Free Republic

Fiberglass particles drifted downwind during the Rexville fire.. The scenes were amazing from the recent fire on the Steuben-Allegany county line. A massive wind turbine was on fire, hundreds of feet in the air, black smoke billowing out of the blaze. It was obvious that the turbine was destroyed and the fire burned out after being on fire for hours. What wasn’t obvious was what the fire was burning into the wind … fiberglass. The family downwind and nearby the fire say they have been impacted. According to multiple sources, several family members have been exposed to airborne fiberglass: Livestock...

Early in the pandemic, I had been furiously writing articles about lockdowns. My phone rang with a call from a man named Dr. Rajeev Venkayya. He is the head of a vaccine company but introduced himself as former head of pandemic policy for the Gates Foundation. Now I was listening. I did not know it then, but I’ve since learned from Michael Lewis’s (mostly terrible) book The Premonition that Venkayya was, in fact, the founding father of lockdowns. While working for George W. Bush’s White House in 2005, he headed a bioterrorism study group. From his perch of influence –...

Wind energy companies will have the option of using decommissioned wind turbine blades as backfill material when reclaiming surface coal mine sites soon, thanks to a new bill signed into law earlier this year. But first, the state needs to set the rules. ... The blades.. are made of fiberglass. Fiberglass is a tricky material that can’t be recycled or easily repurposed. And as utility companies look to replace aging wind turbines, the machines’ blades are being buried in stacks at a handful of landfills around the country, ... old mine sites to suddenly become a landfills, which could affect...

Global Fiberglass Solution, Inc., of Bothell, Wash., has selected the Maytag Plant 2 building for its fiberglass recycling operation and will invest $6 million and create 57 new jobs in the process. “We’re pleased, we have been working with them for several months,” Newton Development Corporation Executive Director Frank Liebl said. “At first they were just going to make it a storage facility for the blades but after they saw the space they thought it was not only going to be a great place to store but to manufacture.” The company plans to create an innovative processing and manufacturing facility...

Markforged, maker of the world's first carbon fiber 3D printer and champion of industrial-strength desktop 3D printing, has just unveiled its newest 3D printing material, a high-strength high-temperature (HSHT) fiberglass that is twice as strong as Markforged's standard fiberglass material and designed specifically for high-heat environments such as aerospace and automotive manufacturing. The Mark One and recently unveiled, 40% faster Mark Two 3D printer are the only 3D printing systems in the world capable of automatically reinforcing engineering plastics to aluminum levels of performance and beyond, right on your desktop. According to the company, Markforged empowers engineers by combining "the...