The Challenges of Recycling Wind Turbine Blades
Until a few years ago, it was common for old wind turbine blades to be discarded in local landfills. That’s not happening much anymore as landfills require them to be ground up “into really tiny pieces,” which is expensive.
If you’re wondering where those huge wind turbine blades go after they age and can no longer generate electricity in about 20 to 30 years, there’s a good chance that you’re not the only one wondering.
No longer.
These landfills either won’t accept the fiberglass blades or won’t return phone calls to discuss their policies. Utility companies won’t explain the working relationship with landfills and the extent of their recycler efforts.
For sure, some blades are are being sawed into furniture as one company has proposed or ground up and recycled for other fiberglass uses. The American Clean Power Association has suggested that one recycler may be blending the fiberglass with concrete as a steely reinforcer.
Recycling the blades is top of mind for the renewable energy industry. Even the federal government’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory based in Golden, Colorado, is studying the issue.
Top research players include Canvus, located in Avon, Ohio, which turns decommissioned wind turbine blades into park benches, picnic tables and other creative furniture for public spaces.
Casper-based ReviablEnergy has come up with what it calls an “end-of-life wind energy services” program for blade recycling. And Vestas-American Wind Technology Inc., which has an innovative blade “circulatory” program, according to Matt Coleman, a Vestas spokesman in Portland, Oregon.
GE Vernova spokeswoman Treacy Reynolds declined to comment on her company’s blade recycling program. GE is a leading maker of wind turbines and has a strong presence in the blade market.
When they’re not recycled or put in local landfills, discarded turbine blades are stored on plots of land that some have dubbed “turbine graveyards.”
But how strong is the relationship between these recyclers and electric utilities?
A spokesman for the billionaire Warren Buffett-owned utility giant PacifiCorp, which oversees Rocky Mountain Power in Wyoming, couldn’t immediately comment on where its old blades go.
Neither could a spokeswoman with Black Hills Energy, which had a blade damaged by a lightning strike July 17 at the Corriedale wind farm west of Cheyenne, immediately comment on where the blades are disposed of.
Cindie Langston, the solid waste division manager for the city of Casper, said that the Oil City will accept wind turbines for disposal, but “no wind farm operators have called us for disposal services” in a few years.
To date, the Casper landfill has received wind turbine blades from wind farms in Glenrock, Arlington, Saratoga and Hanna with 1,124 turbines buried there as of Sept. 16, 2020. The landfill has received a little over $602,000 for taking the blades.
No blades have arrived since mid-2021, Langston said.
If a wind farm operator wants to dump blades in Casper’s landfill, it can’t just roll them into the dump, she said. Each 120-foot-long blade must be cut into three equal sections and delivered by a semitrailer.
Wind farms repurpose and recycle 90% of all the materials that go into a wind turbine, but the only material not recyclable is the fiberglass, which includes the blades and motor housing components, Langston said.
“We don’t accept them anymore,” said Ryan Bechtold, supervisor of the Sioux Falls Regional Landfill in South Dakota.
“I’m pretty sure they have to be shredded into really tiny pieces before we’d accept them,” he said. “But no one does this, so they don’t bring any blades to us. That is the requirement. They can’t meet the requirement, so they don’t bring them to us.”
He explained that new rules for his landfill requires that wind farm owners “grind the blades into mulch.”
Bechtold said that he really doesn’t know where the blades go now.
After the Sioux City landfill conducted a study on the blades, it found problems with compaction of the dirt and shards of the blades.
“We cut up maybe twelve into 30-foot sections, but the disposal of the blades never advanced beyond the pilot program,” said Bechtold of the 18 or 19 that eventually made it into his city’s dump.
“No one meets our criteria today, so no one brings them to us. They must be ground up in 4-inch chunks or less,” he said. “That is cost-prohibitive to do. From the landfill side of things, we won’t take them because they eat up so much space.”
Bechtold said he hasn’t been contacted in two years from wind farm operators on disposal of old blades.
“I think they’re just getting stored somewhere,” he said. “The last trade conference I attended, there was some talk about a new technology to break them down, but I don’t know who is doing that.”
A supervisor for the Lake Mills, Iowa, landfill referred questions on its shifting policy on wind turbine blade disposal to Julie Ketchum, a spokeswoman with Waste Management Inc., an $84 billion waste services company based in Houston, Texas.
Ketchum did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment on whether the Lake Mills landfill continues to accept retired wind turbine blades.
“Even if landfilled, turbine blades represent an exceedingly small portion of the waste going into U.S. landfills and are among the least environmentally harmful materials entering them,” said Jason Ryan, a spokesman with the American Clean Power Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group for renewable energy.
If you ask Amy DiSibio, who summers on the island of Nantucket, about where wind blades are getting dumped, she’ll tell you that no one seems to care.
She’s been picking up scraps of blade debris along the shoreline of Nantucket since last month when a 351-foot-long offshore wind turbine dropped into the sea. The chards of fiberglass and other “car-sized” pieces of debris have washed up on beaches all along the New England coastline.
The collapse of the turbine and blades happened at Vineyard Wind, the nation’s largest offshore wind project, after it began delivering power this year to the electrical grid in the northeast U.S.
The accident south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, involved the country’s largest offshore wind farm.
“The blade blew up,” DiSibio told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s been a mess here and we aren’t getting a lot of answers.”
DiSibio, who is a member of ACK for Whales, is helping to lead some efforts to regulate the disposal of the old blades as well as get answers on what happened with the offshore wind turbine explosion.
ACK, which is an activist group for North Atlantic Right Whales, is challenging the Vineyard wind project on a number of issues, including endangerment of whales and other marine life.
The pieces were found in Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and Montauk, a village at the east end of the Long Island peninsula in New York.
“We know a big piece fell to the bottom of the sea,” DiSibio said. “Some of the adhesive and fiberglass comes off in your hands, and the glittery small stuff is eaten by fish and ingested.”
She is mystified by where the blade pieces and wind turbine parts have been taken for disposal.
“They’ve hauled six or seven truckloads of debris out of here,” she said. “Where does it go?”
A Growing Challenge
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has reported that wind energy is the fastest-growing and lowest-cost source of electricity in the United States, showcasing its dominance in the energy sector. The U.S. offshore wind energy pipeline is projected to produce 52,687 MW of power by 2024, a 15% increase from 2022. This growth is expected to continue as the U.S. strives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, wind turbines pose a circular issue for sustainability due to their difficult recycling process. The materials that contribute to their durability, such as steel, copper, glass, carbon fiber, and resin composites, make them difficult to recycle and contribute to environmental concerns.
Innovative Solutions
Despite the challenges, companies are working towards solutions to the recycling dilemma. Taiwanese company Swancor is developing recyclable and reusable thermosetting epoxy resin EzCiclo, which can be recycled and degraded via the company’s CleaVER technology. Siemens Gamesa has incorporated Swancor’s resin tech into their RecyclableBlade program, aiming to create fully recyclable wind turbines by 2040.
Global Efforts
China has also taken significant steps in recycling used wind turbines and transforming them into valuable products. Steel makes up the majority of used wind power equipment, while fiberglass, copper, aluminum, and rare earth elements are also present. The Eling Wind Farm in Guangdong Province has replaced old turbines, increasing power generation efficiency and saving land. Key components from the retired generators are repurposed for other industries, and scrap metals are recycled into building materials.
Addressing the Challenge of Fiberglass Blades
A company in Shandong Province has developed a hydraulic cutting robot to address the challenge of recycling fiberglass blades. The robot allows for efficient and automated cutting, addressing dust concerns. Another company in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region has successfully recycled wind turbine blades into composite pallets and building templates, offering durable and weather-resistant products.
Repurposing and Reusing Wind Turbines
While recycling remains a challenge, companies like Rockwind are exploring alternative approaches. Rockwind, a wind turbine refurbishing firm, focuses on repurposing and reusing mid-sized, standalone wind turbines. They collect decommissioned turbines and refurbish them for use in distributed energy applications. This model not only extends the lifespan of turbines but also eliminates the costly and environmentally harmful recycling process. By repurposing turbines, Rockwind aims to make wind energy more affordable and bring clean energy to marginalized communities.
A Collaborative Effort for a Sustainable Future
The wind energy industry faces the challenge of responsibly managing end-of-life wind turbines, but innovative solutions are emerging. Through advancements in recycling technologies and repurposing efforts, the industry is taking steps towards a sustainable future for wind energy, ensuring its continued role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting a cleaner planet.
