On Sunday, The Independent Sentinel posted an article about what happens to windmills when they wear out.
The article reports:
Snopes says it is true that there is a landfill in Casper, Wyoming, that does accept decommissioned and damaged wind turbine blades and motors, both of which are not recyclable. However, it is important to highlight that up to 90% of a wind turbine is recyclable. That one-tenth of a windmill is not recyclable does not necessarily negate its overall green energy production over the course of its 20- to 25.
Snopes has a way of twisting reality.
The blades have to be buried.
Burying the blades is not as easy as it sounds.
The article reports:
A wind turbine’s blades can be longer than a Boeing 747 wing, so at the end of their lifespan, they can’t just be hauled away. First, you need to saw through the lissome fiberglass using a diamond-encrusted industrial saw to create three pieces small enough to be strapped to a tractor-trailer.
The municipal landfill in Casper, Wyoming, is the final resting place of 870 blades whose days making renewable energy have come to an end. The severed fragments look like bleached whale bones, says Bloomberg writer Chris Martin.
Currently, there are no plans to dispose of the plates in an environmentally friendly way.
…The Casper regional landfill will accept 1000 of these blades and then they’ll shut it down.
If saving the environment is truly the goal of green energy, we are on the wrong road and need to turn around quickly.