are very hard to source.
I can only imagine that certain companies get subsidies or investors who are willing to pay them to set up the turbines, but there's no money in maintaining them.
@@shaidyn8278 Setting them up provides a photo-op and a chance for "positive" sound bites. Maintenance does not do that.
Here I was thinking that they kinda mulched up the blades and mixed it into concrete .... Not burning it 😅
Me too...bummer.
What dose any of this have to do with concrete at all? Any coal powered factory could use this plastic filled bullshit.
@@PeteRoe im going to have to guess its because people dont stick around to hear what they are doing with their millings. a lot of people will have watched to the boring part and never got to hear that the final disposition of the material is burning. people are walking away from this video thinking its used as aggregate. that is one of the angles of this propaganda. the other is a call from the industry to appeal to the masses in search of better alternatives because their arent a lot of creative people working in the waste industry - usually a good thing.
Being mulched up by equipment that runs on diesel fuel.
@@PeteRoe I work with biomass boilers and plastics and resins absolutely ruins the inside of the boilers and covers it in burned plastic that's near impossible to remove so it's not just as simple as dump and burn without ruining your burning area unless you pay to modify it or the process. There are actually blower fans that need clean passageways as well as grates that let air circulate and plastics just burn and gum them up and stopping to repair is such a ball ache.
Imagine the carbon footprint of making it, shipping it, installing it, maintenance, removal, transferring it to the recycling plant and burning it.
Burning fiberglass instead of e.g. using it as construction material filler seems extra ludicrous.
Green energy ! Lol
And nuclear? how say is that to recycle? or oil, or coal? Have you seen what mines and drilling for oil does to the land?
@@biggerminds523
Two new-gen reactors that are 100 times more efficient (long-term) and are completely clean were launched recently.
But you won't hear that in the "news".
@@Conserpov using it as filler in construction material is pretty ludicrous.
“Blades need to be changed every 20 years”
Also
“These are 8-12 years old”
The facts are rage worthy. Evil is very comfortable to even those close to you
No it’s called government back door kick backs screwing the tax payers.
Goes hand to hand with electric car aka lots of waste and not environmental at all if you look big picture.
I noticed that. Max lifespan of 20 yrs, do newer model blades last longer, or were those in worse weather conditions?
@@TaxPayingContributor I'm guessing you rage about a lot of random things, lol.
Wind turbine blades being 1/8 of all plastic waste seems very significant to me. I favor nuclear.
That's not exactly what they said.
@@zbaby82 there are already plenty of systems in place for removal, containment, and storage of waste in strict manner. Reality is every form of energy production has different forms of waste/ hazards and different stages and efficiency.
Google ' Chernobyl birth defects images' and get back to me.
Have you heard of nuclear waste? Turbine blades are a menace, but they won't kill you.
@@davidwilhelm7466nuclear waste problem was solved in the 50's
The solution is to design the blades, initially, with the intent to recycle. The manufacturing process should be dictated by the ability to disassemble the blades to maximize the individual material recyclability.
True, sustainability is a misused term. We need to consider a circular economy where engineering components at the end of service can either be decomposed or used elsewhere.
@@georgiosyiannakou5537 It's as simple as that. Until then, whomever is able to capitalize on waste products will thrive abundantly.
And just gonna put up the bill, is all about profits, wind turbine is the dumbest clean energy solution that is not really a solution
Thinking of a solution is easier than to implement it.
@Man sky Source?
I'm curious to know if the blade shredder sites are powered by wind turbines.
Of course not, they work
Fossil fuel powered.
Powered by Coal and Oil generated electricity
They would but it is too unreliable
They can be. The just need they right power supplier.
I love how they measured the blade in school buses rather than in meters
How about in yards?
he miss da chance to say its a "wind wind" in da end
Are you all like that void of purpose and spark find interest in that. Scary AF to see the fall of men to what you are
They treat people as if they are idiots because most of them are .
Proof that Americans will use anything but the metric system for measurement.
The company needs to make the _first pass_ crusher machine portable so they can bring it to the turbine site. Transporting intact sections of blade is incredibly inefficient.
no that wont happen for a couple of reasons
@@happyblt624 are you going to elaborate or ....?
@@birchthebirch4593 when i feel like it
@@happyblt624 like what? I have experience in the trucking and waste disposal industries and can't see why not.
@@timhinchcliffe5372 most of all costs, huge upfront & upkeep costs which will deter companies, trucking is just easier, doesnt take as long to build, not as complex, and covid is not a good reason
It seems to me the best solution would be to cut the blades up into roofing tiles for the flat areas and the curved sections as capping tiles.
Interesting possible application. There has to be some great applications for reuse of these extremely strong items.
Would you put 20+ year old, used, end of life material on your roof?
I was thinking the same thing, instead of trying to recycle them repurpose them
@@tioswift3676 Why not? We have no problem using billion year old rocks or 100 year old lumber.
@@tioswift3676 why not, technically tar is millions of years old isn't it?
Use it for the production of stone matrix asphalt that our high traffic interstates are paved with, which uses "cellulose fibers" specifically made to add during production to prevent the drain down of liquid asphalt through the open graded aggregate structure of the mix. The added fibers offer no structural advantages other than keeping the liquid asphalt suspended in the mix until it cools. The shredded fibers of these blades may offer the same useful purpose.
Made from fiberglass, but the guy cutting them up isn't even using a mask. That's crazy
Humanity is dumb squared
Be grateful for what you have
Fiberglas and 150 kubikmeter Balsa wood per blade. For this to grow tropical primeval forest is cut down and to build the turbines they clear large areas of forest here with us.
But hey it's green energy
@Crypto Arnold You're whole outlook is more toxic than the fumes. Weird flex too.
They were using a wet saw. did u notice the water hose that is connected to the saw, and the lack of dust?
Another example of how all this "green energy" solutions aren't green as much as they say. One has to think the entire solution all the way through. Are we just creating more pollution trying to avoid pollution? Creating more green house gas trying to avoid it? I was shocked to hear they were replacing blades only 8 to 12 years old! Not only that but wind power is only affective when the wind blows. In my opinion, they have become a blight on the landscape for what little they produce.
You should see how lithium is mined, and how its nearly impossible to dispose of, the whole green thing is a scam.
They are being recycled. That are added to concrete as a strength modifier.
@@wymonwatson1309 until it’s not.
@@ianc435 Maybe do a little research, especially about co2. The green/man made climate change scam is a total grift.
@@wymonwatson1309 They won't. The facts will conflict with their biased narrative.
Thermoset plastics like Epoxies and Polyesters are nearly impossible to "recycle" by melting. During the curing cycle, the ingredients chemically change into the finished plastic.
Design for disassembly is the closest you will get!
Harold , I'll replay to your thoughts. And add a couple. Your right about the chemicals used.
Filber glass should never be ground up.
This is what we learned in a MEGA humen screw up. ( black trash bags 1970s , biodegradable)
Everybody jumped up and down. Land fills would now break down trash faster. Before black trash bags lasted a 1000 years. ( note the 1000 year black trash bag if we keep USEING it would have saved 10s of millions of lives. See the HUMEN race is drinking water from deep well. Guess what. 3 main plasticizers used to make degradable trash bags. Breaks down, then leaches in to the ground water. 1 molecule at a time. 600 feet below earths surfaces. BILLIONS
Of plastizer molecules, gather like big blobs of crap. They 100% float on top of the water, deep rivers, ect ect, they line the tops of caverns that for a million years, have been keep clean.
Pure pure drink water. Humens drill the wells. The well heads go thru the toxic crap. Then they suck it up. And humens drink it. Pretty dame wild. At HEFTY trash bags, 70s.... no one cared
I walked out and quit. Started bottle water COMPANYS with reengineered H2O.
"Design for disassembly"
Makes the blades worse at their job
@@phillycheesetake Depends on the design. They WILL be heavier, but that isn't always a "bad thing".
@@haroldhenderson2824 Heavier actually is a bad thing when what you're talking about spins on top of a large column.
@@phillycheesetake some wind blade producers are working on resins that when exposed to specific chemicals and heat will decompose the resin, which would leave just the fiberglass and balsa/core. much easier to recycle that way.
"They have to replaced about every 20 years."
Except they are replaced significantly more often than that.
20 years is the best-case scenario in ideal conditions, it's an absolute farce
20 years is best case scenario. Usually lightning or birds or extreme winds cause them to break sooner
Source
True 20 years appears to be best case. It needs a permanent second life use.
@@CircularSolar1 Or how about instead wait till the technology is mature enough to be economically and environmentally sustainable. We will also never be in a position to replace coal and nuclear with solar and wind, it would require massive battery banks and A: that's very hazardous, B: there isn't enough of the elements and compounds needed on the planet and C: terrible for the environment.
Instead the sensible route would be to leave solar and wind for small-scale, niche applications, make our use of fossil fuels clean and efficient as possible, restore habitats across the world instead of paving them over to house ever increasing numbers of people, and massively invest in nuclear to make it safe and sustainable as possible, and other alternative energy sources.
I'm always amazed on how much resources are on this planet. The way people explain waste and the way we use things. Youd think it would be gone long ago
It’s both more forgiving and far less forgiving than people think. Resource squandering or not, humans are failing the exam
We humans have a problem with big numbers, scale and changing our thinking.
Sadly it cut both ways: We can't wrap our heads around running up against physical limits and when we _do_ run our collective heads against a wall, we can't imagine the transition needed to mitigate the problem.
That is why we need to listen to experts trained to handle scale and big numbers.
We can still prevent the worst of the climate crisis and an ecological collapse, but we have to get our sh*t together asap.
Yes, it will be different.
No, different doesn't equate "bad".
@@madshorn5826 those experts are as bad as u bro… so u r how the slo norms view things. Would you like willingly give up your vote
@@seetheanimal5867
You have a foggy notion of democracy I see :-)
There are things we can vote about and things we can't.
We can't vote about science.
We can vote for providing resources to a variety of different scientists, but we can buy a result we like, no matter how much money we plow into a research field.
If we could, don't you think the fossil fuel industry would have sponsored some solid science by now? :-)
Suppressing results you don't like is not democracy, it's criminal.
Politics starts when the scientific consensus is reached.
We can't cling on to outdated petrol cars - _unless_ our stated goal is the end of a human friendly climate and a 100 million climate refugees.
We can vote about whether we change tech or accept going to hell in a handbasket, but we can't vote about whether the science is accurate.
That's what I mean when I say "listen to the experts".
As does everyone else who knows the first thing about reality.
@@madshorn5826 oh wow u r lost, and speaking about fake #’s and speaking of science when u have no concept of the process and purpose of science…
U should consider willingly giving up ur right to vote for the common good
"can making cement this way really reduce emissions?" i think the real question is what in the name of all that is real are we supposed to do with the turbine blades that doesn't involve mulching them? they are made from composit materials that are nearly impossible to re-use and the few ways it can be done are so energy intensive it's a silly choice and the only other alternative is to just let them lie there in a pile doing nothing but take up space
Exactly. And as the guy said until there’s an actual demand for the scale of used blades from other sources, which there won’t be, that shredding them is the best option
id build a deck out of them, probably pretty weather resistant
@@ApexOfThrottle how are you going to make a deck out of them? 🤣 There's not a single flat surface on them.
Well the shredded material produces less emissions than the coal it replaces in the cement kiln, less SOx and less NOx.
The shreds are low ash compared with coal, and allow other ash type wastes to be used in the cement process to replace the coal ash.
If we want to continue using cement, then we should make it in the most efficient, and least polluting manner possible, so it makes sense to use the blades as fuel. Yes, I know the fuel burning CO2 emissions are very small compared with the calcination of the limestone.
Second life projects are fun, but way too limited to tackle the problem.
And no, I do not work for a cement co.
@@Elemblue2 a very good idea. Rip them along the blade, laminate into rectangular or I-beams. No rot, no sag. No drying and distortion. They will be quite flammable though. I doubt it would be cheaper than 2x4x8' at $5, but quite possible for longer/wider boards
Are we seriously being told that 48 million tonnes of non recyclable toxic waste a year is okay because it only accounts for 1/8th of plastic “waste” which is perfectly recyclable?
It's not that it's ok, it's just far from being the big bad some people might want to see it as
@@joaomoraes9323 it’s 12.5% of plastic waste. and the only thing we can realistically do is grind it up (a lot of energy consumption) and somehow that’s okay? plastic straws are only 3% of plastic waste and we banned them….no sense, all a political agenda
@@f.m.1898 stupid people banned plastic straws. No restaurant I eat at gives me a paper straw
@@f.m.1898 come on to the light friend…come on to the light.
Plastic straws cause ecological damage due to a combination of both their material (making them long lasting), as well as their shape (easily lodged inside of living organisms).
There's still some hypocrisy here to be sure, but the reasons for banning straws are not directly equatable to arguments for banning turbine blades.
As for plastic being perfectly recyclable.... that's far from the truth. We should really be focusing on greatly reducing our plastic production across the board if anything.
With *that* said, many green technologies rely on high performance materials, and composites are some of the highest performing materials we have.
All of these problems are related and none of them are easy or simple to solve.
I have worked in a glass fibre industry and you DO NOT want to be near when it is cut or ground. Breathing micro glass fibres into your lungs is a DEATH sentence.
We have a new company that has moved next door to our home. We are getting a larger amount of fiberglass on us our pets and our livestock. We are very concerned about our health and well being. We are trying to get them stop and are having a hard time! They are working without permits as we speak and still no one has stopped them!
@@mistyhill3666call the city or the state
So True, ... I worked with the stuff in the old School/non-osha Body Shop.
It's durable wood and fibreglas. Can't you press that shredded stuff with some bonding material into bricks or any other shape for that matter?
Exactly.
My plan is to destroy the earth for the next generations, our children and grand children. More waste like wind turbine so next generation will suffer.
@@fynkozari9271 good luck with that no way you could do it alone though
@@Infinitynous-gg6vs actually im not using air conditioner or cars or littering plastic. Only electricity to power PC, smartphone. Im not contributing greenhouse gas for climate change.
@@fynkozari9271 hah, nerd
If they made it easier for the average person to get hold of them then I'm sure they would get a lot of re use in second projects.
Cut out two sheets from a turbine and you could use them as a roof for a shed or similar as example
Guaranteed none of it would wind up dumped by the side of the road no way
It would be helpful to know exactly how much energy is required to turn the blades into burnable mulch + the energy required to make each blade. Last but not least how much "GREEN" energy that blade produced during it's useful lifespan. Then with simple math we could see exactly how green each blade is or is not.
Also, how much energy could it produce in an ideal lifespan?
Also how much does it cost to remove the infrastructure, when don't want it anymore, like the turbine's foundation?
I was thinking the same thing, considering these things have to be changed so frequently and are difficult to get rid of in a environmentally way they should either make them out of different longer lasting materials or stop making them all together.
@@onegoodtech4all751 I work in recycling industry, no, stopping making it all together increases energy resources.
@@eugenetswong There is nothing in this world that is cheaper than natural resources. We need to find bio solutions, period. Anything you build, metal, aluminium, brass, whatever, degrades over time, it costs way more. I have worked in recycling industry, my dad as well. Hydroelectric is the best option in the world with the least pollution created. Bio energy is what we need, something that can be used like gas, put in tank, deliver, done. The first one to do that, would be a trillionaire. Because all we are doing now, is putting a filter, but the demands would only go up, and more filters require more materials burning more resources. Other than bio energy, it’s only delaying, because the only infrastructure that does it with minimum effect, is Hydroelectric, dams. The funny thing is, why is only China spending billions on this two research while everyone else try to implement these half ass back up plans?
There is way too much sense and independent thought in this comment thread. You guys need to stop thinking and just believe what you're told.
🤣
A 100% petroleum-based process. Good job!
How much energy is being used to do this? What is the fuel costs to disassemble, and transport the blades to the landfill or disposal point?
As opposed to what? Natural gas, coal?
Common error made with this : Recycling is making new products from the same materials like making aluminium cans from scrap aluminium. Upcycling is making something from a lesser material like making a handbag out of scrap piecies of fabric and downcycling , that is using a more expensive material to replace something that has less value, like grinding down old windturbine blades into a fine granulate and use it as a building material in cement or filler in glue’s . That turbine blades are not recyclable does not mean we cant do anything with them. It is a problem that the old turbine blades are mostly in area’s where transporting them back for reuse has so much costs it is cleaner just to landfill them as transport and processing them are not clean, once transport is also clean by using 100% green energy they can dig the blades up and still process them for other uses.
we chase the hope and ignore the true accounting. we don't have the technology and don't fund research that interferes with the economic imperative of consumer capitalism
@@jthadcast see above comment
When you think about it, everything we do is recycling, even burning fossil fuels or using landfills, it will become a tar pit or crude oil at somepoint in time. Haha
nah. some day it will be some sort of mineral deep underground.
Did you even watch the video.... they grind up the blades and BURN them to make cement.
I would have liked to see a comparison of the waste produced by the turbine blades, and the waste saved by using wind energy rather than other methods
Oh, like the three pounds of re-usable (like the French do, but the left outlawed here in the US) nuclear waste from producing more energy than ten wind mills over thirty years? That waste? Nah, you don't want that to be shown.
@@gmarie701 I should have said "rather than fossil fuel methods" Nuclear, on paper, is the cleanest and most sustainable source we will likely ever find
@@gmarie701 aren’t left pro renewable right pro fossil fuel?
Ppl got scared of nuclear for some reason 🙄
To be fair, the old facilities weren’t great hence the meltdowns but new nuclear is completely different. One big problem is maintenance… the US isn’t great at that or staying on top of things.
Sucks that our universe is full of energy but we been in an energy crisis for decades
There was a wind spill in your backyard and you didn't cancel a the BBQ.
Very green and healthy burning fiberglass!!
Still the same problem: It costs way cheaper to landfill them
money money money
Money money money mooooney, money. Trump show. Im not his supporter.
I think in another 100 years when everything is used up it will be economical for things to be made out of trash.
Thats how the economy in any system works
A system narrowly focused on short term profits is obviously a fail, yes, we all see that.
That is why USA needs to up the cost for landfills and make companies pay for recycling. In my country you only pays for the pick up of the recycling bin not the contents of the bin. You can even go to the recycling centre for free and leave recyclable materials.
Any product that any company every makes should have a recycling plan thought out before the product is distributed. That is the company that makes the product's responsibility.
Surprisingly, as the video says, GE is the one paying Veolia to recycle these blades. Definitely agreed, however. Just wish that there was an international solution.
So you want to live in a world owned by three corpos got it
@@AquaStockYT no, i don't know what you're talking about and how you came to that conclusion, but it's possibly because you misunderstood what i said, which if you did, you must be somewhat uneducated.
Anything can be recycled... whether it's profitable is another thing...
@@tf7274 Exactly, no one talks about that because it’s all about money and nothing about sustainability.
Never cease to amaze me how we invent these things and not think about what to do with them after their end of life run.. This should have beeen thought out at the time making a so-called green technology.
Its all just bait and switch
Wind turbines were not created to decrease carbon footprint, they were created to maximize profit .. developing it in a way that means u can reuse it after the fact is more money, and god forbid someone find a way to use there old ones instead of buying new ones, well that's even less money for us!!!
You see the problem ?
Nothing says green like wind turbine blades burning in the morning!
Can the shredded material be glued together to some kind of triply wood sheets or like durok sheets for construction purposes?
I imagine if it was mixed together with something similar to expanding foam then a reasonably sturdy, light weight brick could be formed. These could be used for temporary structures, as the bricks could just be shredded afterwards and reformed again. I'd guess they would also work well for insulation or soundproofing.
...can we just stop pretending that wind is viable? Makes a hell of a lot more sense.
This video is not quite informative,if not misleading.
US wind turbines even though somewhat commercially competitive, they are definitely not the first option when you want highly competitive wind turbines you definitely take a look at the Scandinavian countries as well as the Netherlands Finland and slightly Germany and Japan.
Most of the technological leading companies on each of these countries has a run and going recycling program for their constructions.
Now keep in mind that when someone installs a wind turbine park he has to pay on the initial price the suggested recycling program that the company he chose is offering,every company is obligated to sell wind turbines with a recycling program.
Now what the video fails to mention is that the problem is not if wind turbines are recyclable but how sustainable the recycling is, which yes a lot of times the recycling of wind turbines is effective only when high demand of what they can recycle them to is in existence. So far they are recycled into a huge variety of low quality construction materials, high end construction materials for products like cars, noise cancellation panels and many many more,but the most effective recycling is the one that has consists of the least possible process and the least possible cost, that's why the park and the bike stant was so effective.
The only legit problem of wind turbines as a mean of energy production is the installation process and the de-installation process, which a lot of the times it is the most expensive part of their lifespan, the most harmful to the environment and the toughest part to plan and deal with.
@@jwm6314 Lol, you're probably running your computer off electricity partially generated by wind right now, Luddite.
@@garthwright4064 water and sun is much more common and practical, I live in British columbia and all of our power for the most part comes from hydroelectricity.
that man has a point wind is not really the way to go if it produces all this crap with it
None of the proposed uses are in any way industrially viable. They either need to find a direct second use, or they need to actually break them down into ressources, and recycle them as best as possible
yes; they are very lazy, shreading and burning. they could very easily turn it into a slury and extract various materials from it; sort of how sewage is done.
they could also very much turn it into a different product as-is, similar to say OSB?
from there, the operation could be "profitable."
it's clearly just an operation to improve "enviornmental image".
Use them for sound barriers along highways - they make a nice backing for graffiti.
I had the same thought....minus the graffiti... :D
@@moltoniron633 what would be the advantage of that over just burning it? You're still releasing gasses into the atmosphere and the cost of bringing it to space is a lot
@@moltoniron633 Launch them? Rocket fuel is expensive!
Besides, Earth's orbit is FULL of dangerous debris already. As much as I enjoy reading about space, satellites and exploration, we really trashed our orbit, lol.
When you get a chance, take a look yourself.
or instead of littering, we can arrest criminals and not be afraid to be called racist
I like turtles
It was the biggest mistake in the world of energy production to build those horrible turbines in the first place. They destroy vast amounts of square kilometers of landscape - beautiful landscapes will soon be a thing of the past; they kill innumerable birds which are constantly being shredded by the suction of the blades; they are noisy and when there is no wind they produce no energy. The energy production is disproportionate to the energy consumption, which is used in both production and recycling. There will also be gigantic areas for the waste dumps of the turbines. They are destroying the environment in a catastrophic way. which we will see more of soon.
I really think they need to re-think how they are made in the first place. Why can't they be built to last 50-60, maybe 100 years? Doing that would make wind turbines a cheaper source of electricity. Something that costs 3 to 4 million should last more than 10 years.
Solar panels are the same issue
You can't make fibergalss last 50 years. It's actully very fragile. Even a birdstrike could take out a whole windmill by cracking the blade. Fiberglass is very high maintenance. Just look at how much goes into boats!! Windmills are to big to be made of any other material that would have the strength, without the weight. Plus the cost ratio would be skyhigh made out of metal or any other product. Windmills are not the answer!!
@@scrapcash2421
Windmills absolutely is a big part of the answer :-)
While fiberglass is currently the only material strong enough this will change when R&D gets funding on par with the obsolete and failing nuclear industry.
Some day we'll crack how to make cheap carbon fiber sheets or new materials will appear.
Recycling is slowly happening today and will take off tomorrow.
Still no comparison with dismantling nuclear power plants and recycling used tires.
If processed blades can be burnt in the cement industry, surely they can be used for energy production too.
All it takes is regulation to prevent dumping used blades in a landfill.
This will add to the cost of new turbines, but this will not be a serious problem with wind turbines being way cheaper to install than fossil fuel and nuclear capacity.
And before you start the talking point about wind being intermittent: we have flow batteries and liquid metal batteries up and running.
We just need to scale up from here.
Search for 'Ambri' here on UA-cam.
@@AnemonLaut50
There is nothing wrong with wood, it just isn't strong enough.
For small turbines you can use wood just fine, but small turbine means small energy production.
When you double the radius of the blades you quadruple the area swept by the blades and therefore you get four times the energy.
(It is simple math : _Area = pi × radius²_ :-)
On the other hand the materials needed for a generator scale linearly, so the bigger the turbine the better the economy.
The newest (and biggest) turbines right now produce north of 7 MW.
When you make the blades longer you run into bigger forces though
Remember the merry-go-round on the playground?
When you leaned away from the axis the strain on your arms got bigger.
The strain of a 70 m rotating blade is enormous and currently fiberglass is the only (cheap) material strong enough.
Fun fact: The top rotational speed is limited by the need for the tip of the blades to move well below the speed of sound, lest we'd have a continuous sonic boom from the wind turbines :-)
The speed of sound is just 340 m/s so 100 m blades have to spin less than twice per second because
_Circumference = 2 × pi × radius_
In practice the rotation speed is a lot slower as the real cap on rotation speed is the forces on the blades :-)
@@AnemonLaut50
🙂👍
Underline "other material".
Metals aren't strong enough or cheap enough :-)
Edit: A lot of metals "creep" under stress, just like caramel. Try tugging at a warm caramel ;-)
Long lived would be nice, but "easily recycled" would fit the bill too :-)
Vestas is working on a technology to seperate the resin from the glass fiber, allowing for true recycling. Siemens-gamesa is working on new materials for rotor blades that can be recycled more easily.
It's not vestas anymore.....and F### vestas
@@cquiroz420 you might want to use a bit more words to write a message that can be understood.
@@harenterberge2632 The Chinese bought out the American facilities. and F### vestas.
@@cquiroz420 that is rather unspecific. Vestas only sold one particular tower factory in Colorado. And why the hate?
this whole thing was a waste of time and materials
Every time someone brings up the problems with renewables as if they’re an insurmountable obstacle, a nuclear engineer dies inside.
Or outside, if that's where he happens to be 😛
It's rather annoying that people expect solutions to be perfect at the offset and if they aren't it's, "Oh well, this has some downsides so...let's give up."
@@e.turduckeny630 Well, of course renewables have issues. But nuclear is safe, clean, and reliable, and can easily replace fossil fuels for as long as it takes to make renewables practical.
@@jamesharding3459 Yes, sorry if my tone made it seem I was anti-nuclear. More that I've seen a a growing trend in some people I know that see the issues with renewables and immediately discount the idea of all renewables. As if anything other than a perfect solution means we should just give up and preserve the status queue of fossil fuels with no deviation. I want to scream, "Do you understand how innovation works?"
The issue I have with reusing them is that it’s just delaying the problem for someone else in the future. All those reuse projects won’t last forever and then what happens to them? They’re disposed of one bit of blade at a time which will be even more energy intensive.
The big idea with reusing is to also reduce. By repurposing something you take away the need to source that item with raw materials. Like if you made a play structure with the turbine blades that's replacing the need to cut down a tree to use lumber to create that structure. Expanding the lifetime of one item makes it so that there's less need to draw raw materials from the environment
I would think that most of these re-use projects are really trying to get people to think more about a circular economy in a creative way rather than offering a large-scale solution to this particular waste problem. The hope being that designers, engineers and planners will see re-use in action and can come up with better solutions in the future.
Using you reasoning then we shouldn’t make any kind of product? Because someday it will have to be disposed of. I think you are only looking at a narrow view of things. After initial investment, The fuel for wind is free. Same for solar.
Yes, delaying is what we need now.
repurposing doesn't mean we're not gonna be thinking about how to deal with them in the end but it buys us time to develop new processes and technologies to eventually deal with the waste the best way possible. Anything that doesn't need to be burnt now can potentially be disposed of much more efficiently and environmentally friendly in the future than we are capable of today.
BINGO! I was saying the same thing because RRR is great but eventually the reuse ends up having to be recycled.
I think both approaches have merit. The fact that the companies are willing to pay to shred and reuse the blades is great, and I think both ways are a hood start.
And shredding the blades is putting CO2 into the air
dem hood starts bussin man, shit's lit
Sometimes, paying to recycling is cheaper than paying to bury in landfills. People don't understand that some recycling is not exactly profitable to anyone.
"Until recently, wind turbine blades were nearly impossible to recycle." Guess what, burning them isn't recycling either.
i can help you burn your own trash. also, i can help your neighbor burn their trash.
Burning is the ultimate recycling, because you're reducing it to its component atoms, and returning them to the environment. It's essentially the same process that happens in a landfill, just much faster.
It is if your using them in a process that currently has to have a fuel combusted as part of the process - far better to use a waste product as fuel than extracting/mining/transporting new fuel sources - such as fossil fuels.
The result: a 27% reduction in CO2 emissions and a 13% reduction in water consumption. A single wind turbine blade that weighs 7 US tons recycled through this process enables the cement kiln to avoid consuming nearly 5 tons of coal, 2.7 tons of silica, 1.9 tons of limestone, and nearly a ton of additional mineral-based raw materials.
@@andrewday3206 but do companies actually do that? Because they can do this, and still burn the same about of fossil fuel as before.
This is a good truthful story, I wish everyone would watch it.
Seems like they could do just fine as sound barriers along freeways.
Freeways that are close enough to civilization that they need sound barriers are their own can of worms.
@@TheRealE.B. Most apartments and homes built next to freeways are for poor people and in my 6+ decades on this spinning rock it's quite apparent no one really gives a shyt about poor people, or else Ethiopia and other nations would have all the food and medicines they need and everyone in developed nations would also have affordable healthcare and access to food for their families.
A perfect part of a new border fence or wall. Dual use life.
Stupid idea
@@id10t98 Actual first world countries do care about this
None of the “recycling” options actually recycle, they merely extend the life of the product, passing the waste issue into the future and make people feel good now. 🤔
Yes, well the word recycle is used arbitrarily in these circles just like the words "clean" and "renewable". These words don't have meaning anymore because green energy idiots just throw them out to give themselves a warm fuzzy. In the end, the consequences must be paid all the same. They would rather bide time indulging one another in ignorance though, than actually face the fact that solar and wind are a waste of time and that nuclear is, was, and will always be our best energy solution.
isnt it better to reuse something than to create something new though?
With that logic you shouldn’t recycle plastic bottles because more will get made… 🤔
@@GeorgeRobson4 Not always. Recycling happens because people see the word and think, "oh that's good." In reality, some recycling processes are more consuming than producing new product. People lean toward recycling because they say at least there is less trash filling up the holes in the ground. If I had to pick between buried trash or greenhouse gases I'd say bury it. We need to put more research into biodegration.
While the future figures out the solution.
While I was working on a windmill farm (as an access / grade opporator) I have never thought of how recyclable would work. This video is cool
I wonder if the ground up blades can be used for insulation for buildings. Or if there is a way to strip the resin off the fiberglass and wood. I have heard that fiberglass boats used to have gas tanks made of fiberglass. Over time, the gasoline, a solvent, would break down the fiberglass and clog up the fuel lines. If the blade can be taken apart, then the materials can be used somewhere else.
Thanks for this, it shows clearly that no industry for producing energy is actually zero impact. Besides the turbine blades issue there's also the immense land use and need for certain materials needed for the renewable energy industry (like the neodimium for the super magnets).
As thousands of wind turbines and thousnds of sq miles for solar are required, the enviromental impact os such technologies is actually a global issue.
Not saying that we should not use them, but it is unrealistic to think that they would be provide all the energy we need alone. One for all, we still need to resolve the lack of energy storage capacity that is necessary to supply the grid when there is no sun nor wind.
If the aim is to stop the use of fossil fuels and achieve the net zero carbon emissions we should really re-think nuclear energy as the amount of material needed and the waste is relatively much smaller per energy unit produced, and it can produce 24/7.
You are missing a huge component to your statement here. Reducing overall consumption should be a global target. Instead of generating thousands od turbines to meet unrealistic and unsustainable consumption rates only makes the problem worse. Replacing a turbine every 20 years is also nothing compared to fossile fuels.
and they are manufactured w/ fossil fuel, shipped by fossil fuel trucks, have 100’s of gallons of oil in gears, & balsa wood means trees cut.
Then there’s the bird kills.
So wind and solar are already the most expensive sources of energy by far, and then we have the incredible problems of disposing thousands of tons of retired equipment that only lasts 20 years or less. None of this krap would have ever gotten anywhere unless governments had spent YOUR hard-earned tax dollars on it.
We should NOT use them.
@@goosty17 Wind Turbines last for 50+ Years.
Has anyone counted the energy consumed during the lifecycle start to end against the yield the turbine made?
Why? If we did that it wouldn't fit the leftist diatribe of saving the planet.
Yes, lots of times. You can google it using 'net lifecycle carbon per kWh' for various sources of electricity.
Wind is about one hundredth the amount per kWh that coal produces, and about a fiftieth of that produced by natural gas per kWh.
It's also a quarter of solar. It's about the same as nuclear, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, depending on the specific type of reactor and location of the wind turbines.
@@jhhggygghchdlfyggxzgdltfugc I just tried that and got millions of search results, each was just a clone of the same source and when find another fresh source doesn't corroborate inconsistent and don't seem to include the full life cycle cradle-to-grave carbon used like mining for msterials construction maintenance etc etc etc
None of the enviro math is accurate and it usually comes from some scam source.
@@jagmarc The first result I clicked on had about 20 links in the references to peer reviewed papers, respected international journals, ngos etc.
Try using a different search engine, maybe your results are being influenced by the sort of thing you usually search for. (Luddite nonsense and for-profit anti science propaganda, apparently.)
Slight variations in results are normal and expected; that can't explain 100x difference in the figures from multiple sources.
There's no credible science supporting the speculation that wind is worse than fossils for carbon. That's entirely made up, with no supporting evidence.
I used to build them. Most people don't see that you end up with a 40ft dumpster of chemical-laden garbage to make every blade (each turbine used 3 blades). Our blades were 100% fiberglass and then coated with paint, no balsa wood.
And somehow it's still one of the least polluting forms of energy. Shit's fuckin' wild.
Sounds like an inefficient process.
At least balsa is organic and can decompose.
@@pirojfmifhghek566 It actually isn't. Look into it further than greenies do. Wind power is trash.
@@stevenwhite3.1415 Fiberglass is expensive for a reason. There is loads of waste and lots of nasty chemicals involved. However, it has a very high strength to weight ratio which is critical in these sorts of applications. The heavier the blades, the higher the wind forces needed to start moving ergo they can't operate as well at lower wind speeds. It also limits performance at high speeds since heavier blades produce more force for a given rotation speed, capping the maximum speed they can rotate before breaking.
to make, install, maintain one blade cost about 154,000 bucks. A windmill needs 80 gallons of oil, which needs to be changed yearly. so much for "green" energy
Figure out how much power they produce over their life span then figure out how much power it takes to use the machinery to manufacture, delivery , install, uninstall, bury, dig back up , delivery to recycling location, grind up, and deliver to concrete manufacturer to use
Wind turbines are a scam. People have no idea how much energy and polution is used to make them, tramsport them, assembly and to keep them running. Also the hundreds of birds that every windturbine kill in it lifetime. And every 20 years you have to build new ones.
@@domitravel795 not to mention the efficiency for a lot of those. We have at least a dozen in the area that barely run at all, two of which collapsed due to production issues (Germany). But boosting green energy - in whatever form that may be, is a must to reduce our ecological footprint
@@MrSiimon93 Well, no wind or too much wind and the windturbines will not work.
Doesn't sound vary green
Domi Travel Actually scientists have already calculated the carbon Footprint for different types of renewable energy production. And wind is only marginally worse then nuclear at around 11g CO2 / kWh (and theres still room for improvement with bigger&more efficient turbines) . Compare that to 450g / kWh for Natural Gas and more than twice that for coal.
And they do kill birds. An estimated 500,000 a year in the US. Sure, that is alot of birds. But at the same time up to 1.5bn Birds are killed by cats and windows each year....
So yeah, Wind turbines aren't perfect. But they sure as hell are way better then fossil fuels.
The fact that it's not much of an impact compared to other industrial processes is ridiculous statement. It has ADDED to the waste regardless of it being an eighth of the discarded plastic... it has ADDED to the problem.
They act like cement making up 8% of greenhouse emissions is such a big deal but then tell you that 12+% of plastic waste is actually a small number.
@@Roukle eh the turbine blades are resin fiberglass and wood with minimal amounts of plastic involved, for the amount of energy produced outside of geothermal and hydro I'm fairly certain you create more waste of actual plastics and materials just for transportation of resources, coal power plants require cars to drive the coal there those tires are waste as well as the gas to transport it on top of the coal emissions, nuclear probably creates just as much in plastic waste alone as the entire wind turbine farm to produce equivalent power being scrapped just because of radioactive contamination,
It's not that I don't understand your viewpoint but outside of entirely removing the entire power grid and everyone going to hunter-gatherers and building their tools from wood and Stone (which still destroy the environment and create waste we can find waste from civilizations 20,000 years ago from archeology sites) everything is going to be just a lower amount of waste the fight isn't to get rid of a waste entirely that's impossible it's to get it to a state in which it can decompose or be reabsorbed by the environment faster than we produce, at some point regardless of how long lived the waste we create is the Earth is still going to naturally bury it and pull it underground with the plates (coal and oil are technically waste from millions of years ago they got pulled underground and decomposed) the Earth can deal with almost anything eventually
“One man’s ‘junk’ is another man’s treasure” I don’t think that’s how the cliché goes 😅😂😂
I find it hard to throw anything away unless it takes up needed space. I have kept stuff for over 20 years and found a use for it
@ 🤡
Certainly true for some men! :D
@@theobserver9131 🤷🏻♂️😅
In a cost benefit analysis the whole wind turbine energy project is a huge waste of money that could be better used to work on nuclear solutions that don't rely on when or where the wind blows.
1:09 those guys don’t have respirators and they’re cutting dirty old fiberglass blades? That seems like an absolutely awful idea.
is a wet cut
I’m all about reducing waste through creative ways, but old blades are ample and the odd shape limits what we can use them for.
dont limit the human imagination to a handful of engineers, and some middle management.
there are better ways.
@@Plethorality we have to figure this out so that all those that virtue signaled about wind being clean energy won't look like dipsh*ts
@@davidwhitten3596 well that is one motivation, i suppose, but the willingness to stop the destruction of this planet is not virtue signalling, its just a virtue.
Whoever makes them should have to recycle them
You cant recycle them.
when you by a car battery do you like that extra charge?
your mom needs to recycle you
We would have none of them then.
Whoever buys them should have to pay to get rid of them. It's a rounding error compared to the cost of buying them. Each blade costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and only $3000 to get rid of it.
And this is only one part so if you add solar and batteries from all sectors it means the problems grows bigger in how to recycle or dispose of these "Green Energy".
A huge problem with going green is everyone says “let’s turn product A into product B” when the solution should be keep making product A, but make it recyclable.
Like most plastics.
You have a plastic cup that gets recycled into plastic beads again, which get turned back into a cup or whatever. Ez
To be fair, most of the material by weight (80%) is steel which is 100% recyclable. But ideally we need to expand research and make blades fully able to be recycled or repurposed.
I think using it for fencing is the best option as they are made to withstand tough conditions.
to burn these blades after a life spent harnessing wind energy so we don’t have to burn fossil fuels just makes me mad
w3ll that is capitalism.. always has to face the harsh truth
Wdym “that’s capitalism”? Like a communist country doesn’t need cement?
It probably still is cleaner tho but a stupid way to recycle. They could have made bricks with the added fibers that would have great insulation conserving energy even after the turbine finished it's lifecycle just sad to see the easiest solution of burning succeed
This exposes green energy has bullshit
@@Truthpatriot62 how? All I see is an energy company being cheap but not the technology failing. Like how is coal better when you have to burn 1ton of coal for around 8,141MWh of energy compared to a turbines average yearly output of around 6000MWh annually and you can still burn the waste instead of coal? Sure I would like it to be recycled properly but unless the government mandates it which it does in some parts of the globe companies won't have an incentive to.
This is like a comedy short, Well done Insider Business.
"Green energy" isn't always. People look at the end product. But they don't look at the before, and they don't look at the after. They look at the product itself as it is right off the assembly line.
While true, there are pluses in addition to the minuses. This is a copy of my recent comment:
On the plus side, 85% of windmills can be reused or recycled. The blades are only 15% of the deal. If we can figure out eco-safe ways to recycle/reused blades, we’ll have a completely renewable form of energy. Another plus: it’s way quicker to erect windmill farms than it is to construct nuclear power plants, and the windmills will produce the same or more energy than nuclear plants.
@@MusicfromMarrs nuclear capacity factor 92.5% and wind capacity factor is 35.4%, you do the math. Not here to start a debate or argument just debunking misinformation so others aren’t misinformed. Yes I see the pros you bring up like time to construct but you’re way off actually comparing the energy.
@@conbro0985 it may take more land to produce the same energy, but wind goes up in unpopulated plains areas, or in the ocean. It’s also safer. There’s a link in my next comment; I do t know if it will stay.
@@MusicfromMarrs "and the windmills will produce the same or more energy than nuclear plants." - but not within nearly the same amount of space - by like a factor of thousands - how much do you want to dedicate of the different animal habitats to spinning blades and noise pollution?
@@MusicfromMarrs No one has calculated the effects of erecting all of those towers in the ocean on the currents, environment or marine life. Plus those plains are unpopulated by people - but not animals.
I love seeing the industries in the Midwest being highlighted. There is so much potential for these states to boost the nations economy. Once we stop hating on the coasts, south, and Midwest, we will start to really be great!
It is a bad approach tho sadly since other ways like brickmaking would be better creating insulated bricks similar to hempcrete.
@@carlosesteban5601 Don't know anything about bricks, but it sounds like you do. I'd like to comment and like a video of you revolutionizing industry. I'm all about looking to future success
@UCfPgv0aY-kw0umSSbXmHUKg That's unfortunate. There are problems everywhere, some just get highlighted more then others. There is a reason the computer/phone/tablet and app or internet you're using came from an amazing idea. We just need the input of all of us not the separation.
Unfortunately it is rather difficult to acquire turbine blades where I live because I would really like to test my theory or make a different project like a shed or something out of them since it seems like the company is paying to have them disposed it would be a great free project. I will ask around maybe I can get access to it through my university.
It’s funny how they’d rather use a bus as a unit of measurement than meters.
Yeah. Those damn americans. Using feet to measure things. And... Buses? Football yards???
becouse it gives a reference of length... a comparison to something you see daily
@@federicoxxx.jjjh.f2sss348 I stopped reading after seeing you misspelling because.
@@AA66999 Clearly a typo you tool.
@@AA66999 if a single letter stops you from reading that's your problem... English isn't even my first language
So much for saving the planet
I've seen a bicycle street shed made of a blade cut in half...it was really cool looking!
Agree! Bus stops could also be an option.
4:31
@@youxkio Except all plastics and fiberglass degrade from the sun's UV rays, it tends to "chalk" and then get very brittle and crack unless completely protected by a paint or something.
You def don't want a blade repurposed bus shelter to suddenly crack apart because some wind hit it during a storm while people sheltered under it
@@HobbyOrganist Now that explains the insisting explanation of using those blades for cement.... Yes, I guess it may be the only solution for those blades; very difficult to find a circular solution for them.
@@youxkio Yes, and when you think about it ask WHY they have to replace those blades in the first place, unlike a car engine or light bulb, the blades don't just "wear out" what happens is they get damaged- they are out there is the direct sun all day long, and like the paint on your car, dashboard, plastic trim etc- they get UV damage as well as I believe they start chemically breaking down.
Look at those "Rubbermaid" plastic garbage/wastepaper basket cans and laundry baskets, notice how nice, strong and flexible they are when NEW, but ever notice how once they get some age on them the plastic CRACKS?
Why would formerly flexible plastic get brittle and crack like that even tho those two items are typically not out in the sun? the answer on those (and that hich is in the sun too) is that the plastic itself is chemically degrading.
Add the chemical degregation to the constant UV exposure and you get cracking and structural weakness, THAT is the main reason the blades have to be replaced.
Even if they were metal, there's corrosion or metal fatigue to contend with- bending and flexing causes metal fatigue, its a main reason why jets have to be scrapped after a certain number of flights/hours- the wings and body get metal fatigue
Another reason they don’t get recycled is because “it costs too much” :/
Yes, fiberglass is almost impossible to recycle.
How much energy might be used in the recycling process? Is the cost benefit even worth it in the end?
@@THEGOOD360 I don't have numbers, but probably a lot. As of today, it's much cheaper to leave the blades in landfills. Not sure which cost benefit you're referring to.
@@OggeViking you know it’s the same reason why most plastic are not recycled because making a new plastic bottle is cheaper than recycling
Yet another cost negative solution for renewable energy. If we really care about emissions, we ought to just go Nuclear, with perhaps a natural gas or hydro backup/regulator for rapid variations.
I agree with this. Endless rational discussions available on the internet why this may be a good idea.... the discussions against it are based on fear without knowing much. Fukushima, Chernobyl etc. Scared people. They were both preventable. And we have better technology. As long as no government burocrats or crazed psychopathic oligarchs prevent it, we can do it. But no, that would make people too free.
Maybe in 10 years after we remove psychopaths from gaming us
BTW. Nice mustache, suit, hair combo bro
At 04:00, perfect solution to the border crisis - use the turbine blades to build the wall. Brilliant!
Turning them into architectural elements in the facades or roofs would be a cool reuse of these parts
So littering...I bet your a fan of "modern art" installations that are twisted amalgamations of metal that don't represent any aspect of the natural world. "Art" that doesn't represent nature or God's creation isn't art. It's garbage.
How many can we use?
New roofing material imo. Good way to recycle the blades
I like it. Cut them into tiles, paint them in bright happy colors... boom!
@@theobserver9131 right on 👍
The fundamental problem is with the turbine blades themselves. The fiberglass material itself is not durable as an airfoil. It de-laminates due to weathering effects and friction with the air. Wind turbines in it's current state will not be viable until a lightweight durable material is found.
especially in west Texas...it's a brutal environment fot those...and kills migrating birds by the thousands.
Like carbon fiber,,, but nooo, because it says carbon and we can't have that,,, geeeezzz the stupidity grows hourly now
Talk about this when you are an actual expert
There are such materials, they’re just more expensive
There should be a requirement that before anything is created, there should be a complete recycling plan that needs to be signed off on.
Other countries have done that.
Nice story. However, you didn’t mention there is a huge amount of chemicals (Resin, glue, gel coat, etc.), glass, and plastics waste associated with the manufacturing of large wind turbine blades. Therefore, baring the plastic, those same materials are in the blades when they are to be scraped and recycled. These materials are very hazardous or dangerous for humans to handle. Let’s find ways to design, manufacture and dispose of these critical clean energy resources with clean and safe materials. Just saying…the same manufacturing materials and processes from twenty five years ago (Just making them longer) is not innovation. If we can land and reuse a rocket stage we can make clean energy with clean safe materials.
I didn't have to scroll far to find what I was thinking.
There are So Many Issues people overlook in this current Green Regulation's nightmare.
What I think is being missed is the driving force behind all the fears with Carbon Footprint talk is a very small elite group of people who don't want society to be able to function on any level.
Kids are being weaponized to carry the message, and they are completely unaware that they are being used to destroy their own lives.
Georgia Guide Stones declaration....
Bill Gates "P = people" equation.
Psalm 19:1
John 14:6
And for now, just store them. Leave them lying around until we figure out what to do with them. Who cares if they sit in a landfill?
@@jaredf6205 hey Jared I understand your thinking. Underneath all this are extremely clean Coal Fired Systems that produce Jobs, Energy, more Jobs. Same with Oil, Propane and other natural resources in abundance that Green Demoniacs have convinced kids and their adoring parents are too filthy to run and are killing Polar Bears ad infinitum.....
We have allowed people to Govern us that Do Not have anyone's best interest in mind but their own desire to own the whole thing.
I don't know where you live, I travel between Colorado and The Midwest.
If you have never witnessed the "Wind Farm" in action, I became painfully aware of so much for so little. The;
Global warming
To Sustainable development train is one of the greatest scams in the History of man.
Do you have a Big yard?
Yes we can it just won't be profitable for current business or industries. Make Tesla turbines, Howard Johnson's magnetic motor, Stan Meyer's water engine, etc. There are ways but will never happen in today's society.
totally false . there is nothing hazardous in the fiberglass blades . you know nothing about manufacturing fiberglass blades.
Just because the percentage of total plastic waste produced would only be less than 10%, doesn't mean it's a good thing. That's the same logic as "why start recycling now if millions others don't?"
I think it was more or less meant to say while wind turbines produce waste the overall positive is far ahead of most other. Still poorly phrased and easy to interprete which way one would like.
Because recycling does nothing. Huge waste of time.
@@tmiranda1379 like the 95% of roads being recycled to make the same quality or superior new roads if done right it brings costs down while performing the same or better dunno how that's a scam.
@@carlosesteban5601 Good point.
Not really no, it is about effciency or significance of focus on an issue
The mantra is "reduce, reuse, recycle" in that order for a reason. Reusing will nearly always be better than recycling. It would take a non-profit to find enough uses to reuse nearly all of them for other projects, but it could be done
Brilliantly put, I was thinking exactly the same thing
A non profit is a terrible option to figure this out. They come up with wild ideas that are expensive and impractical. A for profit company would find the most efficient way to do this.
This wasn't true recycling. They were reusing them as a fuel. They weren't recycling them into more wind turbines. I feel if its actually greener fuel there are more opportunities to use it that way than building bridges or any other contrived project
I would cut the blades into segments of uniform size and use them as structural supports for low cost utility buildings. This would seem to be a decent way to repurpose them and get extra decades of use out of them without having to grind them up.
This problem, and the problem with most other toxic waste, needs to be addressed by congressional federal law which would disallow the manufacturer to produce these products UNLESS they are designed with 90% recycle materials. If left to the MBA's in a company like GE, they will ALWAYS take the cheapest way, which is to say, it's someone else's problem. Namely, every living person on this earth.
This is not toxic waste.
We needed such law for doing something about dead horses left lying on the streets 120 years ago, instead the companies owning horse drawn carriages started making up lies about how automobiles are too dangerous and there should be a man waving a red flag walking in front of any car. We needed such law for pollution caused by fossil fuels 70 years ago, but the oil and coal companies lobbied against it.
Unlike corpses spreading disease and pollution killing people and changing the climate, both of which were clearly known to be true by the FF industry, being made of materials that are little hard to recycle is a very minor issue. The only reason why people have spent 20 years trying to make it seem like windmills and solar panels are toxic and we should ban them because they aren't made of unicorn farts and pure magic like oil is, is that the lobbyists trying to oppose renewable energy couldn't find any real problems so they had to make shit up.
@@skunkjobb You say that like someone who's never had to get up close and personal with actual fiberglass...
I'm surprised its not mixed into concrete or some other composite to make building materials
Yeh fam.. We can recycle them into oil to burn!!
you cant break apart the fibers in a way that makes them as strong as fiber concrete.
@@davidanalyst671 Can't? What does that word mean? :D
What a shock. Renewable energy causes waste.
Problem?
And the alternative being? Unlike you people who work in renewables are looking for ways to solve problems and this is just another problem that needs to be looked at
@@h3llb3nd4 live like the amish
@@davidho1258 Out of the box thinking, I like it
There is nothing bad in creating waste as a by-product of something thats how things work, it only becomes a problem if its not tackled in due time.
And using green energy to expand green energy is way better than using fossile fules to expand green energy.
What about heating the epoxy and repressing it into rebar or profiles? It should keep the fiber structure.
I was fishing in a river with my buddy and a train went by with a few hundred blades on it. it was so bizarre how large the blades were
Nice name.
What they need to do is turn the shredder sidways and feeed a whole blade in on a conveyor line.
Yah it took me about 4 seconds to realize that too.
@@kregadeth5562 Thats assuming the system will work the same horizontally, may not clear debris as efficiently or something like that, but from the outset, it looks like a plausible solution to improve the efficiency of the process.
Feel like the trick is to separate the balsa wood and fiberglass sections cost effectively.
Then its just mostly normal recycling/reusing the components from there.
No because fiberglass and used balsa wood are not normally recycled.
@@gholland5840 the question isn't whether or not they are recycled, it's whether or not they _can_ be recycled.
just shread it up and throw it in thecemeny.. haha problem solved
Did you note that none of the uses those de-commissioned and cut-up blades are put to involves any real load-bearing? I think that's due to structural weakening by de-lamination (flexing) and pitting (birdstrikes, hail, dust, salt particles). If so, there really isn't much use for them. A boat hull for instance really mustn't have holes or cracks in it. A bridge should be short and not very far off the ground.
Yep, but for fencing the material is perfect. Or for walking paths, even for roofing. Just cut the appropriate length and width. I am sure that farmers will appreciate these free planks. But everybody is for profit, and the cost of disposal was not considered from the beginning. So if they cut into planks, then they want profit, and obviously farmers will prefer traditional material that do not come with inerrant issues of as recycled material.
Use microwave assisted pyrolysis to decompose, into oils/solvents. The epoxy and balsa wood transforms easily. The fiberglass will be cleaned, sorted and can be reused.
i don't know what pyrolysis is but the word "microwave" makes me think this could be an energy intensive process
@@t3hpwninat0r On the contrary. Microwaves are likely the most efficient way to strip off the hydrocarbon based material (epoxy) also with uniform energi distribution meaning predictable fractions. The key is the dielectric properties of the material. Hydrocarbons react immediately. The glass fiber is inert and absorb nothing. Exoterm decomposition will heat it all, unevenly thus higher energy consumption.
Pyrolysis: decomposition brought about by high temperatures.
Cut them up and make shingles out of them. Probably last longer than asphalt shingles.
that is actually not a bad idea slice em up and sell em as dirt cheap shingles
@@arnearne12345 or expensive shingles as theyre green, environment friendly (recycled), and reduce carbon foot print to make new shingles.........
No, they would be too durable as shingles.
Solar panels also have recycling problems, but their life span is twice that of these blades. Solar panel efficiency keeps rising. Efficiency is around 23% now, but 39% has been demonstrated. That's lower than wind which is at about 50%. There's a lot to consider, and we need regulations that force related businesses to take into account the entire life-cycle of the system, not just the part that looks best to the stock market.
Start with plastic water bottles people buy by the hundreds at Costco for $3 for 40 a pack.
What solar panel lasts 40 years???
@@sufferr2914 , yea I used to sell solar just a couple yrs ago. Unless they just made them long lasting in the past year, I haven't heard of any...
Solar power and wind have different niches in the power grid. Solar power only generates power during the day at mostly at non peak hours. Wind can generate power anytime of the day or night as long as there is a high enough wind speed. What we need most is lower cost environmentaly friendly energy storage solutions. With a proper efficient and low cost energy storage solution it will become cost prohibitive to use fossil fuels.
Then we should also force companies that use fossil fuels for power generation to account their 'life cycle' which includes carbon dioxide emissions and related problems caused due to climate change.
Nothing on this earth can make the wind turbine industry viable.
The reuse guys fail to recognize that their premise has limits. There's only so many things that can be built with the blade structures. Grinding it up for fuel, or as an additive may be the best solution.
cant they just turn it intoa building material like sawdust?
Heated and mixed with asphalt for roads etc
To be fair there is a lot of things that we could use them for still. Lots of highways without sound barriers or bus stops without shelters. Honestly they would make a good wind barrier for your house if you live in the country with not a lot of trees around.
@@xursed7990 I agree and I think the people in charge have a closed mind about how to reuse the discards.
And why not find a way to separate the balsa wood from the fiberglass?
I thought that they would grind up the fiberglass and put it INTO concrete. Fiberglass reinforced concrete is already a thing, just use recycled fiberglass.
I don’t know, maybe the fibers aren’t good after grinding.
fiberglass loses its 'fiber' properties once ground
It has wood in it. Wood absorbs moisture and would expand in the concrete. Next Question.
Once you grind it, the fiber strands are broken. So they won't reinforce as well as you think.
Actually the fiberglass remains in the cement and acts as a filler replacing sand.
Maybe cut the flat sections of the blades into long boards and then put a paint, coating, and/or a sealant to further weather protect them add some color and use it for housing and barn siding.
This really easy to resolve if you stop putting up these obsolete wind turbines and start putting up the more efficient wind turbines. The improved wind turbines can be made from recyclable materials, won't kill birds, last much longer, cost less, etc. For example, the windspire doesn't have blades that stick way out since it is vertical and has a slim footprint of 4 feet.
Bladeless wind generators do not generate much power.