This Is Why We Don't Recycle Wind Turbine Blades
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Have you ever wondered how green wind energy really is, especially when you see those vast piles of wind turbine blades dumped in landfills? Social media posts with photos of wind turbine blades in landfill have raised this question, casting doubts on the sustainability of wind power. Is it actually horrible for the environment?
Today, we'll examine why recycling wind turbine blades is such a challenge, focusing on the materials and manufacturing methods involved. Then, we'll scrutinize the current recycling methods and discuss what needs to change for blades to be effectively recycled. We'll also evaluate the efforts of wind turbine manufacturers and composite material suppliers towards this goal.
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00:00 Intro
00:41 Wind turbine waste in context
02:12 Wind turbine blade structural design
05:09 Thermoplastics vs thermosets
06:24 Get 20% of Everything Electric Australia tickets
07:24 Repurposing wind turbine blades
08:06 Shredding
08:26 Cement co-processing
09:53 Thermoplastic wind turbine blades
10:57 Advanced recycling methods
13:42 Energy use and CO2 emissions from recycling
17:08 Outro
Sources:
For data, images & graphs
www.bloomberg.com/news/featur...
www.nrel.gov/news/program/202...
www.pbsnc.org/blogs/science/h...
energynews.us/2023/12/21/spir...
blog.undeerc.org/2021/03/10/s...
www.goldwind.com/en/news/focu...
www.regenfiber.com/about/pres...
weatherguardwind.com/regen-fi...
ir.tpicomposites.com/websites...
energywatch.com/EnergyNews/Cl...[…]tm_content=2023-11-24&
www.windtech-international.co...
decomblades.dk/index.php/2023...
www.voxelmatters.com/goldwind...
www.lmwindpower.com/en/storie...[…]ls-second-recyclable-wind-turbine-blade-under-zebra-project
www.project-cetec.dk/uk/
Journals and Scientific Papers
www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/22/...
www.mdpi.com/2313-4321/4/2/24
api.repository.cam.ac.uk/serv...
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
The Engineering with Rosie team is:
Rosemary Barnes: Presenter, producer, writer
Javi Diez: Editor / javierdiezsuarez
Fatini Nur: Research and production assistant / fatinin - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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I don't feel great about a 20+ hr flight or the carbon footprint it would leave, but id love to join you if you ever tour North America
8:00 The need for reefs in a warming world scales faster than wind turbine blade discards can supply.
Old blades make absolutely perfect reef bones.
See you at the show, wish I knew your discount code when I booked a few weeks ago!
Ocean fish habitats the fish can breed and grow around. The finish of the blades could be made ideal for fast attachment of crustaceans. making degradation no factor. Changing currents to push cooler water towards endangered coral. Iron smelters have giant grinders and CO2 for carbon capture wanting carbon for carbon steel.
As an engineer, why is it that you couldn't look at the spectrometry and see that the very idea of man-made climate change is absolutely preposterous?
So the bottom line is that there is no existing, cost-effective method of recycling wind turbine blades, and no good near-term prospects.
Your idea of comparing the turbine composite material consumption to a bike frame is very effective. I'll borrow it! 😄
Surprised me a bit, granted makes sense since how spread out the waste is per capita (or whatever the right term would be)
(Granted in my biased opinion having good Waste-to-Energy infrastructure with materials recovery is worth it regardless!)
Not really because that's two technologies we want more adoption of, so you're making bikes look bad as well. Find something we don't want, like cigarettes or some other stupid product and compare it to that. "You could save a lot more waste by getting rid of this thing that no-one needs..."
@@jonevansauthor I understand what you mean, but the point of this is that both the bike frame and the turbine composite life consumption are a very small amount of material.
It’s not really a good comparison. I have eight bicycles in my household and none of them are made from glassfibre or carbonfibre. 80+% of my electricity comes from wind turbines
@@pmbdk Right, outside of racing, steel bicycles work just fine and steel can be recycled with no loss of quality.
I think the blades could be used for snow fences in Wyoming. And maybe use the blades for wind blocks to solve cross wind problems on some road ways.
Good thinking, we need more ideas like this.
I mean... don't they use hedges for that?
Very inventive! Good idea! Totally bonkers, but good idea!
Why?@@wolfgangpreier9160
@@jonevansauthoryes, but, hedges don't grow everywhere.
We don’t recycle blades here in North America, but we do grind them up and send them to concrete companies for the fibrous material to strengthen the concrete.
Is that not re-using ? Its kind of downcycling , but the CO² locked in the composite remains in the new product , the transport of old blades is relatively cheap they can be cut up,or rough crushed on site to suit the trucks, hell if its a large wind farm refurb / renewa,l the finished crushing could be done on site ,with something like a wood chipper,
There is even research into adding carbon to concrete that shows it can even significantly improve the properties of the resulting concrete... Personally, this approach makes the most sense to me at the moment... In 50 years, the situation may be different, but compared to coal and oil, burying non-toxic material is literally a small thing...
Is that waste ok when it starts wearing out of the concrete? The same is proposed for plastics to be ground down and used in new products. But if it is not melted together then as the item weathers you are getting micro plastics leaching out into the environment and therefore is it really eco? Just a question.
Duh so you do recycle it, you don't seem to understand the term...😂
I heard they were used as fuel to heat the cement kiln.
I like the idea of converting the blades into rebar. You still get to keep the material advantages of the composite (strong but not brittle, corrosion resistant), while keeping the recycling process simple (cutting the blades into lengthwise strips). You also get around the skate park problem, as rebar is something with a continuous industrial demand.
I also really like that idea. I couldn't find a lot of details about it (no photos yet, it's not mentioned on Regen's website). I only know they're doing that because of a podcast I listened to. I did get in touch with the company to let them know I'd like to know more so hopefully I can feature that solution in more depth in the future.
Rebar is designed like it is for reasons. Strips of scrap turbine blades do not offer the same benefits. It is not just a case of putting long things into the concrete.
@@user-it7lf7kk8m Why not? You could add new epoxy & fibre bands around the long sections to connect with the concrete, and ditto for tying together different blade sections. This would also solve the corrosion problem that concrete has when water leaks in thru cracks to rust the rebar, expanding it and weakening the whole structure. Maybe the only reason not to is if the sections have different thermal expansion rates.
@@tomtrottier8135 YT disappeared the original reply
Why? You need to look into why rebar is used and what qualities are required. Then compare with strips of scrap wind turbine blades and see whether they match up. Rebar isn't just there as filler.
How about a video on the lifetime of blades, mechanisms of how/why they wear out or fail, what options are there for making blades last longer so there is less need recycle them, etc...
I think a fair fraction of the blades come up not because of end-of- life but because existing wind farms replace their turbines early. With the scaling of power as blade length increases, you could put two 8 MW units in the space of four 2 MW units.
Upgrading an existing site might be better/ easier than opening a new one.
A big problem is that insufficient account was taken for the grinding effect of dust in the wind. Apparently it is grinding down the leading edges of the blades, so the blades are having to be changed earlier than expected.
I considered that. Modern jet engines from GE use carbon fiber fan blades with a metal leading edge, I think it's titanium. Seems like wind turbine blades should do something similar if this is the main reason they need replacement.@@user-it7lf7kk8m
What dust in the wind? In most places there is very little and even less at sea. If it is really a problem then a thin metal covering of the vulnerable areas ought to stop it.@@user-it7lf7kk8m
@@user-it7lf7kk8m Why not resurface? Add material?
Shredding and a role in cement manufacturing seems like perfectly fine ways to solve the problem.
This is done to an extent with Shredded Tires as well. Most plants (at least modern ones in richer countries, re that note on cost will prevent all this short of regulation forcing corporations) already have good Emissions Controls for Sulfur and Particulate Matter so it can handle the Vulcanizing Sulfur and any smoke/dust from the burning.
Negligible sulfur in the Wind Turbine Blades, so should be easier!
My only criticism (although data needed) is this may not work as the volume of old blades grows, and thus the need is greater.
It could still play a part though and hold out until more technologies reach the same Technology Readiness Level
@@ericlotze7724 Seems like there are way more tyres out there than turbine blades. And yeah, my understanding was that shredded rubber tyres added to roads reduced noise pollution.
I can't find the exact number but there seem to be 10's of thousand metric tonnes of wind turbine blades made each year right now. Meanwhile the largest tyre manufacturer, Michelin, makes around 1.5 million metric tonnes of tyres each year.
@@KevinLyda Rubberized Asphalt Concrete is *really* cool! @PracticalEngineering has a great video on Asphalt Concrete if you haven’t seen it yet!
In theory if done with sustainable biomass and/or maybe even somehow getting a Power-to-X workflow to make hydrocarbons that heavy, it could be a form of Carbon Sequestration in Construction kind of deal.
If only the general public could be as rational as you are on this topic. Nice video!
Hey Rosie, I'm currently working on a start-up dealing with this very issue, and I wanted to thank you for a comprehensive exploration of the challenges involved, and for shining more light to this very important problem we've yet to solve - after 30 years of trying.
Most of what you said we are already familiar with, but some of the recent developments in thermoplastics were new to us. Thank you for including those.
Also appreciate that you proved links to your sources, will definitely be looking into those more.
Two things stood out in what you said - or rather didn't say.
1) Shredding is very energy intensive, and I'm a little surprised you didn't mention it. It was sort of mentioned in the studies you looked at, but the numbers seemed a little off.
2) Shredding + burning before adding into concrete is the most common use for recycled glass fiber today in most of Europe.
I think the best choices for recycling the existing blades is in finding ways to repurpose the material for uses where the unique properties are useful, but would otherwise be too costly to produce. There are some advanced methods for extracting glass fiber, for example Carbon Rivers in the USA has a method with which they claim they can retain over 90% of the original strength of the fibers. But I think these energy intensive methods should be the last in the chain of recycling, after the material can no longer be applied to a new use.
How many blade shaped bridges do we want is a fair question to ask, but that is only one possible use case out of several dozen which would benefit from the material properties.
Thank you again, and look forward to hearing more of your thoughts on this, and other challenges 👍
Two things Rosie, you skipped over why these blades are decommissioned in the first place, too small? Cracks? Secondly, having paid a bloody fortune for trusses and beams, it seems to me that simply cutting them up into pieces 14m long and then ripping the cross sections into useful shapes would allow them to be used in all sorts of buildings. Say for cantilevered overhangs that only need to hold up one elephant?
I love the idea of roof structures being made with used turbine blades. I am sure they're going to be excessively strong even if they're retired from their primary role.
I suppose the biggest problem would be manufacturing the brackets to attach them to the other roof components. But if someone had a steady supply of a particular design of turbine, then they could CNC cut a series of brackets that do the job. Perhaps warehouse roofing for the larger blades.
Not enough elephants left.
You would be better finding a use related to London Buses
The first question is addressed in a different post..... Since it's not directly related to recycling it wasn't mentioned....
eherm....Building codes?
@@BobHannent Or have various designs of roofs for different blade sizes, or just use them for long roof spans (hangars?) and use other materials on top for weather protection.
9:20 You would recover the “Pyrolysis Oil” and some (or all if just doing gasification) “Syngas”
Both of these could be fed into refineries that currently only use Fossil Fuels to make the Resins.
Also the out of scope effect of these facilities processing Municipal Solid Waste (especially sorted thermosets) and *Sustainable* Biomass.
Granted i am a MAJOR nerd on all this, but I wanted to know your opinion on all that.
(Granted also as you point out the Fiber would need reprocessed, and energy use issues, also if sourced from Fossil Fuels (as most things currently are) it’s basically a Fossil Fuel Thermal Power Plant with more steps)
Carbon taxes need to go up a LOT before synfuels are competitive with digging up fossil hydrocarbons.
@@jamesphillips2285 Sadly yes.
Granted in that case clearing land for Landfills is also more economically sound.
@@jamesphillips2285 "Carbon taxes need to go up" Valid point in some cases, but it fails where the same amount of energy is required to live and work, regardless of the cost. When people can't afford food, heat and/or home payments, money to change to greener energy is just not available, and the worries about green energy drop down in the list of concerns.
Tax where there are convenient and inexpensive alternatives, but not where it causes undue hardship. When people are forced into hardship while alternative approaches are available, they will rebel, and progress will stop, and possibly regress. Support the people, invest in green infrastructure and subsidize its use. Facilitate good living conditions, and far more people would be glad to make the changes. A happy and helpful populace can be a powerful force for progress.
Thanks for the information I've been eagerly awaiting a video like this.
Cut these into strips, glue them together like laminated beams and or 2x6 , 4x4 etc .
Getting a good section to cut like that may be difficult due to the more complex shape of wind turbines (they aren’t just a rectangular prism etc)
This is being done to an extent with all that Mechanical Recycling.
This was mentioned around 11:16 or so where they are basically chopping it up into FRP Rebar which seems really neat! FRP Rebar (Carbon Fiber Rebar is also a frequently used term) doesn’t rust like Steel Rebar, so can heavily prolong the life of Concrete Structures!
I had a section about that idea but cut it at the last minute as the video was just so long! Maybe I'll release just that section as a short video or something.
@@EngineeringwithRosie no such thing as ‘so long ‘ for your videos IMO. I’d watch a 3 hour one
@@EngineeringwithRosie Have you considered pairing these videos with longer form content like writing? Perhaps a Medium blog? I'd love to dive deep into some of the stuff you show in the videos along with my weekend morning coffee.
Requires reshaping the blade, which is not practical with the current cross-linked resins.
Thank you for the excellent video on this topic that is so talked about.
Thank you for the fact based video! It is so very interesting, and - I feel - still promising and hopeful. Lot's of potential and stuff going still on; this is why I love wind!
11:57 Oooooo *ANOTHER PROCESS* to rabbit hole down reading up on!
In Sweden, we already do that. Burns it in the high temperature oven. In severe heat pains. With very high temperatures. The ash is mixed into concrete, and that ash is not cheap. You get a very high quality of the concrete. No problem. Recycling.
Co2 isn not toxit.
That's not recycling..... And in Sweden the laws of physics still apply..... Conclusion still remains the same.....
Nä, tror du nog missade poängen här. Att bara bränna och elda allt man inte vill ha är knappast en bra eller långsiktig lösning. Gör om och gör rätt!
What is the cost to burn them?
What a wonderful, concise breakdown of such a wideranging, complicated topic. Kudos! I am in awe.🌻
Thanks for posting this one, I've heard the complaint about them going to landfill so often
One of your best. Thanks Rosie
Glad you think so!
Great video. I’ll try connecting with you at the show. Thanks Chris
Wonderful information, Rosie. Thanks. 🙂
Love your work Rosie. I look forward to seeing you at Fully Charged next weekend!
Thanks, Rosie, great vid. Might be able to say hi if I see you at Everything Electric.
What about the blade determines that it needs to be replaced? I imagine it wears out at certain stress points. Would it make sense to redesign the blades so they can be repaired? What about aluminum or titanium?
Wind turbine blades are designed to last the same amount of time as the rest of the turbine, in theory everything should wear out at once. And yes there are stress points but a well designed blade would not have any one location significantly more stressed than the rest. They used to use aluminium but there were a lot of fatigue failures. And also the blades would be heavier. I made a video way back in the early days about design lifetime, that talks about all this stuff I think: th-cam.com/video/PfquMx9h98M/w-d-xo.html
@@EngineeringwithRosieSo, the whole tower is a "one hoss shay"?
This revelation is going to incense the trolls and fossil shills with them citing "planned obsolescence" as another reason to reject renewables. 🤣
Hey, everything has a design life and replacement makes room for the next generation/iteration that will perform even better! 👍
I think my response triggered auto moderation for poking fun at fossil s h I l l s. 🤔
Yep. Definitely I'm being deleted for constructive comments
leading edge wear. youd think they would just add in a thin covetic metal layer so it stops !
Well done video! Thanks for crafting it!
What drives me crazy though is the hook on the wall above your head. 😂
Amazingly nuanced analysis and presentation, thank you!
Thanks for giving visibility to our research (min 15.35). Happy you found it useful ;)
Very interesting video. Recycling of Rotor blade easy explained. We as the Fraunhofer IWES also working in these Field. We are looking at the advanced recycling methode to sperate the parts from which the rotor blade existing.
Such a great video, humour and information.
Yes back in school we were taught to compare "apples with apples", so the comparison between turbine waste and a helmet, and energy needed Vs days to produce that energy are great
Thanks - that was very interesting. I found myself with remaining questions though... with all that strength, what deteriorates to require the blades to be replaced? If the wind farm is in an isolated place, why don't we use them until they snap (or whatever) ? Are the blades replaced after a specific period (years/rotations) or when some probing instrument finds they are becoming weak/have been damaged?
Thanks Rosie awesome info 😁👍
Great video, yet again. Easy for non-experts like me to follow.
It will be interesting to see whether any of these advanced methods of recycling the blades can be used for any of the other 95% of composite materials.
Thank you for your wonderful video, Rosie. I hope that you are having a great week. Sheila Mink in New Mexico
Great video, thanks.
Is the blade structure suitable for cutting into dimensional lumber for housing or commercial projects? Perhaps even heavier beams with special hardware for special uses?
Hi there, sorry if I missed this in your other videos but do you talk about failure modes for wind energy components and ways to prevent them? What would it take to make blades that last at least 100 years? Does it have anything to do with their control algorithms as well?
The overall problem seems to be the repeated stress due to flexure and the temperature variation during the day. It could also be the tip velocities are to high so a change of material at the tip could or the tip can be cooled preventing aerodynamic heating.
Great video, I have been talking to people about carbon bike frames and the lack of recycling options, that repair makes the most sense to retain value in composite parts.
This was a great technical analysis on the options for recycling wind turbine blades
I love that doc nullified the impact of recycling issues, but still hews to process improvement
I've been quite skeptical that the transition could ever truly be green. This video gives me hope. Thank you very much Rosie.
Good info👍
If the recent reconsideration of offshore VAWT design pans out, would thermoplastics be strong enough to meet those blade requirements? Maybe with some added support structure?
@bakedbeings says "Install them at beaches/lakes as piers to dive off" (recycle them!!) .
Before I go into any further exploration and then actually engaging pardolote ( awesome!) I wonder if wind turbin blades would make good boats? Like if they either have small 10ft panel sections that can be reformed to slightly different shapes to match a boat hull for a catamaran? Or maybe they would make a killer waterslide?
There are many places that need land stabilisation for building, for example houses or roads. Especially in wetlands. Sure using blades for such land filling is much more positive than present solutions. One could as well consider making sound-proof wall's in urban area's from them. Secondly I think the concrete additive solution has much possibilities, including new solutions of concrete not used today. If shredding is cheaper than generating and transporting clean sand and surely safes weight in the composite while having good binding properties it certainly has a change in many applications. I am positive with a little more brainpower and awareness there are many more solutions to what does not have to be a problem. Good basic overview. Thanks.
HELLO! I have a good idea for a following video! I just watched the 2200 video from Robert Murray Smith and he talks about vertical wind turbines! He speaks about the economic advantage of this desing and the concept in general, but I think I found another advantage to the desing. The blades can be made of aluminium! I hope you find it interesting to develop. I don't think it was aboarded this way already.
A plus would be if that configuration is less harmful to wildlife. I don't know much about these. Thank you.
I hope to see you there in Sydney.
seems dismissing repurposing is mainly a lack of imagination, would make excellent roof beams and roof shells, just needs some architects to have a go, partner mentions storm water drainage
Heck yeah - cut to the footage of new blades being made in a warehouse made from old blades
You've answered all my questions as to why wind turbine blades aren't recycled more often so thank you!
Are pyrolyzed windmill blade carbon fibres suitable for musical instrument manufacture?
Brilliant thanks
Will landfilled wind turbine blades decompose into methane or other greenhouse gases? (Just asking. It seems like a possible concern.)
Lots of things decompose and release methane so that's a fair question! But not wind turbine blades. They are inert. They will stay there for many many many years, and in fact when we develop good recycling methods we'll be able to dig them up and recycle them if want.
@@EngineeringwithRosieTechnically, this is effective CCS! 😉
I say this (tongue in cheek) to people who whinge about inert plastics being landfilled. But it's true....
Really interesting uptime podcast you did about blade bonding BTW....
@@jimurrata6785I honestly love the concept of “Reverse Coal Mining” with a PILE of Sustainable Carbon Fiber, Sustainable Bio or P2X Based Plastics, or even “Inerted Carbon Black” type materials.
Also “Carbon Glass” of that can be scaled up (I would LOVE a Pyramid of giant blocks of it laminated in PACVD Diamond lol)
On the note of “Inerted Carbon Black” I basically am thinking having large piles of Carbon Black has a risk (however small) of something akin to a “Coal Seam Fire”. Adding a Fire Retardant (Probably just a powder like Sodium Bicarbonate, which can be made from Brine in a P2X Manner) prevents this. Also if suspended in a P2X or Sustainable Biomass derived Paraffin Wax, it mag get the interesting property of being moldable, and also potentially sealing things like how Bentonite Clay is used in Landfills.
That’s my rambling, and it takes more infrastructure we don’t have yet, but this along with Enhanced Weathering is how we get things back to normal as we/after we get to Zero Ongoing GHG Emissions.
Rosie, would it be energy efficient to simply shred blades into very small pieces, and put them in long flat bags for attic & wall installation (which will save future heating/cooling energy)?
Excellent video! Are the CO2 emissions generally from energy-usage with the different methods? I would think that in an ideal scenario we have CO2 free energy production and so we could potentially ignore those figures, even if we are some ways away from the ideal.
As I noted on Patreon: From the argument above I can't see as the energy of the economy is decarbonised by for instance wind turbines that using 3 days worth of energy is particularly relevant, or very costly, and should not stand in the way of avoiding landfill, especially since technologies like windturbines are decoupling energy use from GHG emissions. Right now, and ever more so by the time blades being produced now are scrapped, reducing energy use is less and less important as it is decoupled from GHG. The principle of as much circularity is important, and should be upheld.
This might not work because it is made of plastics and might seep into the sea water by slowly flaking off microplastics which then get eaten by the wildlife.
The counter argument is that by landfilling the blades it is sequestering carbon.
@@nc3826 I am not sure why you would want to sequester carbon, when it is carbon dioxide which is the issue.
It looks as though a comment I made has been auto killed by Google. It was to the effect that googling recycling basaltic fiber shows that it is a very different proposition to fiber glass and carbon fiber. MDMI have hit 90% of the tensile strength of the virgin basaltic fiber in a material in a reycycled material, which also has excellent properties for marine use, when many turbines will be offshore.
@@davidmartin3947 carbon dioxide comes from oxidizing carbon base materials..... sequestering it eliminates that possibility.... So why are you being obtuse about it?
What fantastic shapes. I am sure we could reuse them as structures for simple buildings.
I wonder if they could slice the blades and re-manufacture them into structural beams for buildings? Have you seen how much timber is now?
Good thinking, we need more ideas like this.
This was mentioned around 11:16 or so where they are basically chopping it up into FRP Rebar which seems really neat!
It would be interesting if someone took a Turbo-saw swing blade sawmill and disassembled a turbine blade into lumber.
anybody heard of ....building codes?
Buildings with people inside are not high school projects.
"This thing fits and looks good. Let's put it in!"
Treat them as high school projects and you get squished people when earthquakes do a visit.
"Oh well they died for the environment anyway. So still, happy thoughts, : )"
@@pbxn-3rdx-85percent Any company manufacturing things would probably get the proper licenses. And as i stated that company making FRP like rebar is probably doing so, if not already done with that process.
Could blades be used for fencing material?
How would you cut and join it?
Mentioned around 7:30
Undoubtedly could be used a million different ways. Problem may be more to do with how to process and market and transport them to achieve that. Then there's the whole subject of cost (especially profitability).
Would you be able to do a video about wind turbines performance and operations in extreme cold weather? In Alberta Canada, all the wind turbines were offline for a few days in Janurary 2024 due to extreme cold below -35c. With the transition away from fossil fuels, how do you see wind turbines fitting into the energy profile of areas of the world that experiences high electrical usage at the same time of extreme cold? Thankyou!
Very cold climates are the only places where nuclear power makes economic sense because of these sorts of issues. Where Rosie comes from (Australia) energy demand is far largest in SUMMER (eg air conditioning). As Rosie points out in other posts a mostly solar grid is a no-brainer for that country but more wind makes sense in northern latitudes. But there will be some places even in the chilly north where wind cannot do the job.
Can you use them for piers for home foundations
What about using them for road base materials to span across soft areas which use up a lot of fuel in equipment to remove material from the areas, making an then transport the new materials back to the area, an then place an compact it back.
Carbon Rivers (Knoxville, TN) has proven a process to recycle composite materials, including wind turbine blades, into virgin equivalent fibers.
I believe they use the multi stage pyrolysis process developed by Ryan Ginder at UT.
How about using the blades in the construction of coastal barriers and dikes to help deal with raising sea levels?
Voodin a German start up are developing large LVL (Laminated Veneer Lumber) timber blades for wind turbines. Stora Enso a large Finnish forest products multinational are providing the timber. The blades are CNC milled to the profile required and sealed with a coating. They are testing a 19.3 metre blade on a turbine and have plans to develop 60 and 80 (~9.5 MW turbine) metre blades. I would not be suprised if the incorporated carbon fibre reinforcing.
Hi Rosie , great video thanks
Could you made a video About The Norwegian Firm world wide wind and their vertical axis turbines?
Yes I am planning a video that includes that. Thanks for the suggestion!
@@EngineeringwithRosie Great l look forward to that, thanks Rosie and up the very interesting videos !
there is recyle, there is also reuse and upcycle.
Chop the blades in parts and use them as roof for bus stations/sheds (there are plenty of those in every country). They can protect from rain (and wind a bit). Not great aesthetics, but they will help keep people dry and thus they will have a function.
Further they will last for decades.
Also every shed roof that was done with cheap plastic, can be done with parts of old wind blades that are large enough.
Fiberglass work (especially cutting and grinding) is actually pretty hazardous. So doing it on site, envisage safety glass, breathing devices, and probably overalls
Repurpose on site to redirect wind in a way your modeling software says will improve efficiency. Use them on site as storage, as shelter, as a culvert or as a barrier. Land fill them on site so they aren't as noticeable. Reprocess on site to fit into standard shipping containers using the industry equivalent of migrant laborers and/or harvester combines. Park them in the closest convenient space until whatever solutions mature to the point someone offers to buy them.
The USA can just lay them along our southern border and call it a wall.
Just to brainstorm a few ideas.
hi in stead of burying the blades in land dumps why reuse as a river bank replacement they could driven down into side of bank and each one over laps the next as in fish scale help hold embankment in place finish of coat of concrete or fill the hollow of each vane to give extra weight
It would be interesting to understand how it is possible to calculate blade use per person since number of blades required is variable as wind speed varies from 0 kph to >100 kph and operational temperature must be >-30 C. At 0 kph and/or -30C, an infinite number of blades is required. So too an infinite number are required when wind exceeds max Q.
I always thought some architects could use them as roof rafters in a warehouse. Costco or IKEA could get some good PR by using these.
Im glad you mentioned Vestas since most videos never mention them.
Their solution for recycling into virgin materials is working, and the materials needed for the process are easily accesable. They are currently working on scaling it up, and it will take a few years until everything is built and in place and ready for commercial use.
I understand why you are a bit hesitant since there are many promises in this industry, and there is not always a delivery on these promises. Which goes for most new tech, especially when they look for investors 😅
Excellent and detailed information and science ! (rare on TH-cam lol)
I am an engineer living in California. As I travel through the state, I pass large wind farms. These farms have turbines of various ages. There are a fair number of turbines which are not operating. This made me curious about the lifetime of wind turbines. Therefore my question is:
What is the median lifetime of older turbines and what is the predicted lifetime of the newest turbines.
Thank you.
Hi Rosie, a topic suggestion: How large would a turbine need to be so the speed of its blades' ends would reach speed of sound? How much power would it generate, made of what materials, sonic boom a problem? Is this the practical limit? It would make a super interesting video.
The speed of sound is about 343 metres per second. If a blade takes 4 seconds to rotate then the tip would be moving at the speed of sound if it covered about 1400 metres. That corresponds to a blade length of about 220 metres.
Really excellent video. This sort of thing is far, far better than the typical coverage in the media.
So its not a problem with the blades per se, it's more that the manufacturing sector isn't required to close the loop on their products life cycle, as is usual for most industries. Thanks for the informative break down.
Closed end industrial life cycles are the exception not the rule. And they most often come about because there's something economically viable to recycle. The composite material of wind turbine blades is not one of those materials.
Surely products that are sold as being the green alternative should have those requirements baked in. Otherwise they are no better than the old products we are being told we must replace
a few questions: what are the criteria for retiring the blades? Only a set time period, or are they inspected? Assuming the loads on the blades do not exceed the elastic limit and only the surface degrades, could they be resurfaced, kind of like tires are retreaded? How about blades made of aluminum, like plane fuselages? would these be a good topic for another video?
those questions are addressed in this channels other posts
We could use shredded turbine blades to help build modular sea-retaining walls, to help combat sea level rise. (No, there won't be enough material to actually do anything useful with it, but the optics of that will completely offset the negative optics of the non-issue this really is.)
I initially had a similar thought, but after thinking about how retaining walls are installed I discarded it....
Great video. Thank you Rosie. I have a question though - why do the wind turbine blades need to be recycled in the first place. It seems like their engineering makes them almost indestructible. Why are so many being replaced?
You did not talk about energy return on energy investment and present some number for various recycling methods.
Wonder if aircraft dismantlers are helping/leading the way in this field or watching and following what happening due to aircraft not mainly made of metals anymore but being made out of more and more composite materials?
Most airplanes are still made of aluminum; the new composite beasts are stripped and chopped up and ... buried.
Composites fail without warning. Sure, they look and sound cool. They're high-tech, state of the art. Who doesn't like new high tech cool materials?
They'll accuse you of being an old fashioned hard headed old geezer if you don't like new cool high tech materials.
Composites are light and strong and fails without or little warning.
Remember the Oceangate sub? One minute they were fine and then WHOOMP! Pink mist and powdered bones mixing with sea water in less than a second. And where are the carbon fiber pieces? Spread all over the bottom of the ocean, just sitting there and happy as clams.
That is why commercial, transport, military aircraft parts such as wing spars, engine mounts, and fuselage ribs are still made of good ol' metals (aluminum alloys, etc.).
Composite parts are okay for single passenger aircraft. If a wing spar breaks only one person dies screaming while plunging to earth at approximately 9.8 m/s squared as recommended by good ol' gravity.
What are the “composite materials” and the “resin” made of?
Has anyone tried to "recycle" blades into low-cost etc housing materials, e.g. roof tiles? Most countries are facing a housing shortage awa an affordable housing crisis with many lower-income & younger people struggling to afford a home of their own. It's a complex issue, but I'm sure access to low-cost materials - such as from old wind turbine blades - would help immensely. Curitiba (Brazil) has an extensive recycling program that does support its low-income housing sector in one form or another.
As a person that will never own my own home, I would never complain if I could construct a whole space for myself using an old blade or two from a dump site - as long as it was safe to do so.
The human race needs a reduction in birth rate in order to mitigate suffering.
Thanks for that
... talking about German Mountain Bikes... Is that Last Tarvo or Cinto by any chance?
Cheers!
I.
Prof. Valeria La Saponara at UC Davis is doing some interesting work on new blade composites that are easier to recycle.
if there was a cad model of those blades one could cut out profiles for use in projects with a saws all or rotozip with abrasive blade. if you had a 3D profile on CAD it would be easier to use in a larger assembly.
Has anyone thought about chemically decomposing the resins in something like nitric acid or sulfuric acid ? I have used these chemicals in the past to decompose epoxy resins in the past for doing failure analysis of integrated circuits. I used these acids to dissolve the epoxy encapsulation so that the silicon die of failed component can be examined. These processes can be done at fairly low temperatures of 100 - 150C. I would think that glass fiber would hold up pretty well in a strong acid. Not sure about the carbon fiber though.
She mentioned that
Shingles on roofs?
House siding?
Bus benches and awnings?
Cut crosswise to make earthen reinforcements? (like those dirt filled tire structures or road reinforcements)
Seems like they could be cut into shapes for tons out outdoor uses, not just bridges. The entire blade wouldn't be good for any of those. I bet there isn't much area for straight and flat enough bits to be cut off for 20ft siding pieces, but there's surely some. Then the smaller profiles can be cut into shingles. If the blades can be reformed via heat and pressure then even more of the blade could be reused.
If you want to find alternative uses for retired blades, ask poorer communities. They will show you things that you regard as, 'out of the box thinking'
Possibly not a popular view in this realm, but I'm far more concerned about the effects of turbines on birds & their flight paths which wasn't addressed at all.
I'm also not certain why we actually need wind energy when we have so much sun & solar panels are so easy to install & maintain???
As usual a thoughtful analysis from Rosie.
Explaining to people that the right solution is the right solution is hard. Getting them to believe you is harder still. But we really must let the atmosphere be the judge here, not people's confirmation bias.
Landfilling keeps fossil CO2 from the resin out of the atmosphere for millennia.
Pyrolysis doesn't- a significant fraction- far more than the majority- of the mass of the resin will end up being burned. And burning epoxies is a nasty business. Given that the starting material is of fossil origin, this is basically GHG emissions that could be avoided by something which is also cheaper- and that's truly rare. That's basically a net negative cost for CO2 sequestration.
Recycling the glass fibre isn't likely worth all the effort and energy input to chop up blades into sections you can move to some centralized pyrolysis facility, either.
As to solvolysis: it would be interesting to know how well this process makes new epoxy monomers or precursors for making such monomers- because if it were to be successful, the other 90% of composite materials, particularly PC boards, would be worth pursuing first, rather than going after wind turbine blades and their associated transport problems.
Landfill is easier in one places and harder in others. Imaging landfilling in Netherlands, where every parcel of land is spoken for
@@dmitripogosian5084 people who think their land is too precious to use for landfilling, either need to not generate wastes needing landfilling, or must pay others whose land is less precious. The alternative of trading landfilling for "air-filling" via pyrolysis or combustion should never be on the table when we're talking about a material which is of fossil origin.
What about using the blades as telephone poles or poles for home back yard turbines? What if the blades flange were attached to a ground rotating base, would the blade and nesele turn into the wind?
do you know the more co2 that is not put into the invroment the less plants and trees
End of service life oil and gas pipelines are not recycled. Why is the focus just on wind turbine blades?
Of course they are. I have a friend whose job is to clean used oil pipes :)
It is probably worth mentioning that there's a whole flock of people who specialize in installing, inspecting, & repairing wind turbines, including the blades. In doing so they help get the maximum lifetime out of each turbine and all of the components thereof.
It'd be interesting if the composite could be cut into more or less standard sizes, to be used as a regular construction material ,maybe to replace structural timbers in buildings , or for fencing , sidings, or as roofing tile materials,
A lot would depend on the varying thicknesses of composite ,
My understanding is that composites are strong, but if they fail, they fail catastrophically. So I would be wary of anything structural built from them, especially 'second hand'