Germany began using wind turbines for electricity about 20 years ago. After the wind turbines wear out, no one knows what to do with the leftover carbon and glass-fibre reinforced blades, which weigh up to 15 tonnes each.
Old blades are being shredded and the chips mixed in with concrete.
“You need too much energy and power to shred them,” says Hans-Dieter Wilcken, the operator of a German recycling company. Burning them is also not an option. Chopping them up releases dangerous carbon fiber particles that are a threat to human health.
Many of the 30,000 wind turbines now in Germany will wear out over the next 20 years. That's over a million tonnes of hazardous waste (30,000 turbines x 3 blades/turbine x 15 tonnes/blade = 1.35 million tonnes).
In the US, Casper Wyoming is currently serving as a landfill for used blades. ‘The wind turbine blade will be there, ultimately, forever,’ said Bob Cappadona, chief operating officer for the North American unit of Paris-based Veolia Environnement SA, which is searching for better ways to deal with the massive waste. ‘Most landfills are considered a dry tomb.’
Massive steel reinforced turbine foundations are being swept under a layer of dirt. Wind energy blights the landscape, destroys ecosystems, kills bats and birds. And in return we get expensive, intermittent, unreliable electric power. With ultrasonic noise from the spinning blades that makes nearby residents sick.
What a deal !