LOOK UP – WAY UP
The question is how renewable are the renewables?
HOW LONG DO WIND TURBINES LAST?
Good question. The best estimates and averages are that wind turbines last 30 years.
Ten Mile Lagoon, west of Esperance, Western Australia was the first wind farm of note and it is now in its 30th year.
Several other wind farms around the country are now nearing, right at or just beyond the 20-year mark.
WHAT HAPPENS TO WIND TURBINES WHEN THEY HAVE OUTLIVED THEIR USEFULNESS?
Another good question.
Recycling many components of a wind turbine is reported to be doable. The towers are for the most part made of high-quality steel. Along with iron, copper, alloys and aluminum.
Getting the paint off the towers presents a challenge, it’s time-consuming which of course incurs expense but in fairness, it can be done.
Then one needs to look up, way up, the biggest challenge is that the turbine blades are fibreglass and currently there are not any facilities in Australia that recycle fibreglass.
We went looking for examples of what’s happening in other countries.
The news is mixed.
Looking to the USA which was an early adopter of wind farms…
A very small percentage of offshore windfarms in the USA are able to remove the blades, cut them into smaller pieces on site, and transport them to a plant in Missouri where they are shredded into a material that can be used in cement manufacturing, replacing the sand, coal and clay usually needed.
About 90 percent of the blades from one company with offshore wind farms in the USA are recycled. But that’s from just one company.
Again, Australia doesn’t currently have that option available.
Even countries like the USA which are ahead of where Australia is with wind farms are struggling with what to do with damaged or “aging out” turbine blades.
It’s been reported that 8,000 blades will be decommissioned in the USA by 2024 and they are already piling up in landfills/garbage dumps.
Bloomberg Green reported in 2020 that just shy of 900 blades were in just one municipal landfill in Casper, Wyoming.
As the earliest wind turbines in Australia near the end of their usefulness, there is a need for Australia to develop an industry to recycle and reuse the components including the fibreglass blades.
The challenge is that the volume of blades needing recycling while large enough to not be something that anyone wants to see in landfills — the volume is not enough to sustain a fibreglass recycling industry in Australia.
ARE YOU IN FAVOUR…
Of more wind farms in Australia or opposed?
What do you like about wind farms and what do you not like?
Are there better options that Australia should look at implementing?
Save Our Woodlands is an environmentally conscious group of volunteers dedicated to preserving threatened birds, animals and ecosystems in the woodlands of New South Wales, Australia.
Only 15% of our woodlands remain, the rest has been cleared for agriculture.
Save Our Woodlands Inc. secures and protects woodlands in NSW and pays landholders, in perpetuity, to conserve, enhance and re-establish native woodlands on THEIR land, and to manage these woodlands, so they are maintained.
BUT we need YOUR help. Together we can bring about change. Please consider donating.
People tend to think that woodlands are “just bush,” consequently, over 85% of the native woodlands in New South Wales, Australia have been replaced by agriculture.
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