Do you ever find yourself getting more confused and uncertain the more you try to understand and figure something out? I am currently thinking about the wonderful options we have to burning fossil fuels for power and electricity, specifically, solar and wind power. I believe that every new building ever constructed should be required to use solar panels as one part of their electrical source. Why not? The sun shines almost every day! I am also enamored by the elegance and poise of tall, sleek wind turbines that you often see proudly twirling on the edge of a hillside like giant pinwheels. How can we go wrong with wind power? Well, exploring that question, was the start of my latest dilemma!
I was first led to believe that the stately wind turbines were the answer to one of our energy problems. They were simple to construct, although expensive, did not pollute the environment and would just spin and spin like the old windmills of the Netherlands, forever and ever. Not surprisingly, I soon learned how naive I was and still am.
Opponents of wind power argue that it will take over 50 years for a wind turbine to generate enough electricity to pay for the two million dollars cost that goes into its manufacture, installation, operation, maintenance and the ultimate decommissioning of each turbine. Although many still support the benefits of wind power, there is a financial catch. Most wind turbine's life expectancy is only 25 years, so where is the profit? They need to be replaced before they pay for themselves. That is not good news!
The largest wind turbine farm in the USA, 1,600 turbines, was built in the mid-’80s near San Francisco. It did not last 25 years and today sits abandoned. It is not the only wind farm that has been abandoned, it is just the largest. Also, considering the fact that they only run 30 percent of the time — how short would their lifetime be if they ran anywhere near 100 percent of the time? So all of a sudden what appeared to be a wonderful solution to our fossil fuel consumption problem does not appear to be the answer.
Other arguments against wind turbines are their negative effects on wildlife and birds that live and travel near them. Farmers who often live nearest to wind farms complain about the “noise” of the turbines and their long term effects on human health. Then, today, I read of another negative feature of wind turbines that I had never heard before.
Turbine blades can last up to 20 years, but many are taken down after just 10 so they can be replaced with bigger and more powerful designs. Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years. Built to withstand hurricane-force winds, the blades can’t easily be crushed, recycled or reused. The monster-size fibreglass blades are not biodegradable and have now become another increasing pollutant in our already clogged landfill sites. Who would have guessed?
Creative companies are now trying to invent ways to repurpose the old turbine blades with limited success. So just when you start to become optimistic over a solution to one problem, you find that you have created another problem at the same time.
Maybe the worn-out turbine blades could be sold to President Trump for him to use to build his wall along the Mexican border! Or as surfboards at Mar-a-Largo.
2 comments:
I smell a conspiracy. Have the oil companies been buying up the wind farms and then making them uneconomic to discourage others from building them? Sure the turbines aren't turning al the time but often that's the same with hydro and solar. If the cost of disposal of the replaced blades is factored into the cost of installing new blades, maybe the new blades won't be economic and they won't be installed. The old blades could be used in smaller towers. Nah, I bet Exxon's buying up the and farms.
Perhaps you should go to the wind farm by Palm Springs and take the tour. If the wind is blowing too strong they have to be shut down and if wind isn’t strong enough they don’t work .They certainly must give off something as when we were there our dog just went “ wild” when we were by them but settled as soon as we were a distance from them.
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