What should Texas do with its old wind turbine blades? By Sabra Ayres Texas
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SWEETWATER, Texas This west Texas city greets its visitors with a huge wind turbine blade with the words “Welcome to Sweetwater. Wind Energy Capital of North America” painted across the 160-foot structure.
What You Need To Know
Texas produces more wind energy than any other U.S. state.
While wind-generated energy is environmentally friendly, decommissioned wind turbine blades are difficult to dispose of, any thousands have piled up in landfills
New technology is being created to recycle the blades, including hundreds of blades stored in fields in Sweetwater, Texas
What should Texas do with its old wind turbine blades? By Sabra Ayres Texas
SHARE
SWEETWATER, Texas This west Texas city greets its visitors with a huge wind turbine blade with the words “Welcome to Sweetwater. Wind Energy Capital of North America” painted across the 160-foot structure.
What You Need To Know
Texas produces more wind energy than any other U.S. state.
While wind-generated energy is environmentally friendly, decommissioned wind turbine blades are difficult to dispose of, any thousands have piled up in landfills
New technology is being created to recycle the blades, including hundreds of blades stored in fields in Sweetwater, Texas
Solving the Problem with Wind Turbine Blade Disposal
Image Credit: Anton Foltin/Shutterstock.com
About 85% of all wind turbine components can be recycled or reused, except for the turbine blades. As a result, most turbine blades that reach the end of their lifespan are left to accumulate in landfills throughout the world.
A Brief History of Wind Energy
Historic records indicate that people have been using the energy generated by wind since 9
th century BC in Persia, during which sails were used to grind grains and obtain water from nearby windy areas.
The first windmill that was developed to officially generate electricity occurred in 1887 when James Blyth of Scotland constructed a windmill with cloth turbines to power his home.
February 8, 2021
Toxic scrap: Wind and solarâs not-so-green flipside
Photovoltaic panels and wind turbines are green technologies â but not in terms of waste disposal. Both are difficult to break down in an environmentally sound way, leaving business and technical specialists demanding a solution.
WIND turbines â and their cousins, solar panels â maybe green energy creators but both wind turbines and photovoltaic modules are tough to break down, and nor can they readily be recycled.
Disposal options are too expensive and require far more resources than can be gained by either reuse or sustainable scrapping â at least with current technology.
That leaves the question of what is then to be done with the tens of thousands of wind turbines and solar panels that have served their full lifecycle and must be replaced, and which will only grow in number as the world moves away from fossil fuels.
What to do With a “Tidal Wave” of Texas Wind Turbine Blades
The wind energy industry is struggling to find sustainable solutions for fast-accumulating piles of dead wind turbine blades. So far, all the options come with an environmental price.
A wind turbine farm in Texas. Egor Shitikov
The wind energy industry is struggling to find sustainable solutions for fast-accumulating piles of dead wind turbine blades. So far, all the options come with an environmental price.
A wind turbine farm in Texas. Egor Shitikov
Katie Hill
Jan 28, 2021, 8:00 am CST
Towns the size of Sweetwater normally don’t need many graveyards. The rural community of about 11,000 people is located in the impossibly flat plains west of Abilene and is best known for the 2,000 wind turbines that surround the area. More wind energy is produced in Nolan County than almost anywhere else on the planet, but since this place has given birth to such a staggering number of turbines, it now accommodates more than i