The Problem Of Life-expired Wind And Solar Waste

Written by stopthesethings.com on September 1, 2021. Posted in Current News

The millions of solar panels headed for landfill are a veritable toxic cocktail of gallium arsenide, tellurium, silver, crystalline silicon, lead, cadmium, and heavy earth material.

Then there’s the landfill legacy being created by wind turbine blades, with the First World cynically using the Third World as its dumping ground: ‘Green’ Energy’s Poisonous Legacy: Millions of Toxic Turbine Blades Destined for African Landfills

Thousands of 45-70m blades (weighing between 10 to 25 tonnes) are being ground up and mixed with concrete and used in the bases of other turbines erected later or simply dumped in landfills. Which should worry locals: the plastics in the blades are toxic, and contain Bisphenol A, which is so dangerous to health that the European Union and Canada have banned it.

In the US, Instead of fronting up to pay the bill to dump them, hundreds of them are being stacked up across the Midwest in the hope that no one will notice.

While the purportedly “inevitable transition” to an all wind and sun powered future might be exuberant wishful thinking, the present steady progression of wind turbine blades and solar panels toward landfills will soon become a march of epic proportions.  The only thing inevitable about wind and solar is mountains of toxic rubbish heading for a landfill near you.

Renewables: Oh, the Waste!

The Biden administration is ignoring the problem of waste and pollution in its pursuit of renewable energy, writes the Institute of Energy Research (IER).

“Electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines result in a massive amount of waste and pollution. China is responsible for half of the total electric vehicles in the world—a number that is growing rapidly. About half of its retired batteries are not disposed of in an environmentally sound way, causing significant waste and pollution problems . . . .”

IER cites an article in the Epoch Times (a newspaper that focuses on problems caused by the Chinese Communist Party). It quotes Jiang Tianming, a Hong Kong financial analyst, who criticizes Chinese policies that promote electrical vehicles. “These policies resulted in a fast-growing industry, However, if the retired batteries cannot be recycled effectively and environmentally friendly, the statement that new energy cars are ‘clean’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ is undoubtedly a false proposition.”

IER also discusses waste caused by solar panels and wind turbines.

On solar panels:

“Solar panels are mostly made of glass, which has low value as a recycled material, but they also have small amounts of silicon, silver, and copper as well as heavy metals (cadmium, lead, etc.) that some governments classify as hazardous waste. Hazardous waste can only be transported at designated times and via select routes. Because solar panels are delicate and bulky, specialized labor is required to detach and remove them to avoid their shattering and polluting local areas.”

On wind turbines:

“Wind turbine blades are made of a tough but pliable mix of resin and fiberglass—similar to what spaceship parts are made from. Decommissioned blades are difficult and expensive to transport. They can be anywhere from 100 to 300 feet long and must be cut up on-site before getting trucked away on specialized equipment to a landfill that may not have the capacity for the blades. Landfills that do have the capacity may not have equipment large enough to crush them.“

See more here: stopthesethings.com

Please Donate Below To Support Our Ongoing Work To Defend The Scientific Method

PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX. 

Trackback from your site.