An interesting Blackout News report on a major unsolved problem for anyone inclined to pretend that old wind turbine blades can be recycled. They can't - that's the problem.
As far as we can tell from their speeches and legislation, the keenest minds in European governments have been unaware of this intractable problem for a long time, unlike less enlightened folk who have known about it for years. This tells us something, but it's merely a repeat, something we already know.
Recycling of old rotor blades unsolved: Up to 75,000 tons of GRP waste per year
Berlin – In Germany, the disposal problem of old rotor blades is growing because more and more wind turbines from the expansion years after 2000 are reaching the end of their life. because large parts of the old stock were not designed for a high-quality material cycle. The German government expects 326,000 to 430,000 tonnes of waste from pure GRP sheets by 2040. In individual years, up to 75,000 tons of GRP waste can be generated. In addition, there are up to 212,000 tons of sheets with GRP and CFRP components. These older composite components in particular can only be recycled at great expense.
The whole piece is well worth reading, partly because it's interesting and partly because we may as well assume that yet another subsidy is probably looming over the sustainability horizon, a recycling subsidy.
Recycling of old rotor blades unsolved: Up to 75,000 tons of GRP waste per year
Berlin – In Germany, the disposal problem of old rotor blades is growing because more and more wind turbines from the expansion years after 2000 are reaching the end of their life. because large parts of the old stock were not designed for a high-quality material cycle. The German government expects 326,000 to 430,000 tonnes of waste from pure GRP sheets by 2040. In individual years, up to 75,000 tons of GRP waste can be generated. In addition, there are up to 212,000 tons of sheets with GRP and CFRP components. These older composite components in particular can only be recycled at great expense.
The whole piece is well worth reading, partly because it's interesting and partly because we may as well assume that yet another subsidy is probably looming over the sustainability horizon, a recycling subsidy.
The subsidy suspicion arises quite naturally because there are possible ways to recycle, or at least dispose of blades currently reaching the end of their useful lives. Not that their lives have been useful in any meaningful sense beyond political virtue-signalling, but that's another issue.
Crushing and incineration are no substitute for a material cycle
Mechanical processes crush old leaves into flakes, granules or powder. However, the original fibres are not retained in a high-quality form. The cement industry can use crushed material as fuel and mineral substitute for raw materials. Although this reduces the amount to be disposed of, it does not produce new equivalent glass fibers. In Germany, simple landfilling is also largely ruled out, which is why efficient recycling routes are absolutely necessary.
A study by the University of Strathclyde examines a pilot plant with 1,000 kilograms of rotor blade material per day and 365,000 kilograms per year. This results in around 247,100 kilograms of recycled glass fibres per year. The gross costs on a pilot scale are around €5.30 per kilogram of recycled glass fibre. New glass fibers, on the other hand, are estimated by the study at the equivalent of around €1.98 per kilogram. This means that the recovered optical fiber costs more than two and a half times as much as new material in pilot operation. The CO₂ balance is also worse at first: Recycled glass fiber causes 2.24 kilograms of CO₂ per kilogram, while new glass fiber causes 1.90 kilograms of CO₂ per kilogram.
Mechanical processes crush old leaves into flakes, granules or powder. However, the original fibres are not retained in a high-quality form. The cement industry can use crushed material as fuel and mineral substitute for raw materials. Although this reduces the amount to be disposed of, it does not produce new equivalent glass fibers. In Germany, simple landfilling is also largely ruled out, which is why efficient recycling routes are absolutely necessary.
A study by the University of Strathclyde examines a pilot plant with 1,000 kilograms of rotor blade material per day and 365,000 kilograms per year. This results in around 247,100 kilograms of recycled glass fibres per year. The gross costs on a pilot scale are around €5.30 per kilogram of recycled glass fibre. New glass fibers, on the other hand, are estimated by the study at the equivalent of around €1.98 per kilogram. This means that the recovered optical fiber costs more than two and a half times as much as new material in pilot operation. The CO₂ balance is also worse at first: Recycled glass fiber causes 2.24 kilograms of CO₂ per kilogram, while new glass fiber causes 1.90 kilograms of CO₂ per kilogram.
8 comments:
aiui, you can genuinely and usefully recycle glass, steel, aluminium, and cardboard (up to a point - the fibres become too short for the recovered material to be usable). Of these, only aluminium is actually economically worth recycling, in the other cases new material is cheaper.
All other "recycling" is just virtue-signalling. My strong suspicion is that a lot of it quietly ends up in landfill.
"simple landfilling is also largely ruled out" there's the difficulty. If you pile one stupidity on another you finally end up with insoluble problems.
Perhaps we could build warehouses with them to hold all the end of life solar panels?
Add some Araldite, and fill the squillions of potholes with the stuff!
These thousands of engineers and scientists getting here by the boatload just don't know their stuff...
Peter - that's my impression, only aluminium is economically worth recycling. Mrs H checked our recycling system recently and they admit that 40% goes to landfill anyway.
dearieme - and from what we hear, Germany began their stupidity by forbidding nuclear.
DJ - good idea, maybe they could be made into gigantic wigwams with solar panels piled up inside or used to fill the gaps between the blades, creating structures which could last for centuries.
Scrobs - you are right, those engineers and scientists don't have their act together at all.
Recycle or repurpose? New Aluminium from old: recycling. Ground-up windmills to fill pot-holes: repurpose. Even landfill if you can build on it after: disused quarries are but bigger than average potholes.
djc - from what I see, recycled usually means repurposed, sometimes said to be upscaled. I imagine all kinds of well-funded ideas are being tried on samples of ground up windmills.
"and cardboard (up to a point - the fibres become too short for the recovered material to be usable)" Burning it in a power station is obviously recycling.
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