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Bookmark it as a reply for the next time someone tries to claim that end-of-life wind turbine blades are a major waste problem in West Texas. Like these idiots

Bookmark it as a reply for the next time someone tries to claim that end-of-life wind turbine blades are a major waste problem in West Texas. Like these idiots https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/sweetwater-wind-turbine-blades-dump/ https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/sweetwater-wind-t...

nocoiner 1y ago
Horrifying. That beautiful property at the corner of Industrial Drive and Robert E. Lee Street has been desecrated. Will Sweetwater ever recover?
setr 1y ago
This article seems perfectly valid? They aggregated all of the blades, and it’s ugly, and it Sweetwater never actually gets to processing (eg bankrupts), it’s effectively permanent. Though I don’t see why sweetwater cant simply put up a fence and call it a day
- jeffbee 1y ago
  There are fields of unneeded pipes in the area that are multiple times as large as this little lot full of fiberglass, and unlike the fiberglass the drilling pipes are contaminated with heavy metals from the "thread compound" which is 30% lead. Spending any time or attention to the supposed waste of wind energy in West Texas is completely ridiculous, and lending any credence to it as a valid issue is to be a pawn in the petrochemical propaganda game.
  - antisthenes 1y ago
    I opened the article, read '30 acres of wind turbine blades' and immediately closed it. Come on, 30 acres in Texas? What a nothingburger compared to the footprints of other dirty industries.
    - jeffbee 1y ago
      Here's a 300-acre pipe yard. https://www.google.com/maps/@31.8107601,-102.3917116,2359m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDcxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@31.8107601,-102.3917116,2359m/d... 30 acres is probably, what, 2 H-E-B parking lots?
      - kubectl_h 1y ago
        That whole stretch of Midland/Odessa on 20 is one of the most miserable landscapes I've ever driven through. The crushing heat, the off-gassing flame stacks across the horizon, the man camps, the junk and trash everywhere... all of it is grim.
howmayiannoyyou 1y ago
[flagged]
- jeffbee 1y ago
  You're right, we should ignore a million acre feet of toxic water per year and instead concentrate on the problem of unquantified amounts of glass fibers that could hypothetically enter the biosphere.
  - mlyle 1y ago
    No, we should pay attention each of these things and figure out the best responses in context.
    - jeffbee 1y ago
      If we paid proportional attention to these problems, it is not different from ignoring the fiberglass thing, because these problems are separated by many orders of magnitude in terms of scale.
      - mlyle 1y ago
        I disagree. More attention upfront to lifecycle and recycling makes sense; not just waiting until things grow enough to be a big problem and then trying to figure out how to deal with it. (I'm not saying the problem has to be solved while you ramp, but that it should be forecasted, considered, and improved.

nocoiner 1y ago

Horrifying. That beautiful property at the corner of Industrial Drive and Robert E. Lee Street has been desecrated. Will Sweetwater ever recover?

setr 1y ago

This article seems perfectly valid? They aggregated all of the blades, and it’s ugly, and it Sweetwater never actually gets to processing (eg bankrupts), it’s effectively permanent. Though I don’t see why sweetwater cant simply put up a fence and call it a day

jeffbee 1y ago
There are fields of unneeded pipes in the area that are multiple times as large as this little lot full of fiberglass, and unlike the fiberglass the drilling pipes are contaminated with heavy metals from the "thread compound" which is 30% lead. Spending any time or attention to the supposed waste of wind energy in West Texas is completely ridiculous, and lending any credence to it as a valid issue is to be a pawn in the petrochemical propaganda game.
- antisthenes 1y ago
  I opened the article, read '30 acres of wind turbine blades' and immediately closed it. Come on, 30 acres in Texas? What a nothingburger compared to the footprints of other dirty industries.
  - jeffbee 1y ago
    Here's a 300-acre pipe yard. https://www.google.com/maps/@31.8107601,-102.3917116,2359m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDcxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/@31.8107601,-102.3917116,2359m/d... 30 acres is probably, what, 2 H-E-B parking lots?
    - kubectl_h 1y ago
      That whole stretch of Midland/Odessa on 20 is one of the most miserable landscapes I've ever driven through. The crushing heat, the off-gassing flame stacks across the horizon, the man camps, the junk and trash everywhere... all of it is grim.

howmayiannoyyou 1y ago

[flagged]

jeffbee 1y ago
You're right, we should ignore a million acre feet of toxic water per year and instead concentrate on the problem of unquantified amounts of glass fibers that could hypothetically enter the biosphere.
- mlyle 1y ago
  No, we should pay attention each of these things and figure out the best responses in context.
  - jeffbee 1y ago
    If we paid proportional attention to these problems, it is not different from ignoring the fiberglass thing, because these problems are separated by many orders of magnitude in terms of scale.
    - mlyle 1y ago
      I disagree. More attention upfront to lifecycle and recycling makes sense; not just waiting until things grow enough to be a big problem and then trying to figure out how to deal with it. (I'm not saying the problem has to be solved while you ramp, but that it should be forecasted, considered, and improved.