Negative Effects Of Wind Turbines On The Environment – Brussels, September 10 (Thomson Foundation) – Wind turbines have become an important source of global green energy, but their manufacturers are increasingly facing an environmental challenge: recycling them.

The European Union’s share of electricity from wind power has grown from 1% in 2000, when the continent began limiting planet-warming fossil fuels, to more than 16% today.

Negative Effects Of Wind Turbines On The Environment

As the first wave of windmills reach the end of their lives, tens of thousands of blades are collected and buried in landfills that will take centuries to decompose.

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Spanish turbine maker Siemens Gamesa this week unveiled what it calls a “game changer” – the first recyclable blades that use technology that allows carbon and glass fibers to be reused in products such as display monitors or car parts.

“We’ve reached a major milestone in a society that takes care of the environment at heart,” said Siemens Gamesa CEO Andreas Nauen, who expects the blades to become the industry standard.

According to the Global Wind Energy Council, an industry trade association, Europe is the world’s second-largest producer of wind-generated electricity, accounting for about 30% of global capacity, compared to China’s 39%.

Wind Europe, a Brussels-based trade association promoting the use of wind energy in Europe, expects 52,000 blades per year to be disposed of by 2030.

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“The public wants to make sure that wind energy is fully sustainable and fully circular,” said Giles Dickson, chief executive of WindEurope, describing Siemens Gamesa’s new recyclable blade as a “significant advance”.

Although wind turbine blades are not particularly toxic, the resulting landfill can cause dangerous environmental impacts, including soil and waterway pollution, if not handled properly.

Martin Gerhardt, head of offshore wind at Siemens Gamesa, said all forms of energy have some environmental cost, but renewable energy is almost by definition less damaging to the planet.

“If you look at oil wells and spills or … methane leaks, compared to fossil industries, wind is less of an issue,” he said.

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Wind power is one of the cleanest forms of energy, with a carbon footprint 99% lower than coal and 75% lower than solar, according to a study by US-based research and brokerage firm Bernstein Research.

Its emissions come mainly from the production of iron and steel used in turbines and concrete for windmill foundations.

If these were done through techniques like carbon capture and storage — where carbon dioxide is buried underground — “you could cut the carbon footprint completely,” said study author Deepa Venkateswaran.

The growing mountains of waste created by the old blades have become a rallying point for groups opposed to the wind turbines, which they say are noisy and spoil the countryside.

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Landfill will likely remain the least expensive disposal option, said Eric Waeyenbergh, advocacy manager at Geocycle, a sustainable waste management firm.

“If you just throw it in the landfill, that’s the cheapest price you can get for dismantling a windmill. And that’s a problem because there’s no mandatory recycling or recovery obligation,” he said.

Geocycle and WindEurope are lobbying for a ban on landfills across Europe, where only four countries – Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland – ban the landfilling of composite materials such as wind turbine blades.

Geocycle operates a cement kiln in Germany with construction industry giant Lafarge, fueled in part by burning thousands of tons of old wind turbines, which produces less carbon dioxide than fossil fuels.

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Recyclable blades can also be ground for use in products such as car rearview mirrors and insulation panels, or heat treated to create materials for roof light panels and gutters.

However, industry groups say these techniques are not currently available on a commercial scale or at a price that would make them a viable alternative to landfill.

David Romero Vindel, co-founder of Reciclalia, which cuts and shreds turbine blades for recycling as carbon fiber yarn and fabric, said the landfill ban would help his firm.

“(Windmill) recycling of the composite fraction remains a challenge due to the low cost of the recycled product and the relatively small amount of waste (production), which stimulates recycling markets,” he said.

Environmental Impacts: Wind Vs Solar — Sustainable Review

Reporting by Arthur Neslen. Edited by Katy Migiro. Please give credit to the Thomson Foundation, Thomson’s philanthropic arm, which embraces the lives of people around the world who struggle to live free or just lives. Visit http://news.trust.org</a. Too much wind power can warm the environment more than oil or coal—at least in the short term. Harvard research shows that careful planning is necessary

While wind power is considered by many to be the most reliable form of alternative, clean energy, researchers at Harvard warn that “excess wind power” could warm the environment more than modified coal and fossil fuel power — at least in the short term. When rotating, wind power generates more heat than other power generation sources by disrupting air flow; Although long-term, fossil fuels are still a persistent environmental risk.

Although no one can claim that wind power reduces pollution and emissions, researchers have noted that temperatures near wind farms have increased significantly. The data may show that dense wind farm “factories” of hundreds of giant turbines are not the answer, especially if the goal is to reduce global warming from fossil fuels and ultimately climate change. This does not necessarily indicate that wind energy itself has a negative impact, but rather points to the harmful effects of massive wind farms.

Massive wind farms warm the surrounding local air by up to 1.5 degrees, which is the result of air flow disturbances, especially at night. This can have negative effects on the environment. (Harvard study)

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At first glance, this seems like a defense of coal and fossil fuels, but in fact, research has shown that scale matters. Space the massive rotating blades close together and it blocks the flow of hot and cold air. This won’t be news to people who live near the giant wind farms that have sprung up in Ontario and across the United States. farms.

“It’s more a matter of scale. “You wind up on a large enough scale … it’s going to change everything.” David Keith is a Harvard professor of engineering and physics.

The report, which he co-authored, emphasizes that greenhouse emissions from coal and fossil fuels are still a major threat globally. Instead, scientists note that even large-scale wind power has a negative impact. “There’s no free lunch,” Keith said. Keith also points out that his data shows that wind power makes more sense than fossil fuels.

Instead, the call to action may be about planning the scale of wind farms. Global issues – such as the environment – and local issues, particularly those related to residents living near wind farms and wind turbines.

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. (Each turbine kills hundreds of birds each year.) These three issues — and the Harvard study — point to a less concentrated planning approach, possibly limiting the power of any wind farm per acre.

Wind turbines push warm air down and cool air up as a natural result of turbulence. Producing enough wind turbines to replace fossil fuels would cause enough disturbance to heat the air over land masses faster than fossil fuels. The effect is particularly pronounced at night when turbines disrupt normal cooling currents.

Wind power currently produces 6.3 percent of the U.S.’s energy, and by 2017, Canada had completed 12,239 MW of wind power capacity, or about six percent of demand.

Hypothetically (the study shows) if the entire United States switched to massive wind dependence with enough power to replace coal and fossil fuel generation, the nation’s overall temperature would rise by 0.4 degrees F, or 0.2 C. Areas near the wind farms, especially the central US, will warm by more than 2.5 degrees F or 1.4 degrees C. This information is important for risk management, given that climate scientists are predicting dire consequences for global temperature increases of even 1.5 degrees.

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