THE BIG PICTURE:
Wind farms require a lot of carbon dioxide-emitting concrete, steel, aluminum, plastics, rare earths and other materials. They decimate bird and bat populations, and cause infrasound, while generating relatively little electricity at low capacity and high cost. Then dead turbine blades will overwhelm U.S. landfills. Wind advocates would have you believe wind is cheap, clean, green, renewable and sustainable. They are liars.
SUMMARY:
The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2018 Wind Technologies Market Report said: “With the support of federal tax incentives, both wind and solar power purchase agreement (PPA) prices are now below the projected cost of burning natural gas in existing gas-fired combined cycle units.”
Not one page of that massive 2018 DOE report mentions the term “wind turbine waste.” Nor does the DOE’s Fact Sheet, “Advancing the Growth of the U.S. Wind Industry: Federal Incentives, Funding and Partnership Opportunities.” It’s as if wind turbines never wear out.
When wind turbines reach end-of-life, the project owner replaces the old turbines and blades with newer models. Few companies have chosen total decommissioning and removal. Some states and localities have their own standards. Federal standards, by the Bureau of Land Management, are for federal lands.
The Department of Energy (DOE) fact sheet provides information on four tax credit programs, three loan and grant programs, four sources for R&D grants and cooperative agreements, and five sources for technology deployment grants – plus a number of partnership opportunities with DOE national laboratories. But nothing on wind turbine waste, including huge concrete and rebar foundations, and blades that are up to 107 meters (351 feet) long. Turbine foundations and blades are generally not recyclable.
DETAILS:
Meanwhile, DOE’s data show wind’s “capacity factor” (percent of time actually generating electricity at full capability) is only 35%, compared to 57% for natural gas plants and 92% for nuclear power.
In many locations, huge industrial wind facilities generate power well below 30% of the year. That’s why nuclear power plants produced 20% of U.S. electricity in 2019, despite having only 9% of the nation’s generation capacity.
The volume of wind turbine waste will soar in the future. There will be 43 million metric tons just of blade waste worldwide by 2050. China is projected to be responsible for generating 40% of the waste, followed by Europe (25%) and the USA (19%). London-based Principia Scientific International calls turbine blades “a toxic amalgam of unique composites, fiberglass, epoxy, polyvinyl chloride foam, polyethylene terephthalate foam, balsa wood, and polyurethane coatings. Too much plastic-composite-epoxy fort recycling -- they are going to landfills or being left in place "dead".
European Union used blades are cut up and burned in kilns or power plants. But not in the USA. A separate tractor-trailer is needed to haul each blade to a landfill, and cutting them up requires powerful specialized equipment. With some 8,000 blades a year already being removed from service just in the United States, that’s 32,000 truckloads over the next four years -- five times higher in a few years.
Some wind energy companies cut the huge blades into short sections before sending them to landfills, because most landfills lack cutting tools. Today’s turbine blades are 20% longer, and their towers up to 200 feet taller than most of those currently being landfilled. Turbine disposal costs are upwards of $400,000 apiece. That means $24 billion to dispose of the 60,000 turbines currently in use in the U.S. The cost and the toll on existing landfills will rise as more, longer, heavier blades reach their end of life.
Over the next 20 years, the U.S. alone could have to dispose of 720,000 tons of waste blade material. Yet a 2018 report predicted a 15% drop in U.S. landfill capacity by 2021, with only some 15 years’ capacity remaining. We will need new landfills simply to handle wind turbine waste (plus solar panel and electric vehicle battery waste).
In addition to being intermittent and unreliable electricity producers, wind turbines cover vast areas of land; affect scenic views and local wind flow, temperature and moisture; kill bats and birds, with no penalties under migratory bird or endangered species laws; have relatively short life spans and require massive amounts of raw materials, especially for ocean turbines, compared to coal, gas, hydroelectric or nuclear plants; and involve enormous air and water pollution in faraway countries where a lot of the mining, processing and manufacturing are done, before turbine parts are shipped to America.
Back in 2013, when turbines were smaller than today, Lafarge North America said it took about 750 cubic yards (2,500,000 pounds) of concrete (plus rebar) to anchor just one wind turbine; Nextera wind admitted to using over 800 metric tons of concrete per smaller turbine. Not including concrete and asphalt needed to upgrade rural roads to handle heavy turbine components. Manufacturing concrete is already the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide – after burning coal, oil and natural gas. It also requires nearly a tenth of the world’s industrial water use.
Wind turbines wear out at around 15 to 17 years while government studies use a lifetime of 25 years and then do not include the cost and energy to replace the wind turbines. In high winds, the turbines must be stopped because they are easily damaged. Build-up of dead bugs has been shown to reduce the average power generated by 25% and more. Build-up of salt on off-shore turbine blades similarly has been shown to reduce the power generated by 20%-30%. Studies that found actual wind turbine power maximum capacity declines year by year.