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But They’re Worried About Plastic Straws and Grocery Bags…
MOTUS A.D. ^ | 2-9-20 | MOTUS

Posted on 02/09/2020 7:34:56 AM PST by NOBO2012

Behold the greening of America:

A wind turbine’s blades can be longer than a Boeing 747 wing, so at the end of their lifespan they can’t just be hauled away. First, you need to saw through the lissome fiberglass using a diamond-encrusted industrial saw to create three pieces small enough to be strapped to a tractor-trailer…

The municipal landfill in Casper, Wyoming, is the final resting place of 870 blades whose days making renewable energy have come to end. The severed fragments look like bleached whale bones nestled against one another.

undefinedWind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills

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 repurposed. That’s created an urgent search for alternatives in places that lack wide-open prairies. In the U.S., they go to the handful of landfills that accept them, in Lake Mills, Iowa; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Casper, where they will be interred in stacks that reach 30 feet under.

Damn, it sucks being green.

And speaking of hypocrites, I see the Academy Awards aka “the Oscars” will be presented tonight. Don’t forget not to watch.

Posted from: MOTUS A.D.


TOPICS: Humor; Politics
KEYWORDS: climatechange; globalwarming; pc; windmills
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1 posted on 02/09/2020 7:34:56 AM PST by NOBO2012
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To: NOBO2012

You would think they would make excellent fence posts.


2 posted on 02/09/2020 7:42:02 AM PST by oldasrocks (Heavily Medicated for your Protection.)
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To: NOBO2012

Being a good capitalist, I predict one day someone will figure out a way to recycle or repurpose the blades in a way to make money and it will happen.


3 posted on 02/09/2020 7:44:10 AM PST by Conan the Librarian (The Best in Life is to crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and the Dewey Decimal System)
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To: NOBO2012

Old car batteries, light bulbs with mercury.....Plastic is nothing....


4 posted on 02/09/2020 7:44:58 AM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: NOBO2012

Are they heavy enough to be dumped into the ocean or will they float back up/


5 posted on 02/09/2020 7:44:59 AM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: NOBO2012

Build that wall!


6 posted on 02/09/2020 7:48:16 AM PST by bluejean (I'm becoming a cranky old person. It really annoys me.)
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To: NOBO2012

So they kill thousands of birds in their lifespan, are an ugly eyesore, and cannot be recycled.

Another gem of an idea from ignorant leftists.


7 posted on 02/09/2020 7:48:30 AM PST by Red in Blue PA (Fascism and socialism are cousins. They both disarm their citizens.)
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To: NOBO2012

If the wind blade garbage was dumped into the Pacific right outside Los Angeles, then California could fill in the gaps with dirt and make more land to build homeless shelters. That way more homeless and illegals could live in California.


8 posted on 02/09/2020 7:48:31 AM PST by Bernard ("I don't know if that's true:" Schiff said.)
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To: oldasrocks
"You would think they would make excellent fence posts."

Could they be used on the border wall?

9 posted on 02/09/2020 7:49:31 AM PST by neverevergiveup
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To: oldasrocks

You would think they would make excellent fence posts.


There is a problem - they burn.

From another article - “The wind turbine blades are a toxic amalgam of unique composites, fiberglass, epoxy, polyvinyl chloride foam, polyethylene terephthalate foam, balsa wood, and polyurethane coatings. So, basically, there is just too much plastic-composite-epoxy crapola that isn’t worth recycling.”

The smoke would be pretty toxic.


10 posted on 02/09/2020 7:50:17 AM PST by volunbeer (Find the truth and accept it - anything else is delusional)
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To: neverevergiveup

see 10 above


11 posted on 02/09/2020 7:50:34 AM PST by volunbeer (Find the truth and accept it - anything else is delusional)
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To: oldasrocks

the hypocrites or the blades...


12 posted on 02/09/2020 7:52:29 AM PST by heavy metal (truth trumps lies...)
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To: Red in Blue PA

Don’t forget they produce too much power when you DO NOT need it and produce zero power when you DO need it.

Their “capacity factor” is terrible (actual energy output divided by nameplate rating output).

So the only way they are economic is if the government bludgeons your skull and demands “buy this!”


13 posted on 02/09/2020 7:55:31 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: NOBO2012

Straws and bags are absolutely meaningless to the environment, but people use straws and bags every day.

Single stream recycling is a joke. There are numerous reports of cities that simply landfill the glass that people have so carefully placed in their blue recycle bins.

It is more important to environmentalists that people participate (forced or otherwise) in environmentalism, then to actually do something for the environment.


14 posted on 02/09/2020 7:56:12 AM PST by kidd
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

“So the only way they are economic is if the government bludgeons your skull and demands “buy this!””

Federal government deficit reduction idea. End all federal subsidies for green energy. The climate change activists claim green energy is economical. If so, it can compete on its own in the marketplace.


15 posted on 02/09/2020 8:06:02 AM PST by Soul of the South (The past is gone and cannot be changed. Tomorrow can be a better day if we work on i)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar; All
A bunch of them tied together and dumped into the oceans would make great "coral reefs" for fish and marine life.

Some enterprising capitalist will come up with a way to repurpose and/or recycle these monstrosities and make a profit.

These Lefties wanting to save the planet from plastic straws and bags but all the while ignoring the wind turbine blade waste, reminds me of the bumper sticker I saw that said:

"Instead of trying to save the world, how about turning your directional signal on?"

16 posted on 02/09/2020 8:08:12 AM PST by HotHunt (Been there. Done that.)
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To: volunbeer

It sounds like their composition is similar to that of modern boat hulls. What do they do with boats that get junked?


17 posted on 02/09/2020 8:08:41 AM PST by IronJack
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Surf boards!


18 posted on 02/09/2020 8:11:13 AM PST by Larry Lucido
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To: NOBO2012

I’m not understanding why they are not refurbished and reused on new turbine installations.


19 posted on 02/09/2020 8:13:09 AM PST by IndispensableDestiny
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To: NOBO2012

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=windmill+blades&hvadid=78340207361570&hvbmt=bp&hvdev=c&hvqmt=p&tag=mh0b-20&ref=pd_sl_3f1obhhgy2_p


There is market for them on amazon.


20 posted on 02/09/2020 8:13:42 AM PST by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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