Cutting windmill blades

[DMiller]

Has started in NW and N Central MO too. Some of those are less than 15 years in service.

 

[Truck Shop]

Four stacks like this-don't know what was used to cut them but it was a single cut what ever it was. These
blades are 35 year range for age.

 

[Tugger2]

Its interesting that we havent seen a lot of turbines being cut up from Hydro dams. These wind things dont seem to last a lot of hours. We have a big wind farm up Island that had all the blades changed ,took 2 years and they buried them all.

 

[Truck Shop]

 

[DMiller]

2020 and as far as GE recycling ever got here.
GE to recycle used wind turbine blades through Missouri's Veolia (windpowerengineering.com)

Reports are most ended up in the quarry pits where the stone for roads and concrete for these came out, landfills.

 

[Truck Shop]

Found out what was used to cut the windmill blades I posted photos of. A telehandler or CTL with
rock saw mounted. The company that's doing this is from Texas, so I suppose that's how all the big
boys from Texas do it.

 

[Tugger2]

Maybe the spent blades could be burned to generate steam and make enough electricity to run cutting equipment.

 

[DMiller]

Problem is the glass. As combustibles consume the glass precipitates out, plates to boiler or furnace surfaces. Is what they see of silica in PRB dirty coal in Fluidized boilers, really bad slag deposition.

 

[Delmer]

The article said Veolia is using them for cement production, 70% glass which can be disposed of in cement with virtually no value, and 30% resin that can be burned in the kiln at a low percentage, and virtually no value. But big bucks to get rid of them, minus big bucks to grind them = profit. Seems to me the ground product would work great for concrete reinforcement, rather than replacing dirt in cement production.

 

[fast_st]

Need one phat SSI shredder.

 

[crane operator]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/new...g-over-this-shouldnt-be-happening/ar-AA16EQuG

 

[John C.]

This link showed up this morning on one of my feeds.

https://electrek.co/2023/02/08/wind-turbine-recycle-blades/

It would solve the problem.

 

[cw4Bray]

Transportation costs are probably the biggest problem, for recycling.

..........

June 8, 2021 — Molded Fiber Glass Companies (MFG) announced today the closure of MFG South Dakota, the company’s wind blade manufacturing plant located in Aberdeen, South Dakota. The plant broke ground in 2007 and has been dedicated to the production of wind turbine blades.
The closure comes as a result of changes in market conditions, foreign competition and proposed revisions to tax policies impacting the wind energy industry in the United States.
At the time of the announcement, the company employed 300 teammates at the 315,000-sf facility.
...........

Someone could hire a few of the laid-off fiberglass workers taking them away from Walmart greeting jobs and create a traveling- "go team" they could glue stainless steel leading edge abrasion strips to the bad blades and re-balance the blades. If balance is the only problem, someone needs to re-train the maintenance workers. The military throws away helicopter rotor blades if they won't balance in 40 hours of track and balance work. Your tax dollars at work ! There's secret magic tricks to balance, some people just don't get, how to do it. With an abundance of spare blades, you'd think someone could find a mate to the one that "won't balance".
Those blades aren't cheap, over a million bucks for the larger ones. At .12 cents per KWH for retail electricity, how do you pencil out competitive electric costs ?

 

[DMiller]

This link showed up this morning on one of my feeds.

https://electrek.co/2023/02/08/wind-turbine-recycle-blades/

It would solve the problem.

As the base liquid materials are epoxy resins, liquifying those for a reclaim will be astronomical, if were not the boat industry would be recycling the old hulls, they do not.

 

[Knocker of rock]

Those blades aren't cheap, over a million bucks for the larger ones. At .12 cents per KWH for retail electricity, how do you pencil out competitive electric costs ?

I used to work in coal fired power plant maintenance. Typical shutdown costs on a 450MW, exclusive of GE working on the turbine and generator, would be about $600K in 1986.

The mine would also have substantial shutdowns on their mile long conveyors.

So a capital expense that lasts decades, and (I’m guessing here) requires little maintenance isn’t that out of line

 

[DMiller]

At least the dirt burner was Base Load, wind and Solar require a Base Load system to be On Grid to stabilize them on output. Supplemental power delivery ONLY unless supplying a small town or a Business. Adding Frequency controls and voltage smoothing systems for these type systems is extraordinarily high priced.

 

[Knocker of rock]

Those blades aren't cheap, over a million bucks for the larger ones. At .12 cents per KWH for retail electricity, how do you pencil out competitive electric costs ?

I used to work in coal fired power plant maintenance. Typical shutdown costs on a 450MW, exclusive of GE working on the turbine and generator, would be about $600K in 1986.

The mine would also have substantial shutdowns on their mile long conveyors.

So a capital expense that lasts decades, and (I’m guessing here) requires little maintenance isn’t that out of line

 

[Knocker of rock]

I agree with your assessment of the challenges

 

[DMiller]

Wind and Solar are not grid stand alone, supplemental requiring Base load station(s) to furnish fixed frequency and stable voltage to even grid connect. Subsidized to a inth degree, primarily Asian manufacture with the lack of a profit structure to flood the market with their machines. Chinese do not care of profit but to master the supply chain.

I will agree large coal based stations as nukes are expensive on major outage costs, yet end delivery of large volumes of energy pay those back in spades. Wind stations are filthy oil leaking spot messes, blading even by the factor noted above will not ever be more than landfill fodder, also use mass amounts of petroleum products for every aspect of that type cast renewable source that isn’t.
Solar cells do degrade over time, large ‘farms’ have proven Hail sensitive, two basically destroyed NE and TX where with no recycle capability of the panels will become Hazmat storage sites due to Heavy metals present with glass covering damage now leachable. Again a renewable that isn’t.

 

[KSSS]

Found out what was used to cut the windmill blades I posted photos of. A telehandler or CTL with
rock saw mounted. The company that's doing this is from Texas, so I suppose that's how all the big
boys from Texas do it.

A rock saw was my plan when this first came up, guess it was a good guess.