A Traveler and his Cat exploring America.





Sunday, March 21, 2021

I Had No Idea

I received this in my eMail one day.  
Hard to tell what you are looking at isn’t it?  Notice the bulldozer in the upper right.
These are the blades from wind turbines being buried near Casper, Wyoming.
There are wind turbine graveyards in California, Colorado and Kansas also.
The blades are made of fiberglass (non-biodegradable) and have a working life of twenty-five years.
So all of those wind turbines during the great wave of the 1990’s wind power are coming to their end. 


 It costs taxpayers $200,000 or more per unit or 200 million total for one thousand blades to be removed, transported and buried.






8 comments:

Alfonso Bedoya said...

Go nuclear power!!

John W. Wall said...

Stand by for the electric car battery graveyards.

Billy Blue Eyes said...

Thought they would be able to recycle them, that is just being dam lazy and irresponsible, bad as burying asbestos

The Furry Gnome said...

Had no idea!

Brewed Journey said...

Snipes investigated this. The landfill exists, but the cost to the taxpayers may be off.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wind-turbine-blades-landfills/

John @ Beans and I on the Loose said...

Thanks. I felt those numbers were a bit much.

Alieso said...

Maybe it's not that bad.
In any case, solutions are being worked on.
https://www.intelligentliving.co/what-happens-to-old-wind-turbines-the-answers-not-so-eco-friendly/

John W. Wall said...

Since they supposedly recycle 90% of each unit and only bury the chemically inert fiberglas blades, it's probably not even close to being as bad as what happens with abandoned oil wells. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-drilling-abandoned-specialreport/special-report-millions-of-abandoned-oil-wells-are-leaking-methane-a-climate-menace-idUSKBN23N1NL