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536

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[–] 3 pts

Holy shit

How comes?

>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.

Hm

Of course. Those things were built to be virtually indestructible. Unsurprisingly, it ends up being just that.

[–] [deleted] 3 pts

They're hauled in in one piece so theres no reason to cut them except to make hauling them out cheaper.

There's no reason these things can't be shipped out in one or two pieces and be turned into building supports by even possibility cutting them vertically. Think of a sudo TP or A frame building made of them even.

[–] 3 pts

They're an odd shape and while strong, when you start cutting into anything made of fiberglas resins, you start ruining the thing that makes them strong - the matting they're made up from. You also could have problems from the materials themselves, are they made to be near animals? Outgassing, resin shards, etc.

It's industrial waste that's going to need a reprocessing scheme in order to be less of a problem than the coal it's trying to replace.

I completely agree with you about the coal and good points on off gassing. Just even the tip half would be alright for something as it looks like they're reenforced fairly well. Hell, I'd experiment making an earthship home out of them.

[–] 2 pts

>There's no reason these things can't be shipped out in one or two pieces

Except a $675,000 reason of course

The alternatives being pure losses

They are getting paid that one payment to dispose ofthe blades, underground, indefinitely and for an infinite number of blades. The city has to do something with them so they bury them. Reusing/upcycling could actually produce income on top of what they've already received.

[–] 2 pts

Fascinating. It's a pickle isn't it. There will be money in a solution for sure.

[–] 2 pts

There's already money in a sort of "no solution"...

>“People around here don’t like change,” said Morgan Morsett, a bartender at Frosty’s Bar & Grill. “They see these wind turbines as something that’s hurting coal and oil.” But the city gets $675,000 to house turbine blades indefinitely, which can help pay for playground improvements and other services. Landfill manager Cynthia Langston said the blades are much cleaner to store than discarded oil equipment and Casper is happy to take the thousand blades from three in-state wind farms owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s PacifiCorp. Warren Buffett’s utility has been replacing the original blades and turbines with larger, more powerful models after a decade of operation.

[–] 2 pts

I have long contended that the most valuable pieces of land will one day be the landfills, because that's where our mineral riches raw materials are concentrated.

[–] 2 pts

tfw born too early to find all sorts of treasure while digging through massive landfills

[–] 2 pts

Honestly, I expected that companies would have secretly shredded these things into granulate, load them onto barges, and dump them into the sea. Hopefully, this leads to some experimentation in more ecologically friendly resins, so such a disposal method can be considered an option.