I am bidding a project to cut and haul off two windmill blades. The blades are 130' long, and made of 4" fiberglass. It is hollow until the end of the blades. They weigh 10,200 pounds per blade. Trying to come up with a way of cutting these down. The landfill wants them in 16' sections, so there are a lot of cuts. I am not excited about putting a guy on a demo saw trying to cut these. He would need a breathing protection and it would dangerous. I have a high flow asphalt cutter that might work. Shears would work but I don't have one and it would be slow. I saw some vidoes of tree shears that rotate up and down that might work. Anyone done this before and have some ideas?
I wonder what an asphalt pizza cutter roller would do to them? I've seen sawmills with a bandsaw that will cut to length the whole truckload of logs on the trailer, not real practical here, and you'd need carbide to make it through. Maybe a track for the demo saw to give the operator some where safer to stand and guide the saw ? carbide teeth not abrasive wheels obviously.
What about an oxygen lance? I've cut concrete before with one?
Fbgls, BAD Juju throwing tons of dust around cutting with rotary saws. Buy a sheet of 3/4" or 1" steel set the blades on a set of concrete blocks sharpen a long edge to a dull point and drop the sheet on them with a small crane like a guillotine. BTW, this is how they cut up scrap aircraft in Tucson.
4 Inch fiberglass will take quite a hit to shatter. This is an interesting project. Just another side to renewable energy. I've read that turbines getting to the end of their life are scrapped rather than rebuilt because the tax credits only apply to new installations. Please update us on the disposal.
Maybe weld up a couple guides out of some angle iron, one at each end of steel sheet and put a couple hard wood planks under the blades to protect the guillotine cutting edge. Or for some more ideas:
Even with slots or holes for lifting bridle, with just the sheet 1" 4x10' looking well over 1500lbs. Dropped on edge from say ten feet I do not think the glass will sustain the damage.
Since just two blades-16 cuts per blade (8 per side). Rotary saw, tyvek suit, filter mask, fire hose for dust/fiber suppression...? I thought the same things- so much for “green.”
Just thinking out loud here. Do they make hand held or portable water jet cutters?
That would be some cleaner.
The water jet would keep dust down. I will look into that. As these blades start to fatigue, I suspect this project will become more the norm. There are countless windmills here now and they are starting to be replaced. Wouldn't be a bad niche gig if a guy can come up with a way of doing this somewhat economically. I cant tell if its 4" all the way to the end, but it absolutely is where they bolt up to the turbine. Landfill sure was not interested in getting more of these (they have had one in the past) as they have a real problem dealing with them at the landfill, hence the 16' lengths and I have to separate the ring section where they bolt to the turbine. I was hoping for a way to do this mechanically, preferably excavator mounted, but that may not be possible.
What about something similar to the cable setup marine salvage operations use? It’s slow so dust shouldn’t be terrible compared to a faster operating speed of an abrasive setup. Miller might be on to something. If the blade was blocked up each side of the anticipated point of impact I bet something sharp and heavy enough would make a fairly clean break. Nothing that a little manipulation with a hoe and thumb couldn’t finish off.
If you’re talking about a bunch, what about a forestry machine- hotsaw-type setup? Some have blade, some saw chain... Maybe someone on the forestry side could say if it’d work.
How big diameter are the blades where they attach to the turbine? From the one's I've been around, I was thinking they were like 4-5' diameter, but that was a really small turbine I put up as a display in the early 2000's, I know the new ones are much larger.
Largest ones I have seen blade root area can be close to 12' wide.
What about a gas powered cut off saw with garden hose attached for dust suppression? Or a pneumatic grinder with water hose? I've used both set ups for grinding out concrete, mortar or demo work inside buildings. They're fast, easily set up, and the hose does wonders for the dust. Find the right blade to hack through the fiberglass and away you go.
What about the shears that the steel scrappers use? I know years ago we had an outfit come in and chop up a bunch of scrap steel around the quarry. Their's were mounted on the end of an excavator and seem to recall they worked just like a thumb on an excavator.
That's my thinking. If it's a one off job, maximize profit by embracing the suck. You're in Idaho so the temperatures should be more favorable than here.
Repurpose them! Cut them in thirds, stand then on end, line them up side by side, and there's you a border wall, eventually. And decorative at that.
A mobile cutter would surely qualify as a niche. Hopefully very profitable. Travel to the site and cut the blades to a manageable size for transport and ultimate disposal.
No need to re-invent a cutter. Wire saw would do the job. Set up like a line boring rig (mount the drive and guides to the fiberglass ) and cut away.
I spoke with a concrete cutter guy that is known for his out of the box thinking. He thought a cable saw might work. He is going to look at it tomorrow. Tonight I will research the water cutter. A shear is out of the question unless I buy a smaller one, not sure I want to tie up 50K on that. The only machine Cat puts one on to rent is a 345. The price is not realistic. I appreciate the responses.
The last time I cut through a tennis court that has a fiberglass overlay I went through 3 blades My first thought was some sort of waterjet cutter and while I like the idea of a shear I don't think a tree shear will work because the wood fibers can move laterally unlike the fiberglass fibers... I think you would need a *lot* more energy than a tree would take.
yes you are correct. The OEM of the tree shear said as much, likely would not work with fiberglass.
I see those blades on railcars, passing 100ft from me as I sit on the patio drinking a beer... They are freaking huge! The cross section size eliminates anything machine mounted that I can think of....has to be a way, these ain't the first ones to get scrapped. Someone ain't doing it with a sawzall.... Ed
Laser cutter????
Global Fiberglass Solutions in Sweetwater, Tx uses a thin wet wire blade with water mist to cut them. Waste is collected and filtered. There are several articles about it. Looks like a clean cut. https://renews.biz/36644/ge-recycles-ny-wind/
A water jet cutter mounted on the end of an excavator stick could be pretty slick.
Here's how they do granite.
I don't think the plate would win
A wire saw was my thought as well here. A large excavator mounted shear maybe, but I don't think it could handle the root if it is as big as I think it is.
The "root" is big enough for me at 6' to walk inside. I think the wire saw holds the most promise. Although if a guy could fab the water jet and direct it with an excavator it would more economical and easy to do anywhere. Feed the jet out of a water truck and it wouldn't get much more slick. Concrete cutter guy said that the wire saw is very expensive and prone to damage. I will find out tomorrow what his thoughts are. As to the size, I see these things in the air as they populate the foothills around town, but until you stand next to them you don't realize how freakin huge they are.
Repurpose them into those tiny homes. Buy them on the cheap, cut it in half, use the big end for a bunker and the flat end for an approach or an awning. Sell the whole shebang for $ 25K installed to every prepper in the country........retire wealthy to some deserted island. Problem solved!!!!
I like that thinking!!
I guess it might work... for tiny people As for repurposing them... as tough as there are going to be lots more I'll bet they make great security fences... you could build a wall with them
Maybe a dumb question but what about the ol' oxy-acetylene torch? I've never tried cutting through fiberglass and the fumes maybe rough, but that seems like something that could do it... What am I missing? For some of the $ amounts I'm seeing thrown around above a respirator and some gas tanks seem cheap. I think this sounds like a neat job, though it also sounds like it could be a big pain!
What is something EVERYONE is going to need at some point? ……….A coffin. Slice that thing up in sections, glue the sections together, and sell them for 2K each. ……….The blades kind of look like bones...……...so have some sculptor guy build a huge roadside T-Rex out of them, a national point of interest. ……….Cut it into planks and build a ship. ……….Guard rails along side the highways! ……….Quickie saw up small pieces and sell them as building blocks. ……….More coming, I have to sleep on this!
As I was reading the thread, a wire saw like that is what I was thinking of to cut one of these up. Probably better than my first thought of just using a 80K lb hoe with new teeth and just chop it into sections.
Most of the articles I find say the same basic things.... and as for recycling them looks like most are mechanically dismembered. https://www.windpowerengineering.com/mechanical/blades/recycling-wind-turbine-blades/ https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1124486/complexities-recycling-begin-bite https://www.appropedia.org/Recycling_of_wind_turbine_blades https://www.amusingplanet.com/2017/01/the-second-life-of-wind-turbine-blades.html https://www.windpowerengineering.co...cts/decommissioning-canadas-oldest-wind-farm/
Just like solar panels and most every other "green" thing, the government gives millions of dollars in grants and then subsidizes them which is the only way they will work. Then when they're wore out there's been no thought on what or how to deal with them. Solar panels, lithium batteries for electric vehicles all the same. I can't imagine these blades are going into landfills. Where's the news now?
Those links are interesting. Doesn't sound like industry has a solution for these blades and there are a lot more inbound.
Could portions of the blade be used as a culvert?
Yeah, that's kinda what I got out of the little research I did... and yep... there's gonna be a whole lot more!!! especially since some of em' aren't even lasting the 25 years they are supposed to plus the newer ones are made even bigger/longer with the same amount of material.... = more stresses!!!! == shorter life
I wonder just how much fuel those things save when considering all the resin used to make them, all the fuel used to move them from place to place and finally all the bother to scrap or recycle them. So how do they save money and the environment?
Have to wonder if there is an opportunity for someone to develop a means to repair instead of replacing those blades. From one site I looked at the worst wear is on the leading edge of the blades.
Is not really considered with as slow as these seem to move but the outer length of these blades is moving close to sound barrier in distance covered even at slow rotational speed. Small particles of dust, small birds and insects, even rain erodes them like a power blaster.
found this https://www.echidna-rocksaws.com.au/Gallery/Photos.php?keyword=fibreglass&thumb=11&pic=348
I am seeing a Garden hose supplied Wet Saw. That would keep dust down but how would you collect the dripping running mess?
forgot to say more pics on the link of cutting wind turbine blades
Thanks
I would think you could tarp and run off sock the cutting area, and kind of "retaining pond" the wet residue and then clean it up. The problem I see with the circular cutting wheel is you would have to be rolling or flipping the blade all the time to get it cut up. Kind of like cutting 8"x12" wood blocks with a 7 3/4" circular saw. Not enough blade for the material. I was thinking more along the lines of a big wood processer with a grapple . Where they grab the logs and cut it to length with the big hyd. chainsaw arm and then can lay them down. But it would take a really big one to handle those blades. Do they make those that can handle 8'- 10' diameter logs?
All you'd have to do is mount the blade at the root(on the flange) to a rotator and have the cutting device on top(or side) as the rotator spins the blade... start at the tip end obviously and work your way towards the rotator
A friction crane guillotine would the lowest tech solution. Not very portable and probably only cheap compared to an excavator mounted rock saw. A wire saw would at least be extremely portable. Video of the rock saw cutting blades from @CatRen 's link:
I think the rock saw blade would be a pain. Rolling, bracing, propping it up, and that's a really small windmill blade he's working on. It would be a job with a bigger blade, and I could see it pinching the blade pretty easy. I'm thinking along the lines of the shear/ gilloutine idea, but with hydraulic power, built on a semi trailer like the car crushers. Load and push the windmill blade into it with a loader that has a grapple on it. Feed in 10-15' foot at a time, and bam. Big enough frame that the whole end of the blade fits into it 12' x 12' square opening or so. Something like a overgrown log splitter/ blade and anvil/ car crusher semi trailer monstrosity. Big powerfull ram. Maybe in two halves on the trailer and the press frame unfolds and pins in to feed the blades through. Build it out of some old factory heavy flywheel press. I'd reinvent the wheel if someone hadn't already made it.
run them over with a big dozer and use the dozer blade to snap the fiberglass in place to make smaller sections....
Could you just take a big hoe and run the tracks up on the blade, then grab the end with the bucket and break it off? It works with big trees.
Run them through a roto-grinder. I would think somebody would take the material to recycle. Very interesting problem. Somebody that comes up with the right idea/procedure is going to make a bunch of money.
Maybe a really big track loader with a 4 in 1 to grab, lift, pinch but even then I think it might be too thick and strong at the fat end. I like the car crusher guillotine idea. Also something like a large wood chipper might be a cool invention if you could figure out how to get it in there. Where is R G Letorneau when we need him?
Was just reading up on this going on in Germany where they and the Dutch in recovery of their turbine detritus are eliminating that trash waste. They actually built a facility to use Pyrolytic Gasification to take the ground up fbgls residuals converting the epoxy component to a fuel and recovering the glass fibers with other remnant solids to emplace in concrete at a Holcim facility. Makes the concrete more stable with the added fibrous crap as well sets it into a fixed material not in a dump. The fuel side is used in the Cement Kiln process prior to Concrete production. They do NOT however give any real value numbers as to the expenses nor the cost of the pyrolytic conversion which also takes fuels. The author also ignored a question on fiber release as the concrete weathers and would that be a concern.
Chain saw for wood or may one concrete,operator in moon suit.
Light them on fire at night. Clean up whats left and haul it to the landfill the next morning.
A big teepee style stack would probably go up pretty good!!!
You still have a couple days to get ‘em all there!
It'll be bigger than the texas a&m bonfire!!!! and with the burning man theme we might even have some burningmen fatalities to compete with texas
Not sure I want to be down wind of a fire like that! I'm sure the resin those things are made with are not good to breath when burned!
What they use to cut it in fabrication work? Super Sawzall? Maybe crunch it with a big hoe and cut it with sharp edge or even one with some special designed serrated knife edge teeth. Cut them to fit, crush in to a dumpster or car crusher. Might make a blade setup from a cutting edge to start with and 2 hoes working together, one with big thumb.
Would this gadget work? https://www.123rf.com/photo_91547019_granite-quarry-working-mining-machines-mining-industry-.html
The issue with cutting the blades is not just making considerably smaller, it is the release of microfine glass fibers from them when cut, more cuts more fibers and more eventual directly associated illness. Silicosis is one, same symptoms as Asbestosis, can resolve to full blown lung cancers, skin irritant, must wrap workers in tyvek suits respirators or outside filtered air delivery systems. Large chunks buried mostly intact least human issue beyond the burial site.
I'd figure out a jet cutter on a hoe, over a portable pan setup. Put big sawhorses on each side and drag the blade across the work area. The slurry contains the bad stuff and you can vac truck it up. If needed, cut out a piece on top to make a window to cut the bottom without flipping over. No dust, nobody touches it and the vac truck dumps that nasty into an inert fill.
I know this is an old post. I wonder if the contract ever came through? I've also seen the Facebook memes regarding this "not-so-green" part of the green energy solution generates in landfill consumption. These windmills also generate a lot of waste oil in their lifetimes, too. Not really as green as they are touted to be but then, sheep are non-thinking creatures that is easily led about through manipulations of unicorn fart inspired ideas designed to sway the masses. Everything that I know about water jet cutters is that they are very SLOW and expensive to maintain. Unless it was a stationary unit mounted to the blade or ground, I doubt it would be feasible to operate with a hoe. Too much precision required with this method to allow a hoe to keep a cut going. Using the hoe to manipulate the pieces to a set saw system should work with a fluid coolant & contaminant containment system. A stump grinder attachment or a quarry saw attachment on a hoe might work but too much residual dust would be produced to be a safe solution unless it had a high flow flood coolant system. Something medium slow cutting with minimal dust production should be best. A slow operating, hydraulic guillotine type device or shear system with misting coolant spray in an enclosed chop chamber would likely be the best option for a long term contract with these blades. I should think that a Vee shaped blade with serrated edges would be effective or multiple Vee tips depending on force required to penetrate the medium. Mount that on a system like a car crusher frame where the turbine blades could be dragged through with a hoe, cable drag system or feed table and use the hoe to handle the resultant pieces to load out trucks or trailers. Like a customer once asked me, "Can you build that?" My response was, "Throw enough money at a project and you can build anything."
The wire saw sounds like the most practical idea,it was my first thought . But as a crane owner id take a set of 48" box leads and run a guilotine made from 6" plate with some extra thickening on them ,something up around 8000 lbs . My 75ton would eat that stuff up quick
Something else that may work, fairly slow rotation so dust would be less of a problem. https://images.app.goo.gl/atNXMFdoaXYn5mRSA
I didn't take the job. My plan was to use a high flow wheel saw on a skid steer to cut it down. I planned on wearing a respirator, replace the cab filter after the job. I wasn't overly sure the wheel saw would work, although I felt it would, I just didn't want to become an owner of blade if it didn't. If I get a chance to try it out without the price of owning the blade if it didn't, I will try it out. The hills above me are loaded with windmills. Someone is going to have do something with the replacements.
We use a Kinshoffer demo shear for building demo. They cut through steel, concrete, just about anything. They just chew through it. I would think it would make quick work of fiberglass. One of these on a 490 you can process a lot of material fairly quick
Chewing thru is the problem, as in the video above no matter the added water cannot control the dust release, would have to immerse the cut line under water to effectively control dust/fiber release and yes there are construction workers in Demo that are now suffering from Silicosis. Then there is what are they to do with all the excess debris? Placing within concrete just worsened the Demo contaminate issues not in long fiber form so is pretty well useless for new blade mat materials, still ends up a landfill residual.
The good thing is it is truly inert once buried so they could make some decentralized landfills for them. No groundwater issues, etc.
Inert yet space prohibitive.
So much for green energy.
you have better ideas?
No doubt. Without our borrowed money IE - subsides from the government I wonder how many would be built? Nuclear. Best bang for the buck.
That works great when you deal with the waste. We've been nuking for 80 years and still have original waste that does not have a final disposition. I grew up 60 miles from the Hanford site, and it is still a complete cluster. I'd be all about it when they clean it up properly.
Definitively NOT Wind Turbines, nor Solar Arrays. Waste of time manpower and money.
Thirty PLUS Years of Used Fuel in this Pool, it could ALL Be reprocessed into MORE fuel assemblies and decrease the waste by 3/4 volume. But hey, that would be using good sense. The Site is now moving to Dry Cask Fuel Storage, in the site grounds and in the ground in storage cells with up to 32 assemblies per cask. This is a Current Google Earth photo, the darker Lids in the yard to the North of the Plant buildings are the Populated Cells, as the plant achieves Retirement there will be two of these fields of storage cells and up to 32 1400# assemblies in each. Should be just at 500 assemblies currently in Storage there now. Equates to roughly 5 refuelings changes. Just completed Refuel 25
Could tell you exactly what each building houses and routes inside, but then would have to kill you as is Double Knot Top Secret!!!
Another idea for Green Energy.... Why are there not more ideas or concepts in harnessing tidal energy? 2x per day = 730 cycles per year that could generate power through the lift and drop of a massive energy pool. I realize it is cyclical, only in coastal areas, varies in depth at geographical locations and there would be a bunch of other problems to consider but is anything being studied on this anymore?
The BRT(Big Round Thing) is "The Can" or Containment Building, 1" carbon steel tank shell with welded ribs on the outside, 4' thick Concrete Side walls, 8' thick base mat, 3' thick concrete dome, are Cable Tendons in grease filled tubes every 6' that wrap over and around the Can to Post Tension the Concrete structure thru the three gussets on the Can. The Reactor and four Steam Generators sit in there.
Tidal had its day until the Fish kills began spooling up and the Biologic buildup required deep cleaning same rate as heavy shipping vessels(EXCESSIVE Money) The Long Narrow Building attached to the Can is the Turbine Hall.
callaway-fact-sheet.pdf (ameren.com)
I was thinking on the same lines. I'd try a water hose, a good suit with powered respirator and a chain saw to see how it acts. It was not 4" thick but I cut up an old fiberglass boat into small garbage can sized pieces in no time at all with a chainsaw. To save a hundred bucks at the dump, I disposed of it in my 90 gal garbage can, filling up the extra space each week. If one played with trying different grinding angles on the cutters, I bet you could get it to really sail thru the fiberglass. Most chainsaw tooth angles are at 65 degrees for softwood. One might try grinding them at more or less angle and see how they act on the fiberglass if they don't cut fast as is. When I cut the boat up the chainsaw was relatively clean as far as dust. It chipped and tore bigger chips that were easy to sweep up.
It's a shame the blades aren't designed for end of life. A few layers of aluminum foil to make a plasma ground? I like the idea of culvert pipe, bridge beam reuse but even that requires cutting. Glass is hard. The combination of glass and resin is very tough. Quantity has a quality all it's own and 4" thick is QUANTITY! My guess is it will be done slowly and expensively for a long time. Someone else is paying the bill and it's a big club you ain't in along the way. Whole blade landfilling will become the simple way. A packer to fill the hollow tubes with other stuff is likely. If R.G. LeTourneau was present my guess is that a combination of methods would be used on a blade at once, or explosives. A press to bend the blade and stress a surface in a direction it wasn't design to be flexed in would give the tension side a vulnerability to cutting that would make cutting a different experience. Rope is hard to cut until it's stretched tight.
Paint them and sell them as refurbish windmill blades, local pick up only.
GE is going to start recycling them supposedly.
Not much going to do with crumbled epoxy and glass fibers with interminglings of wooden support structure, metal structures get removed, the rest is actually trash just as old fiberglass boat hulls.
Add 50K lbs to it and hook up a 10K gallon fuel truck and we're crushing windmill blades.
I think it would be prudent to build a plasma energy plant that would accept the blades and convert the old windmill blades to synthetic gas in them. They would generate enough synthetic gas to make about 2-1/2 times the electrical energy consumption to turn them into rock. The plant could also burn garbage and anything else also. I just can't understand why the USA is so far behind the world on recycling via plasma energy. By the way, synthetic gas burns ten times cleaner than clean natural gas. The natural gas we use in our homes are about 3 times dirtier burning than clean natural gas.
They're trying to spin something with veolia to turn them into green freak approved cement supposedly.
Has anyone tried breaking them from the inside? Toss a serious jack inside with an i-beam or a big chunk of hardwood with a point? I wonder if you could rip it apart that way...
Along the lines of recycling blades... This out fit uses a rotary saw on an excavator. Wonder about the economics of the process. Appears to need mandates on the original producers of the blades and products to make it. https://www.fibreglass-recycling.eu/england-1/
The only aspect the recyclers ever arrive at is Mix with Concrete, is fine until have to break it out or drill it then release the dust again, even worse to remove aged FBGLS reinforced concrete as full of hail and as dries out or degrades releases the hairs.
How would a wood splitter attachment work? 30 tons?, maybe fab a different base to shear?
1)You might talk to the OEM (blade manufacturer) and ask them how they would part them into sections. 2)The engineering staff of the company that's tearing these units out may also have some ideas on destroying them. 3)Ship yards use some very high pressure water blasting equipment that should cut the glass. 2 cents
just noticed the dates.....duh. How did the job turn out?
Chainsaw and water hose ?
I didn't take the job and I never found out what they did about moving them. I would like an opportunity to try different methods out and see what would work. I would not entertain doing it manually.
small hole, can of ether & a match? Run like hell. Joe H
New recyclable wind turbine blade technology hopefully will be successful.
I wish the recyclers well but there is only so much need for concrete additive or as a filler in concrete and that is currently all this stuff is used for. The cement maker at Hannibal MO is incorporating Some of this stuff after it is ground up at a Louisiana MO facility as a fuel(Coal) stretcher and a kilned additive while the process runs for cement. They have had EPA issued responses to Silica levels in air around the facility. Primarily it is being burned.
The MO Recycler, Article states ground material replacing Coal, is only a added burnable TO that coal load. Illinois Coal has 11,000+/- btu per pound, excellent hardwood only has roughly 8600 btu per pound. Wind turbine blades recycled for cement, kept from landfills | STLPR (stlpublicradio.org)
Ran across this Doesn't look to ecologically sensitive to me. Joe H
they are inert, so i don't see an ecological problem there. We doze under a lot nastier stuff in landfills.
I at first thought that picture had a guy with one of those mexican straw hats, sitting on a magnatrac mini dozer from the back of popular mechanics, and thought "he's going to be there forever". Then I saw the tires off to the right and got a better sense of the scale and realized it was like a D10 or something. Great picture though.
The company that builds the windmills should have been made to have a plan on what to do with the blades before they ever started massproducing them.
We smash everything with the biggest, hardest boulder we can lift. pick it up with bucket & thumb, lift as high as you can, drop it on the blade. I'd expect a lot of splintery debris to be produced, but not much dust. I do electrical work where they build those blades. they don't take a lot of precautions about dust sanding them.
It's the hypocrisy of promoting, nay.. requiring wind turbines for "Ecological protection" My electric bill has a "renewable energy surcharge" every month. Means utility has to buy such energy at higher prices than they can generate electricity for. It's mandated by the state of NC.
Like the nuclear plants?
Problems there as creates excess dust, Silica issues, similar to Asbestos where causes lung damage, Silicosis. Would have to be done continually wetted or EPA and OSHA have field day.
MOD EDIT - DM I banned the saw blade spammer so it leaves this post with no reference just so everyone else knows. CM
Thanks CM Did not catch the spam part
Nukes are already determined as to decom All materials that can be decontaminated or determined as NOT contaminated can return to common waste or recycling systems. The entire site after tear down is to be reclaimed sufficiently to allow open public usage. Is all notated and finances established as plant operates as to this. Trojan was recently returned to before use access except for the guards center and the spent fuel storage facility that will both go away once the DOE takes possession to their facilities.
No worries - he hit multiple threads with the same saw peddling.
This may change things: https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/02/08/newly-discovered-chemical-process-renders-all-existing-wind-turbine-blades-recyclable/
Dynamite?
@673moto good but I bet yuck! I can't imagine the chemicals needed to melt one of those down but I bet I wouldn't want to work there or the mines where they find these chemicals.
Added costs, chemicals to manage, destroys ‘Clean, Enviro Friendly’ image. Has to be some nasty stuff to break down epoxy especially when looking at Tons of it per turbine assembly.
I picture similar to when you hose down packing peanuts with acetone. It would look cool. My guess is it's not that way at all.
That much acetone then to remove that rom the solution to get a reusable component and maybe a reusable reduction component. Talking hundreds to thousands of gallons per blade. Then the human contact or exposure value. Have to find thos will to work in Air Supplied respirators and full body hazmat suits. Then as loads to non usable what to do with the solvent???
It’s been brought up on other sites that this new tech is only for recycling the resins... the fibers are still wasted at this point
Cut off the tip, stand the blade vertical and build a fire inside the base with a vent hole, hell of a stack.
Should burn really Well with all the Goo and Oils that leach from these monstrocities.
Pity this bloke has past, he could have made a motza.
I had some sludge filled 12 inch pipes, once the fire got going, it looked like a rocket bound for the earth's core! pipes got squeaky clean in a hurry
Fred was a serious badass! Watch him climb a 300' vertical chimney with sticks and string
Good thought, depending on local noise regulations, some det cord to cut the blades into quarters in the long axis, then easier to munch up.
It would take a lot of det cord to cut those sections into smaller pieces. That fiberglass is thick. You would have to run multiple strands of 100 gn det cord on each cut to get through it. It would be interesting to try, I just wouldn't want to have to buy all the Det Cord.
In the early 80's is was working on a hydro dam excavation job and they were using a product called shear cord for doing the finish face cut in rock. It was about 5/8" diameter, looked like and behaved the same as det cord but with more grunt. Could be a possibility for cutting blades if it's still a thing.
I have never come across that type of det cord. 100 gn is the largest I have used and by comparison it is approximately a quarter inch in diameter, 5/8" in diameter would be pretty impressive.
https://images.app.goo.gl/ru2ajRpJbfNSqsiD8 Both faces to the right side of the spillway and between the powerhouse and dam wall is where shear cord was used. The waterway on the left was the diversion channel where it may have been used but that was before my time there.
This thread------The oldest windmills around here are being revamped. There are lots full of cut up blades.
Has started in NW and N Central MO too. Some of those are less than 15 years in service.
Four stacks like this-don't know what was used to cut them but it was a single cut what ever it was. These blades are 35 year range for age.
Its interesting that we havent seen a lot of turbines being cut up from Hydro dams. These wind things dont seem to last a lot of hours. We have a big wind farm up Island that had all the blades changed ,took 2 years and they buried them all.
2020 and as far as GE recycling ever got here. GE to recycle used wind turbine blades through Missouri's Veolia (windpowerengineering.com) Reports are most ended up in the quarry pits where the stone for roads and concrete for these came out, landfills.
Found out what was used to cut the windmill blades I posted photos of. A telehandler or CTL with rock saw mounted. The company that's doing this is from Texas, so I suppose that's how all the big boys from Texas do it.
Maybe the spent blades could be burned to generate steam and make enough electricity to run cutting equipment.
Problem is the glass. As combustibles consume the glass precipitates out, plates to boiler or furnace surfaces. Is what they see of silica in PRB dirty coal in Fluidized boilers, really bad slag deposition.
The article said Veolia is using them for cement production, 70% glass which can be disposed of in cement with virtually no value, and 30% resin that can be burned in the kiln at a low percentage, and virtually no value. But big bucks to get rid of them, minus big bucks to grind them = profit. Seems to me the ground product would work great for concrete reinforcement, rather than replacing dirt in cement production.
Need one phat SSI shredder.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/new...g-over-this-shouldnt-be-happening/ar-AA16EQuG
This link showed up this morning on one of my feeds. https://electrek.co/2023/02/08/wind-turbine-recycle-blades/ It would solve the problem.
Transportation costs are probably the biggest problem, for recycling. .......... June 8, 2021 — Molded Fiber Glass Companies (MFG) announced today the closure of MFG South Dakota, the company’s wind blade manufacturing plant located in Aberdeen, South Dakota. The plant broke ground in 2007 and has been dedicated to the production of wind turbine blades. The closure comes as a result of changes in market conditions, foreign competition and proposed revisions to tax policies impacting the wind energy industry in the United States. At the time of the announcement, the company employed 300 teammates at the 315,000-sf facility. ........... Someone could hire a few of the laid-off fiberglass workers taking them away from Walmart greeting jobs and create a traveling- "go team" they could glue stainless steel leading edge abrasion strips to the bad blades and re-balance the blades. If balance is the only problem, someone needs to re-train the maintenance workers. The military throws away helicopter rotor blades if they won't balance in 40 hours of track and balance work. Your tax dollars at work ! There's secret magic tricks to balance, some people just don't get, how to do it. With an abundance of spare blades, you'd think someone could find a mate to the one that "won't balance". Those blades aren't cheap, over a million bucks for the larger ones. At .12 cents per KWH for retail electricity, how do you pencil out competitive electric costs ?
As the base liquid materials are epoxy resins, liquifying those for a reclaim will be astronomical, if were not the boat industry would be recycling the old hulls, they do not.
I used to work in coal fired power plant maintenance. Typical shutdown costs on a 450MW, exclusive of GE working on the turbine and generator, would be about $600K in 1986. The mine would also have substantial shutdowns on their mile long conveyors. So a capital expense that lasts decades, and (I’m guessing here) requires little maintenance isn’t that out of line
At least the dirt burner was Base Load, wind and Solar require a Base Load system to be On Grid to stabilize them on output. Supplemental power delivery ONLY unless supplying a small town or a Business. Adding Frequency controls and voltage smoothing systems for these type systems is extraordinarily high priced.
I used to work in coal fired power plant maintenance. Typical shutdown costs on a 450MW, exclusive of GE working on the turbine and generator, would be about $600K in 1986. The mine would also have substantial shutdowns on their mile long conveyors. So a capital expense that lasts decades, and (I’m guessing here) requires little maintenance isn’t that out of line
I agree with your assessment of the challenges
Wind and Solar are not grid stand alone, supplemental requiring Base load station(s) to furnish fixed frequency and stable voltage to even grid connect. Subsidized to a inth degree, primarily Asian manufacture with the lack of a profit structure to flood the market with their machines. Chinese do not care of profit but to master the supply chain. I will agree large coal based stations as nukes are expensive on major outage costs, yet end delivery of large volumes of energy pay those back in spades. Wind stations are filthy oil leaking spot messes, blading even by the factor noted above will not ever be more than landfill fodder, also use mass amounts of petroleum products for every aspect of that type cast renewable source that isn’t. Solar cells do degrade over time, large ‘farms’ have proven Hail sensitive, two basically destroyed NE and TX where with no recycle capability of the panels will become Hazmat storage sites due to Heavy metals present with glass covering damage now leachable. Again a renewable that isn’t.
A rock saw was my plan when this first came up, guess it was a good guess.
But what will do with the grindings? Not many want recycle Glass Fibers either.
Chainsaw and face mask respirator and tyvek suit
I didn't watch it all in detail but they stated at some point, longer fibers are more valuable for recycling. Meaning concrete reinforcement or something like that. At least if you shred it down like that it will be easier to pack in a landfill. Oh well.
Didn't watch the video but the first thing I thought was fiber reinforcement in concrete. Poured out 1,000's of yards of the stuff.
Same in the US, those that have failed or became unreliable stand as Mute Testimony to the Money Wizards.
Didn't read it all but how about a nice chain saw with a carbide chain teeth like fire folks use. Would need to suit up like anyone that works on corvettes in a body shop would. Have a sort of tent to follow along with and a spray mist of sorts. And wow 30k plus pounds in blades on one of those things. Just melt the fibers of the fiber glass. All a huge waste of everything with those things. Just use nice old clean renewable mineral oil AKA petroleum.
Though less environmental, chop off the tip, stand it on end and fill the first few feet with cardboard and spark it up, might make a heck of a show. Need a lot of cardboard
I got as far as his statement about not being able to reuse the concrete footings and I had to shut it off because that's complete BS. If they so desired they could stand another windmill up there and once they figure out how to just change the blades and generators they could keep going in that same site. The concrete footing does not fatigue LOL.
Yes----It was just done here on a wind farm situated on the Wa/Ore state line last year. The farm was erected in 1994, replaced some towers--generators and all blades. This thread----I'm surrounded by wind farms, most of the talk is disinformation, just haven't had all the issues--most is babble quacking.
Northern MO, most of IA wind farms experiencing Blade failures, bad design sets up stress cracking to final fail from the Inside out. The sites have been determined as the foundation piers are too small to accommodate larger currently available turbines as well were not spaced by distance enough to avoid turbulence issues that created the cracking where will be abandoned in place. Will retain those turbines that do not display the stress cracking issues until fail. New farms will have to be erected to replace.
How Long are Wind Turbine Blades? - Energy Follower Wind turbines generate power through the difference in air pressure across the sides of the blade, creating lift and drag forces. When the lift force is energyfollower.com
I have a sure way to dispose of windmill blades but it would require a substantial investment which frustrates me because I picked up approximately 100 ponds of cut up windmill blade material and tested my theory in my back yard and the result was three sellable products at the end of my experiment. I did the same thing with cut up tires and the result wS exactly the same 3 sellable materials. Wish I had the money to open a processing plant to recycle these horrible items that go to our landfills and hurt our environment. The most frustrating thing is I've proved that it works but how do you trust a company or individual with something as profitable as this would be? I DONT have money to patent ect. I just live with these ideas and they get shelved.
Multiply by a Factor of 10, not just the number, the Factor, annually. That is why is does not go into production. End up with thousands of tons of presumed salvable end result material, that no one truly needs
Well, if there are loans available for putting up windmills there should be loans available for recycling, just have to incorporate so that if it fails you're not on the hook
A Corp or LLC is no protection if one signs a Personal Guarantee on the loan with the bank.
I worked for a guy who did framing, really good framing company, started working with banks to build on vacant properties and his theory, 'never play with your own money'
Gotta be careful, if you plant them too deep they won't root correctly
Far too much mass to Incinerate, too hard to recover the Fiberglass or Liquify the Resins as FAR too much of the material to be dealt with. So the Next Iteration is a "Recyclable WOODEN Blade system. Issues being Rot, Bugs, Birds, and #1 WEIGHT.
The experiment that I conducted in my back yard with cut up pieces of windmill blades that absolutely 100% left 3 widely used materials worldwide and left no sign of any pieces of the wind mill blade left behind. No bank is going to loan me anything with no type of business reference ect. It's a real shame because this is a bullet proof way to recycle these blades with no waste left . It's 100% clean energy. It is also the same with shredded tires. Plastic, wood ect. Amazing, it really is but im just sure if I present it that it will be stolen and I will end up 0
Another one is I have a company that give me 500,000 ton of aggregate black sand that should be sand bagged and sold for energy storms ect. Can't afford the investment. I had it tested and have the analytics with nothing harmful to the environment. Another shelved idea that would help our environment and people.
You're just a multi millionaire waiting to happen.
Give me one of these and I'll make a fortune selling fiberglass mulch.
Every construction loan I have ever taken out included a personal guarantee and I've taken out at least 4-500 over my career. C-Corp company but still had the PG. There are non-recourse construction loans out there but very rare in my experience.
Same here.
If I could go back in time and go to some of the meetings at the plants were they were drawing up the plans for the blades I probably would have been kicked out. Most of you know that I haul and recycle scrap iron . There are a lot of things I have ran into that I wish there was a way to reuse them. I am not a big operator but I like to do everything I can not to bury stuff that can be reused . I know its not a big money deal but there is so much stuff like aluminum cans that could be recycled but are tossed out along the roads or just tossed in the trash cans.
What needs to happen is people that see things ahead of what they are now and people that understand business to read and listen to the way certain individuals speak and explain their ideas instead of stay at home dad's and time clock punching workers that are programmed like robots day in and day out that have no idea how to start a business from their mind and make it turn key and only laugh because they have no vision. Issac Newton
I presume they use the material that they do to construct the blades because it works and the cost to make them out of fiberglass makes sense (maybe an assumption). If there was anyway the Green Industry could make them out of something that could be recycled, you know they would. The issue of used blades has been a thorn in the side of the wind industry from the start. If they could market the recycled blades for something useful or recycle the components into something else that was valuable, it would be a big selling point and it would be done. I can assume that if the Green Industry has yet to come up with some other option for construction or recycling, that there isn't an option, at least with the technology available now.
84K views · 672 reactions | New Zealand Turns Retired Wind Turbine Blades Into Bridges — Giving Industrial Waste a Strong Second Life New Zealand is pioneering an innovative solution to one of renewable energy’s growing challenges by transforming de New Zealand Turns Retired Wind Turbine Blades Into Bridges — Giving Industrial Waste a Strong Second Life New Zealand is pioneering an innovative solution to one of renewable energy’s growing... www.facebook.com
What are the wings on the Jumbo jets are made of ?
I just read a news story, about how hundreds of those blades have been dumped and abandoned in Texas. Some company was paid to haul them off, and was supposed to recycle them. Instead, they dumped them in Texas and disappeared/went bankrupt.
Not on the FB - Cliff Notes?
It shows them building a little 30' walk bridge in a park with cut up blade sections.
Thanks. Figured it wasn't something HD but hey it's still something useful.
Here’s some blades being covered up. Don’t know where this pic came from but it’s 2-3 years old.
Like most things humans make it costs more to recycle than build from scratch. Plastics are the best example, microplastics are everywhere.
Up in Labrador, I was exploring where they were building new roads, they were doing corduroy, flopping the trees across the roadbed with wide tracked excavators, clearing 100 feet wide or better then dumping shot rock and gravel on top a dozen feet thick. Seems like nice blade sections 50 feet long would make a nice stable road base.
Corduroy roads is a smart idea. I was involved in building a road across a swamp and dug the pete out to get a base to build on. For years that road deformed even though it was compacted properly. It kept getting longitudinal cracks in it caused by the outside of the fill moving sideways. Cording it would have prevented this happening but there wasn't any windmills in those days and trees would have cost a motza. An earthquake phucked it in 2011 anyway.
1867 to 1903 my town was owned by a timber baron. His crews stripped 30,000 acres in my town 100,000 in several other towns. What didn't sell as lumber was burned for potash & charcoal. Griffith's roads crossed a lot of swamps, & wet spots. Everything was corduroyed. Typically, 3 to 5" diameter sapling trunks were used. Where they stay wet all the time, a few can still be found. Wood rots very slowly where saturated in cold water. We had a beaver dam fail a few years ago washed out a steel culvert. Beneath it, a four log culvert was exposed. It was intact after 140 years. They used logs for cribbing, building wagon roads across the sheer stone face of the mountain. I can't say how long untreated logs lasted holding up a road.
Mrs. & I own property where a short Town Highway crosses a swamp .1 mile. It was built in the mid 1800s by dumping gravel on mostly organic soup. Although now raised on a few occasions by a couple feet each time, the organic soup rots away, and or squishes away beneath the road bed. Each repave involves adding a couple feet of crushed rock to keep it above water. Still it gets two feet under water sometimes.
We exposed 100 year old underground drifts/timber sets at one of our mining claims...the pine and Douglas fir timbers still had plenty of strength! Buried at about a 16' depth below surface. Broadaxe cut marks plainly visible and looked almost fresh.
I wouldn't believe this stuff if I hadn't seen it.
We dug up an 8" popular tree buried around 16' deep under and existing building we demo'd for a new chicken shack. Still had the bark on it. The building we demo'd was the second structure on the site with the first being a U-Totem gas station back in the late 70's early 80's. Dug the tree up in 2011.
There is quite a bad smell also when excavating these old timbers. These workings were at 6500' and the main timber available was pine. It was tight ring and pretty strong due to the elevation. Some Douglas fir also was utilized. Underground timbering dates from the early 1920's. Not really sure what the hexagon structure was for Originally it was deeply buried. Have two small gauge cast rail car wheels at home as souvenirs. . Access was 2 days by horseback from nearest town. Pictures taken 2014 (Sorry, some major thread drift from windmill blades lol!)
i remember that pic also. i think it was either in Wyoming, or down near Sioux Falls, SD. Side note. in the year 2023, if you took ALL the power generated from ALL the windmills in the state of south dakota, we could only provide 40% of NYC's energy needs. a whole state full of windmills, and can't take care of one city.
I don't know if this has been posted before:
Very interesting. I guess it makes the jersey barriers lighter than normal concrete?
That won't go over very well in Joisey now will it ?.....
Wonder how it would work making tilt panels and other preccast products, even water tanks. The sky could be the limit.
Maybe water tanks. I don't think you could do tilt panels unless it had its own interior steel structure. I'm not sure that they will actually qualify as traffic barriers for the state road dept either. If they only weigh 1/3 as much, they won't catch a car at highway speeds. They would work for jobsite protection.
It could be a great material for pre-fab concrete privacy fences.
Ìn regards to the barriers, I've talked to an engineer about them. He reckons they would have to pass the Texas concrete test to allow them to be used on Hiway construction sites. That test is internationally recognised. If that is so, my thinking about manufacturing other products maybe correct. For anyone who has built a Crib Wall it would be a gods end to a lug lighter product especially when you are 3 courses high wearing muddy boots.
What's a Crib Wall?
This is it. The 2 components are bearers and stretchers with no fines gravel infill. The height determines how thick the base is, so on a 7 metre high wall would be 3 wide for 2m high, then 2 wide for 2m high then 1 wide for the remainder. The face is at a 1n4 lean Criblock Retaining Wall | Kriblok Retaining Wall - Criblock Wall A criblock Retaining Wall, criblock wall or Kriblok wall are retaining walls walls built using concrete crib frames filled with stone. retainingwallsolutions.co.uk
Large format hollow core retaining blocks would be a good candidate as well. Most of the wall's weight comes from the rock infill already. That's an interesting concept. Somewhere between precast gabion and sideways hollow core blocks.
Interesting. So the drainage stone is big enough it doesn't fall/wash out the openings?
That is correct, no compaction required either. Interestingly the last one I was involved with wasn't damaged in a 8.9 earthquake, obviously moved a bit but stayed in tack.
I can see that. Like Lincoln Logs filled with popcorn for a very basic analogy.
More blades to dispose of. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2026/04/06/thousands-of-dumped-wind-turbine-blades-prompt-crackdown-in-texas/89483915007/
Would they fit in a big bandsaw?
Not on any bandsaw I have ever seen. They are around 100' long, not sure how heavy they are but I don't see being able to cut them on a bandsaw as an option.
Circular saw?
Shredding?
i'm surprised...that some "environmentally friendly" engineer....hasn't come up with a way to repair those blades in place instead of replacing them.
Aluminum wings, you can drill out rivets, and repair internal ribs that are damaged etc. Fiberglass laminated stuff, very hard to dig down thru the layers to repair, and then fill back in and get the new filler to work with the remaining fibers.
I I as under the impression you were cutting them into 16’ sections. The grinder looks to be the best way. What did you come up with?
We ended up not doing it. But I think there will be a lot of this to be done in the future.
Would be fun try a Cat 826 with landfill cleats running over them shatter'em into pieces & load with excavator & end dumps
Cleaning out some old magazines...came across this. You could not pay me enough to stand in the lower right area of the pix of that test building....
When that Snaps, will be shrapnel all around that room.
...or the pulling chain snaps....Whap !
Spanked like a Bad Dog!!
What wind speed would generate that bend? Joe H
Really FAST!!!!
Ludicrous speed......"They've gone to Plaid"
I haven't been to the theater for lots of years but I'm pretty sure I'll go back for space balls 2.
Probably crack half way relieving tension and just collapse. Farmer I drive grain truck for had one near his house split from the tip about 20' long, it flopped around then did a self shut down from vibration.
A wind turbine blade can run beyond 170 feet, and when it wears out a Tennessee company bakes the whole thing down to recover the clean glass fiber the industry once paid to bury https://share.google/rLHvKrmNSFblkwrUy
Problem becomes, what the Enviroloons gonna say as to the Emissions from the Cooking?
Motor rewind shops do similar to the old motor, burning out the varnish to make it easier to remove the coils. Was in a local shop, and the added an after burner/incinerator to the stack to meet the new emissions standards.
What will oldloons do sitting around the morning coffee slurp without enviroloons to pick on? They'll come up with something, it's a industry within it's self.
Tennessee company bakes the whole thing down to recover the clean glass fiber the industry once paid to bury The end of the article says not so, just another miracle startup with gov money that isn't actually feasible. No buyers for the miracle clean fiberglass and environmental problems with it leaving the plant. Joe H
Most plans to recycle windmill blades are a scam, paid for with govt. funding/grants. Just ask anyone out in Sweetwater, Texas. I think a so called "recycling" company, ( now out of business), has a few thousand blades piled out there south of town.
Wow! You ain't lying! That's a **** ton of windmill blades.
Treat them like logs, lash them together and float 'em. Might make a cheap xportation barges to be used on the inland waterways.
or deportation barges on the rio grande
Maybe, just maybe, the powers that be, since it’s supposedly green energy, they should have come up with some type of environmentally friendly way to dispose of a item with a limited life span. What about solar panels. If a NGO that had no affiliation with the government, went this route, they would be before a congressional hearing, in this case, everyone involved is so stupid rich, it’s all fine. Sorry for getting near the political line but the favoritism is a bunch of bull ****.
Gas & Oil wells (at least in Pa) have a bond on them from the start.