4 ms·

My quick read of it lands on them not being toxic, just large and difficult to manage. Seems like they could be used as aggregate in road construction or fill o

My quick read of it lands on them not being toxic, just large and difficult to manage. Seems like they could be used as aggregate in road construction or fill or just about whatever. Likewise, its not like they break down into some shockingly toxic biproduct, so burying them is a fine solution unless refurbishment becomes a real possibility.

sk0g 7y ago
Seems like direct reuse is not possible due to the blades reaching end of life, but I feel like airplane blades have a much higher threshold for operating health than windmills, could there be some potential for repurposing there? Then again, I wouldn't want a blade snapping off and falling on me if I'm strolling through a field...
- nicktelford 7y ago
  Aeroplane wings and wind turbine blades are extremely different. They are made from completely different materials, have completely different shapes and are designed for different purposes. I can't possibly see how either could ever be repurposed for the other.
  - sk0g 7y ago
    Fair enough, the article stated as much too. Would they be completely worthless in a turbine setting, even if they were free?
    - ben7799 7y ago
      For one thing turbine blades have to deal with high temperatures. They're not really the same thing at all.
      - DonHopkins 7y ago
        That's why windmills are so carcinogenic. ;( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_syndrome
        nicktelford 7y ago
        > The distribution of recorded events, however, correlates with media coverage of wind farm syndrome itself, and not with the presence or absence of wind farms. Neither term is recognised by any international disease classification system, nor do they appear in any title or abstract in the United States National Library of Medicine's PubMed database. Wind turbine syndrome has been characterized as pseudoscience. I really expect better of HN.
shadowgovt 7y ago
Basically. The construction of them means that you can estimate the difficulty of handling them by imagining you periodically had to peel the side off a few-story building, intact, and sequester it somewhere. Still preferable to taking the side of a few-story building and turning it into a greenhouse gas (to torture this metaphor a bit).
tomatotomato37 7y ago
I'd imagine there's already things in other industries that are unwieldly and made of materials that you can't just toss into a smelter and call it a day. It's just because wind turbines are correlated with the environment that their lifecycle impact ends up being heavily scrutinized. You see the same thing with solar panels and their silicon waste even if practically its a rounding error to the electronic waste of computerized happy-meal toys or whatever.

sk0g 7y ago

Seems like direct reuse is not possible due to the blades reaching end of life, but I feel like airplane blades have a much higher threshold for operating health than windmills, could there be some potential for repurposing there? Then again, I wouldn't want a blade snapping off and falling on me if I'm strolling through a field...

nicktelford 7y ago
Aeroplane wings and wind turbine blades are extremely different. They are made from completely different materials, have completely different shapes and are designed for different purposes. I can't possibly see how either could ever be repurposed for the other.
- sk0g 7y ago
  Fair enough, the article stated as much too. Would they be completely worthless in a turbine setting, even if they were free?
  - ben7799 7y ago
    For one thing turbine blades have to deal with high temperatures. They're not really the same thing at all.
    - DonHopkins 7y ago
      That's why windmills are so carcinogenic. ;( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_syndrome
      - nicktelford 7y ago
        > The distribution of recorded events, however, correlates with media coverage of wind farm syndrome itself, and not with the presence or absence of wind farms. Neither term is recognised by any international disease classification system, nor do they appear in any title or abstract in the United States National Library of Medicine's PubMed database. Wind turbine syndrome has been characterized as pseudoscience. I really expect better of HN.

shadowgovt 7y ago

Basically. The construction of them means that you can estimate the difficulty of handling them by imagining you periodically had to peel the side off a few-story building, intact, and sequester it somewhere. Still preferable to taking the side of a few-story building and turning it into a greenhouse gas (to torture this metaphor a bit).

tomatotomato37 7y ago

I'd imagine there's already things in other industries that are unwieldly and made of materials that you can't just toss into a smelter and call it a day. It's just because wind turbines are correlated with the environment that their lifecycle impact ends up being heavily scrutinized. You see the same thing with solar panels and their silicon waste even if practically its a rounding error to the electronic waste of computerized happy-meal toys or whatever.