Posted on 08/23/2022 5:00:36 PM PDT by grundle
Researchers design composite resin for blades that can be broken down to make new products including sweets
The next generation of wind turbine blades could be recycled into gummy bears at the end of their service, scientists have said.
Researchers at Michigan State University have made a composite resin for the blades by combining glass fibres with a plant-derived polymer and a synthetic one. Once the blades have reached the end of their lifespan the materials can be broken down and recycled to make new products including turbine blades – and chewy sweets.
Wind power is one of the dominant forms of renewable energy. However, turbine blades, usually made of fibreglass, can be as long as half a football field and cause problems with disposal, with many discarded in landfills when they reach the end of their use cycle.
To combat the waste, researchers designed a new form of resin. Digesting the resin in an alkaline solution produced potassium lactate, which can be purified and made into sweets and sports drinks.
“We recovered food-grade potassium lactate and used it to make gummy bear candies, which I ate,” said John Dorgan, one of the authors of the paper.
The alkaline digestion also released poly(methyl methacrylate), or PMMA, a common acrylic material used in windows and car taillights.
On eating gummy bears that are derived from a wind turbine, Dorgan says “a carbon atom derived from a plant, like corn or grass, is no different from a carbon atom that came from a fossil fuel. It’s all part of the global carbon cycle, and we’ve shown that we can go from biomass in the field to durable plastic materials and back to foodstuffs.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Yumm, can I get a box of dried crickets with that?
Can they give you projectile diarrhea like Haribo sugar free gummy bears?
What is the life span of one of these windmill blades?
Pot heads be really happy
The gummy bears will go well with the crickets the dorky greens will try to get us to eat. Before we kill them.
8 years
Will they be sugar-free gummy bears?
(Check Amazon for reviews of the product).
Hard pass. Feed these industrial gummies to the pigs.
Dag Nabbit! You beat me to it. I was going to say “better than the Haribo sugar free gummy bears.”
I honestly think I’d rather eat the bugs
There are plentiful gummy bear flavors available powered with thc.
Wind turbine blade gummy bears laden with thc would literally
fly off the shelves.
Recycled into garbage?
Why not recycle it into something useful?
Yummy!
Go for it, liberals will love them. Virtue signaling made easy. Put a bowl of them on the dining table for your guests!
A better possibility is to have SwiftBoat RearAdmiral John F’ing Kerry take those blades and shove them where the Sun don’t shine.
Recycled as border wall panels?
One can do all kinds of things in the laboratory that won’t work out in the outside world. Cost and scale being two of the major stumbling blocks for bright ideas.
I’d rather turn a base metal into gold. (Alchemy reference).
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