4 ms·

Is it though? Steel is very easy to recycle. Engineered timber that is full of various glues and fire retardants not so much.

moffkalast 1y ago
I thought the main problem with recycling them were the fiber composite blades? If they keep those but just swap the metal tower with a wooden one they've achieved exactly nothing in practice.
- stephen_g 1y ago
  Well replacing the tower reduces embodied emissions from the steel. Sure that's not as big as an issue if the steel was already recycled (and would be recycled again) using an electric arc furnace powered by renewables, but the wood is actually negative since it's storing carbon while it's not decomposing. The blades themselves isn't really much of an issue if you actually compare it to fossil fuels - for example, coal fly ash was 18% of all waste generated in Australia around 2019 (this is likely a bit less now as one or two major coal plants have since been decommissioned). I think it's astronomically unlikely that wind turbine blades would ever be that kind of proportion of a country's waste, but it was just a normal thing for coal. And gas and oil have a similar problem, it's just harder to see since it's fine particulate matter belched into the air instead of heavier ash that you have to deal with! 1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-10/coal-ash-has-become-one-of-australias-biggest-waste-problems/10886866 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-10/coal-ash-has-become-o...
  - nabla9 1y ago
    "The research indicates that there will be 43 million tonnes of blade waste worldwide by 2050" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956053X17300491 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09560...
    - laurencerowe 1y ago
      Which just isn't very much. The US currently produced 120 million tonnes of coal ash per year.
    - stephen_g 1y ago
      So (assuming that’s metric) about 3.5 times worldwide how much my small country currently produces in fly ash. So really not very much.
zitsarethecure 1y ago
If you read the marketing content on their site, the intended method of recycling these structures is to cut up the wood sections and re-use them as structural beams in regular building construction. They aren't grinding them up or melting them down or anything like that. So between the lifespan of the tower and the buildings built (or maintained) with the recycled beams, the useful lifespan of the materials used are long enough to grow new wood to replace them. At least that's my understanding.

moffkalast 1y ago

I thought the main problem with recycling them were the fiber composite blades? If they keep those but just swap the metal tower with a wooden one they've achieved exactly nothing in practice.

stephen_g 1y ago
Well replacing the tower reduces embodied emissions from the steel. Sure that's not as big as an issue if the steel was already recycled (and would be recycled again) using an electric arc furnace powered by renewables, but the wood is actually negative since it's storing carbon while it's not decomposing. The blades themselves isn't really much of an issue if you actually compare it to fossil fuels - for example, coal fly ash was 18% of all waste generated in Australia around 2019 (this is likely a bit less now as one or two major coal plants have since been decommissioned). I think it's astronomically unlikely that wind turbine blades would ever be that kind of proportion of a country's waste, but it was just a normal thing for coal. And gas and oil have a similar problem, it's just harder to see since it's fine particulate matter belched into the air instead of heavier ash that you have to deal with! 1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-10/coal-ash-has-become-one-of-australias-biggest-waste-problems/10886866 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-10/coal-ash-has-become-o...
- nabla9 1y ago
  "The research indicates that there will be 43 million tonnes of blade waste worldwide by 2050" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956053X17300491 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09560...
  - laurencerowe 1y ago
    Which just isn't very much. The US currently produced 120 million tonnes of coal ash per year.
  - stephen_g 1y ago
    So (assuming that’s metric) about 3.5 times worldwide how much my small country currently produces in fly ash. So really not very much.

zitsarethecure 1y ago

If you read the marketing content on their site, the intended method of recycling these structures is to cut up the wood sections and re-use them as structural beams in regular building construction. They aren't grinding them up or melting them down or anything like that. So between the lifespan of the tower and the buildings built (or maintained) with the recycled beams, the useful lifespan of the materials used are long enough to grow new wood to replace them. At least that's my understanding.