[HN Gopher] What happens to all the old wind turbines?
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What happens to all the old wind turbines?
Author : Kaibeezy
Score : 45 points
Date : 2020-02-07 12:27 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| gandalfian wrote:
| Sailing yachts too. Millions of affordable fiberglass yachts made
| since the 70's are now reaching the end of their lives. In the
| past abandoned wooden boats just rotted away. But the fiberglass
| hulks stick around. It's a coming problem.
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| Nothing escapes entropy, but if you multiply the rate at which
| everything naturally decays with the sheer volume of things
| that exist and will one day need to be replaced, we're going to
| bankrupt the planet of its resources.
|
| I wish more things were made to last. Imagine working in a 5000
| year old skyscraper that's as good as the day it opened, or
| driving a 500 year old car that's as reliable as the day you
| purchased it.
|
| Humanity's going to last a long, long time. Hopefully.
|
| At least resources like wood and water are renewable. But oil
| and metal aren't. When we run out of oil, we can kiss plastics
| and cosmetics goodbye. As for metals, recycling scrap metal and
| asteroid mining are our only long term options.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| >driving a 500 year old car that's as reliable as the day you
| purchased it
|
| Telemetry would be the first thing on the backports list
| before the car is deemed roadworthy again.
| Joe-Z wrote:
| >Imagine working in a 5000 year old skyscraper...
|
| Living in Europe and having ample opportunity to visit them,
| I'm always fascinated by the old cathedrals that just stand
| around in our city centers. I almost can't believe how people
| hundreds of years ago managed to erect these structures. And
| not only that but the level of detail and craftmanship that
| went into all of its components is mind-boggling. To me it
| also signifies a connection to previous generations which you
| don't often get anywhere else. Of course they are not nearly
| 5.000 years old, but it just sprang to my mind when I read
| this line.
| jdsully wrote:
| The craziest part is these were built over very long
| periods of time spanning multiple generations. Inter-
| generational cooperation is just something I can't imagine
| happening today.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Koln cathederal was started in 1248 and finished in 1880
| (albeit with a bit of a gap in the middle).
| WalterBright wrote:
| A number of these older structures also have modern
| reinforcements added to keep them from collapsing.
|
| People love these old structures (as do I) and non-trivial
| effort is put into protecting and maintaining them.
|
| For a famous example, there's the leaning tower of Pizza.
| fit2rule wrote:
| Also living in Europe, I find myself in awe of this fact
| quite often. There was a time when 'high technology' meant,
| knowing how to cut stone in such a way that it could be
| transported and assembled by an illiterate mob into a vast
| cathedral.
|
| And then, there are the aquaducts and water mills scattered
| all over the region (Austria). What an astonishing thing to
| see, still in operation, hundreds of years after they were
| built, water wheels pulling water up into the castle ..
| WalterBright wrote:
| > illiterate
|
| That doesn't mean they were stupid or didn't have
| intimate knowledge of their craft.
|
| In those days, models were built by the designers which
| were then given to the craftsmen to build. There's a
| museum in England which houses the ship models built by
| the naval architects to give to the ship builders. The
| models are exquisite.
| trogsworth wrote:
| Low Tech Magazine did a piece on this back in June:
| https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/06/wooden-wind-turbines...
| dodobirdlord wrote:
| Fiberglass is pretty inert, right? It's also used for boat hulls.
| I wonder if turbine blades could be cut up and used for
| artificial reef construction the way decommissioned ships
| sometimes are. But perhaps the blades are lighter than water.
| killjoywashere wrote:
| As a diver, I have to say, artificial reef isn't quite what you
| think. We dive wrecks all the time that are 60-130' down and
| have been there for 70-100 years and barely have any coral,
| certainly not like the massive walls of coral elsewhere in the
| same islands.
|
| Some of it has to do with the depth: most life is in the 0-40'
| zone. And the oxygen drops off quite a bit, which inhibits
| oxidation (rust). There's another wreck we dive at 40' that's
| barely recognizable due to corrosion and life. There's an area
| that has coke bottles from 1945 (the glass is date-stamped) and
| they barely have anything growing on them.
|
| If you dump fiberglass in shallow water, people are going to be
| pissed. If you dump fiberglass in deep water, it will likely
| not decompose for millennia. But it also won't be a Mecca for
| perch and sharks like some make them out to be.
| rubinelli wrote:
| Fiberglass would break down and release microplastics, though,
| so it is not as environmentally friendly as a sunk metal hull.
| squarefoot wrote:
| If I recall correctly, fiberglass is a pretty decent heat
| insulator. Wouldn't be possible to cut those blades into tiles,
| then reshape them to be perfectly flat and use them as heat
| insulation panels in non critical industrial applications?
| stcredzero wrote:
| _If I recall correctly, fiberglass is a pretty decent heat
| insulator. Wouldn 't be possible to cut those blades into
| tiles_
|
| The physics of insulators, like fiberglass batting. Basically,
| it works the same way as down feathers or fur. The material
| traps air into many, many somewhat separate pockets. This
| interrupts convective flows, which drastically slows down the
| rate at which heat can move through air. Since air is the
| opposite of dense, not much heat can be transmitted through air
| which does not move.
|
| Fiberglass tiles aren't going to have the same insulating
| property, just because they're also fiberglass.
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| We do need to find solutions for blade-waste. Ideally it would
| find its way into new blades.
|
| On other hand, how does blade-waste compare to energy- and non-
| energy- waste sources? Until that solution arrives:
|
| " municipal and commercial dumps will take most of the waste,
| which the American Wind Energy Association in Washington says is
| safest and cheapest. 'Wind turbine blades at the end of their
| operational life are landfill-safe...' [The group] pointed to an
| Electric Power Research Institute study that estimates all blade
| waste through 2050 would equal roughly .015% of all the municipal
| solid waste going to landfills in 2015 alone."[0]
|
| [0]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-
| turb...
| jefftk wrote:
| _> We do need to find solutions for blade-waste._
|
| Why? We're in no danger of running out of space, and they're
| not toxic.
| ajross wrote:
| Yeah, I mean, all other things being equal it's better to
| find efficiencies where possible and not just throw things
| away needlessly. Folks like to laugh at it, but plastics
| manufacturing for one-use items like bags and straws has real
| externalities that aren't borne by the cost of manufacture.
|
| But in this particular situation: a quarter-century-old
| turbine blade has paid for itself _so many times over_
| already that this is just not where we need to be spending
| out time worrying about efficiencies. Even if we just bury
| the things, wind power remains (by far!) the most
| environmentally beneficial choice for almost all electrical
| markets.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > has real externalities
|
| If they're blowing around in the wind or dumped in the
| waterways, sure. If they're buried, none I've heard of.
| abainbridge wrote:
| I agree. I'd even say that burying plastic is a form of
| carbon sequestering and therefore has some positive
| impact. However, I think the problem with burying plastic
| is the stuff that leaches out.
|
| See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5373626
| for example.
| chrisbrandow wrote:
| It's mostly fiberglass.
|
| I think this entire article lost sight of the relevant scale,
| because blades are big compared to humans and energy (and the
| physical waste of displaced energy sources) is invisible.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Is burying them an issue?
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Why is it that the turbines can be turned into a bridge and a
| playground but can't continue to be used? What is the failure
| mode for these things?
| Retric wrote:
| Spinning turbine blades are under significant mechanical
| stress. Individual blades are getting as tall as a 30 story
| buildings, but they rotate so you need to support all that
| weight from one end. Further, the tips are spinning at 100+MPH
| constantly so dust in the air is eroding the surface.
|
| On top of this weight savings are a major goal so their
| designed to just barely work for a given lifespan. So, blades
| that where pulled from a working turbine are still really
| strong, they are simply more likely to fail at some unknown
| point in the future.
|
| PS: Turbines from 20+ years ago are much smaller, but faced
| similar issues. For scale compare the turbine blade with cars
| in this shot and think this thing is rotating:
| https://www.technology.org/2018/03/23/here-is-the-worlds-lar...
| gambiting wrote:
| Are there any recorded instances of this happening? A turbine
| falling apart when taken past its design lifetime?
| Animats wrote:
| About 3,800 wind turbine blades fail per year, according to
| an insurer.[1] About 0.5% per year. A detailed analysis of
| blade failure modes: [2] There's an industry devoted to
| blade repair.[3] What they do looks a lot like body work
| for carbon-fiber aircraft, except that it's done in midair.
|
| Transmissions and bearings are more of a problem. "Turbine
| gearboxes are typically given a design life of 20 years,
| but few make it past the 10-year mark."[4]
|
| [1] https://www.enr.com/articles/42352-are-four-wind-
| turbine-fai... [2] https://backend.orbit.dtu.dk/ws/portalfi
| les/portal/118222161... [3] http://fairwindres.com/wind-
| industry-maintenance/blade-repai... [4]
| https://www.windpowerengineering.com/wind-turbine-
| gearboxes-...
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Turbine gearboxes are typically given a design life of
| 20 years, but few make it past the 10-year mark.
|
| That's why the biggest and best are direct drive.
| donjoe wrote:
| It is all about trying to avoid having a broken/breaking
| wind turbine. A spinning wind turbine falling apart is no
| fun for bystanders involved [0].
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nSB1SdVHqQ
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's a towerstrike and overspeeding, nothing to do with
| the blades being worn out.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I.e. cumulative fatigue damage from the constant flexing of
| the blades.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The failure mode is _not_ as other posters have said
| mechanical, but is in fact usually a business decision. Plenty
| are lasting much longer than 25 years.
|
| Many wind turbines were built with subsidies to run them for 25
| years. As soon as that time is up, they may no longer be worth
| running, especially since in many places wholesale power costs
| have dropped due to other subsidised wind and solar.
|
| Also, finding sites to build wind turbines is getting tricky -
| you need good wind, no complaining neighbours, good road and
| crane access, and a good grid connection. That usually makes
| existing wind turbine sites excellent candidates for building
| bigger better turbines which are 10x the size.
| LegitShady wrote:
| It's a 30 storey fiberglass building spinning at speed. The
| stress is high and the material fatigues over time. Eventually
| it will crack, a stress concentration will occur and the crack
| will propagate somewhere important and it will fail completely.
|
| Now take that same material and give it a much shorter
| span/length, and a much lower loading, and fatigue becomes less
| of an issue.
|
| I'm not sure what bridge they're talking about in specific but
| I don't see why they couldn't be beams for a pedestrian bridge
| providing. I bet the manufacturer has a lot of testing data
| too.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Cumulative fatigue damage goes up as the cube of the stress,
| if I recall correctly.
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