This Is Why We Don't Recycle Wind Turbine Blades

Video Description

Have you ever wondered how green wind energy really is, especially when you see those vast piles of wind turbine blades dumped in landfills? Social media posts with photos of wind turbine blades in landfill have raised this question, casting doubts on the sustainability of wind power. Is it actually horrible for the environment? Today, we'll examine why recycling wind turbine blades is such a challenge, focusing on the materials and manufacturing methods involved. Then, we'll scrutinize the current recycling methods and discuss what needs to change for blades to be effectively recycled. We'll also evaluate the efforts of wind turbine manufacturers and composite material suppliers towards this goal. If you would like to help develop the Engineering with Rosie channel, you could consider joining the Patreon community, where there is a chat community (and Patreon-only Discord server) about topics covered in the videos and suggestions for future videos and production quality improvements. https://www.patreon.com/engineeringwithrosie Or for a one-off contribution you can support by buying a coffee ☕️ here — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/engwithrosie Follow us for more short videos: https://www.instagram.com/engwithrosie/ https://www.tiktok.com/@engineeringwithrosie Bookmarks: 00:00 Intro 00:41 Wind turbine waste in context 02:12 Wind turbine blade structural design 05:09 Thermoplastics vs thermosets 06:24 Get 20% of Everything Electric Australia tickets 07:24 Repurposing wind turbine blades 08:06 Shredding 08:26 Cement co-processing 09:53 Thermoplastic wind turbine blades 10:57 Advanced recycling methods 13:42 Energy use and CO2 emissions from recycling 17:08 Outro Sources: For data, images & graphs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills?leadSource=uverify%20wall https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2023/new-prize-to-propel-wind-turbine-materials-recycling.html https://www.pbsnc.org/blogs/science/how-much-wind-does-a-wind-turbine-need/#:~:text=Most%20of%20what%20you%20would,prevent%20damage%20to%20the%20blades https://energynews.us/2023/12/21/spirit-of-giving-is-central-to-cleveland-area-companys-blades-to-benches-business/ https://blog.undeerc.org/2021/03/10/separating-wind-turbine-blades-for-reuse-recycling-and-repurposing/ https://www.goldwind.com/en/news/focus-article/?id=737300515733524480 https://www.regenfiber.com/about/pressrelease-2023-01-12 https://weatherguardwind.com/regen-fiber/ https://ir.tpicomposites.com/websites/tpicomposites/English/2120/us-press-release.html?airportNewsID=56036c4d-f25f-415b-9cd8-39570fc14a44 https://energywatch.com/EnergyNews/Cleantech/article16632440.ece?utm_campaign=Energy[…]tm_content=2023-11-24&utm_medium=email&utm_source=energywatch https://www.windtech-international.com/product-news/decomblades-breakthrough-in-recycling-wind-turbine-blades https://decomblades.dk/index.php/2023/04/20/632/ https://www.voxelmatters.com/goldwind-recycles-wind-turbine-blades-into-3d-printing-material/ https://www.lmwindpower.com/en/stories-and-press/stories/news-from-lm-places/lm-wind-p[…]ls-second-recyclable-wind-turbine-blade-under-zebra-project https://www.project-cetec.dk/uk/ Journals and Scientific Papers https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/22/7624 https://www.mdpi.com/2313-4321/4/2/24 https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/api/core/bitstreams/5d6c2c41-5166-47f2-8961-49d2afc23eff/content https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956053X23002726 The Engineering with Rosie team is: Rosemary Barnes: Presenter, producer, writer Javi Diez: Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/javierdiezsuarez/ Fatini Nur: Research and production assistant https://www.linkedin.com/in/fatinin