Mastodawn

So green and clean

"We may think that the wind turbines we see blowing in the wind up and down the country will last forever, but that's not the case at all. These blades do need to be replaced and some 11,000 tons of wind turbine blades are due to be decommissioned in Ireland by the end of this year. Unfortunately, the glass fibre materials used in the construction of these blades are not biodegradable."

https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2026/0401/1491819-wind-turbine-blades-recycling-reuse-podcast/

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DoomsdaysCW 3d ago

@gerrymcgovern Yikes! For some reason, I thought they were metal. That's not good.

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DoomsdaysCW 3d ago

@gerrymcgovern But at least there's this...
"Wind turbine blade reuse in civil engineering and other applications is in its infancy, and is not utilised on a larger scale, mainly because there is no information on the current stock of these blades in Ireland and their mechanical fitness to be reused in second life structures."

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Gerry McGovern 3d ago

@DoomsdaysCW there are millions of them dumped in toxic graves that will poison for thousands of years. They just don't design this stuff to be reusable or recyclable. And we don't calculate these total costs to the environment. Once you can tick the box "reduces CO2" you can do practically any other harm you want.

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Tyrone Slothrop 3d ago

@gerrymcgovern Siemens Gamesa is selling recyclable blades, it seems:

https://www.siemensgamesa.com/global/en/home/explore/journal/recyclable-blade.html

@DoomsdaysCW

RecyclableBlade

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Gerry McGovern

@slothrop
I'm sure there's examples but the general thrust of the "renewable" industry is in the very opposite direction. They're building EVs now with all sorts of strange wholly unrecyclable alloys. Every year, modern tech becomes less repairable and less recyclable. Yet the branding always wins. Just stick a "sustainable" label on it and everything is ok.

@DoomsdaysCW