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Vestas hails breakthrough for recyclable wind turbines
- mhb 4y agoSo what percentage of items constructed from epoxy composites are wind turbine blades? How can this be more than a rounding error compared to sailboats, sports equipment and whatever else?
- HPsquared 4y agoI think the sailboats are the rounding error.
- bombcar 4y ago> 14,158 total sailboats manufactured in North America per year > The number of turbines installed in the U.S. each year varies based on a number of factors, but on average 3,000 turbines have been built in the U.S. each year since 2005. Assuming one blade is about one boat and each turbine has three, very similar numbers. Too bad the blades can’t be reused as boats.
- bluGill 4y agoA lot of those sailboats are smaller boats as well. There are a lot of one-two person sale boats that you can tow behind your car. There are of course a few large yachts, but even then I'm not sure they are larger than a turbine blade (have you ever seen one up close? They go by my house often and each is much longer than any other truck that is legal)
- mhb 4y agoSurprising. Thanks.
- HPsquared 4y agoBlades are 170-350 feet long, very slender and high-speed (i.e. it's probably quite thick and heavily-reinforced). That's probably 10-100 sailboats per blade.
- bombcar 4y agoWhat I'm hearing is we need to build turbines with blades that can be repurposed as majorly long sailboats.
- kasperni 4y agoDifficult to find specific numbers but looks like more money is spent on epoxy for wind turbines than all other composites combined [1]. In any case it is not a rounding error. [1] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/static/img/research/global-epoxy-resin-market.png https://www.grandviewresearch.com/static/img/research/global... [2] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/epoxy-resins-market https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/epoxy-re...
- gameshot911 4y agoProps for researching the actual stats
- sandworm101 4y agoTake a look at the big blades up close. I'd hazard that a single blade might have the equivalent mass of a hundred boat hulls or a hundred-thousand hockey sticks.
- RugnirViking 4y agoI can't quite convey just how mind bogglingly enormous the wind turbines we are talking about are. One illustrative point that might help: inside of the head (very small compared to the turbines) they often build a fully functioning workshop inside, because its less work than transporting the machinery down to fix. They build hundreds of these things in offshore farms.
- Overtonwindow 4y agoAlthough many blades are made from polyester, producing wind turbine blades manufactured with epoxy-based resin has increasingly become standard practice in the wind industry over the past decades. In the most mature wind markets, the first of these turbines are reaching the end of their operational life Interesting, why polyester?
- omneity 4y agoWind turbine blades need to be as lightweight as possible. Imagine the shear and tear forces applied on the turbine’s tower. At the same time, the blades have to be extremely resistant to resist to their own weight and to the wind applying forces perpendicular to the main axis. Polyester is cheap and lightweight. Material strength is then infused in it using fiberglass.
- Ballas 4y agoMost fibreglass products are made with either polyester resin, or epoxy resin. Epoxy being the more expensive option with a couple of advantages over polyester.
- raphaelj 4y agoInterestingly, blade waste, when put in comparison to the size of the population, is pretty negligible. As per the article, the EU will discard about 650k tons of blades between 2044 and 2049, or 130k tons per year. That's less than 300 grams (or 0.7 lb) per EU citizen. I'm wondering if these waste could not better be reused as construction material (e.g. grinded to pieces and then used as concrete aggregate).
- c-linkage 4y agoThe problem isn't necessarily the mass of the waste but the volume. https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/pieces-of-wind-turbine-blades-are-buried-in-the-casper-regional-in-picture-id1222855083?s=612x612 https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/pieces-of-wind-turbine-... Wind turbine blades are not crushed or pulverized but buried whole.
- raphaelj 4y agoWhy couldn't these be cut in transportable pieces and then industrially grinded?
- alfor 4y agoSo, they need a grinder? Does not seem like a hard technical problem.
- c-linkage 4y agohttps://blog.ucsusa.org/james-gignac/wind-turbine-blades-recycling/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/james-gignac/wind-turbine-blades-rec... "But the blades are different as they are made up of fiberglass (a composite material) to be lightweight for efficiency yet still durable enough to withstand storms. The mixed nature of the blade material makes separating the plastics from the glass fibers to recycle into a workable fiberglass material difficult—and the strength needed for the blades means they are also physically challenging to break apart."
- stametseater 4y ago
- JonChesterfield 4y agoIt does annoy me somewhat that wind turbines are all of eco friendly, short lifespan, made from plastic and concrete at the same time. Unpopular opinion though.
- jtr1 4y agoWell, I suppose it’s worth asking what a coal or gas fired plant is made of. In any case, it appears to be a problem people are working on
- konschubert 4y agoI think it’s an acceptable price to pay in exchange for the massive amounts of clean energy they create. And we can probably find ways to extend the lifespan, it we want to.
- goodpoint 4y agoDo you have a better alternative?
- tiku 4y agoIf they are hard to recycle or break, why not re-use them? Fix all tears and coating issues and put them up again?
- kasperni 4y agoDisregarding structural wear and tear. A turbine blade is typically in a service between 20 to 25 years. If you look at a size comparison of wind turbines that are commissioned today and those that were commissioned 25 years. You will find that the average blade length has gone up 3-4 times.
- hannob 4y agoThere's been pretty much one major factor that made wind turbines more efficient: They got bigger. And it doesn't look like this trend is going to stop any time soon. Nobody wants your tiny wind turbine blades from 20 years ago, because when you put up new wind turbines you want the big, new, more efficient ones.
- skullone 4y agoFiberglass repair is quite well understood. Part of the problem is some early turbine blades used wood cores which are incredibly difficult to repair. But if they used synthetic cores (coosa board) they'd have a stable core to repair for centuries. Maybe they figure it costs more to repair than to replace, which could easily be true. Either way it's not a huge problem, look how much the average American tosses in the trash every week. But I'd still like them repaired
- KennyBlanken 4y agoBlades age out because degradation of the laminate weakens the blade, and leading edge erosion...
- Proven 4y ago[dead]
- dehrmann 4y agoIn 20 years, I wonder if we'll be disposing of more composite turbines or airframes.
- tda 4y agoAt some point I expect blades will be made from thermoplastic composites, not thermosets. Then it will just be a matter of melting the blades to recycle them. A lot is happening in that area at least, thermoplastics for airplanes are very actively researched