How Does Waste from Wind Turbine Blades Compare to Other Waste Sources?
Many people wonder about the waste and clean up when renewables reach end of life. Disposing of windmills after their useful life is something we should be thinking about. But let’s zoom out a bit.
“By 2050, global annual blade waste will reach 2.9 Mt, with 43 Mt of cumulative blade waste”
It has been estimated that the total amount of windmill waste generated between now and 2050 is about 50 million tons. While that sounds like a lot, a comparison with other waste can be made. For example leftover ash from burning coal amounts to 1.2 billion tons per year! So in one year, producing electricity from coal produces 24,000 times more waste than all the windmill blades we’ll have to dispose of in the next 25 years. Seen this way, switching to wind not only gives us cleaner electricity but also dramatically decreases the amount of waste we will have to deal with. And there is no reason that in future we might be able recycle windmill blades; research is ongoing.
What are the risks from wind turbine blade breakage?
This summary is based on experts interviewed by the Boston Globe (link below).
Turbine blades are made of the same non-toxic substance that is used to make boat hulls, that is mostly fiberglass made from polyester (plastic) and silica (found in sand) used to make boats, according to an initial environmental analysis by the consulting firm Arcadis, which was commissioned by GE Vernova. The green foam that Nantucket residents are seeing on their beaches alongside fiberglass is commonly found in packaging or insulation for electric cables. “Neither the debris onshore or remnants still in the water are hazardous, the report said, and can be disposed of in a landfill just like ordinary trash.”
Another comparison one can make to put waste from turbine blade disposal or breakage in perspective is to compare waste form the non-toxic blade material to the problem of oil spills, which release a very toxic substance: The U.S. Department of the Interior documented 992 oil spills in federal waters in 2021 and 2022 alone, with a total of 80,000 gallons of oil spilled.
A recent estimate from Mishnaevsky, Jr. (2022) found that with an estimated 700,000 blades from both land and sea turbines in operation globally, there are, on average, 3800 incidents of blade failure each year.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9101399/
Another estimate, Olabie et al. (2021) found that between 2014 and 2017 about 21 blades per year failed out of 341,000 turbines.
Energies 2021, 14(17), 5241; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14175241
