SAVE THE EARTH!
There is no Planet B!
Go GREEN!
In 2017, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that 2020 could be the deadline to save the environment. The climate emergency has been heard.
Corporations, local governments and countries continue efforts to promote sustainability and lower their carbon footprints. The U.S. retail sustainability market, for example, is projected to reach $150 billion in sales by 2021, according to Nielsen.
The latest fashion trend is not the must-haves, but the most sustainable fashions and ethical clothing products. Such as Nike, which is dressing athletes for this year’s Tokyo Olympics with sustainable clothing made from recycled polyester and ground-up shoe parts. Other retailers in the movement include Levi’s, Alternative Apparel, H&M Conscious, and Patagonia.
And even daily habits of eating can help with global warming. The new trend (thanks to publicity from the Oscars and the Golden Globes) is plant-based meat alternatives. It’s not just fine dining restaurants offering these alternative options, but also fast-food chains, including White Castle/Impossible Slider, Burger King/Impossible Whopper, McDonald’s/P.L.T. Burger, Carl’s Junior/Beyond Famous Star, Del Taco/Beyond Taco, Little Caesars/Impossible Supreme Pizza.
Did you know, “if every American cut just one hamburger a week (which averages about a quarter-pound of beef) from their diet, we could cut emissions as much as taking about 10 million cars off the road each year,” claimed research by environmentalist firm NRDC.
More and more, individuals have a lot of choices to join the mission of saving the earth — no more plastic to urban farming. And government and corporations have advanced the cause by making green pledges. However, with every choice there is a consequence. This is what humanity has been learning about global warming since the industrial revolution. What are some of the adverse consequences produced by efforts to save the planet?
For example, with the cheapest renewable energy option, wind power, there exists a waste problem that is counter to the green movement. Waste generated from turbine blades is estimated to total around 43 million tons by 2052, said Vestas, a Danish manufacturer, seller, installer and servicer of wind turbines.
Due to how young the wind industry is, the only options for waste of these blades, which can be longer than a Boeing 747 wing, are to burn them or put them in landfills. Turbine blades are the most expensive part of a wind farm to dispose of. And according to NPR, more than 720,000 tons of blade material will be disposed of over the next 20 years. At a smaller timeline rate, Bloomberg calculated that 8,000 turbine blades will be removed in each of the next four years in the United States.
The majority of turbines are made of composite materials, which are being recycled today in Europe through cement co-processing, where the cement raw materials are being partially replaced by the glass fibers and fillers in the composite, and the organic fraction replaces coal as a fuel. Through that process, the CO2 output of the cement manufacturing process can be significantly reduced (up to 16 percent reduction is possible if composites represent 75 percent of cement raw materials).
And a recently announced project by a group of European wind and chemical industry partners was formed to advance recycling efforts for composite wind blades. The partnership includes WindEurope (Brussels, Belgium), the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC, Brussels, Belgium) and the European Composites Industry Association (EuCIA, Brussels, Belgium).
WindEurope CEO Giles Dickson explains, “Wind energy is an increasingly important part of Europe’s energy mix. The first generation of wind turbines are now starting to come to the end of their operational life and be replaced by modern turbines. Recycling the old blades is a top priority for us, and teaming up with the chemical and compositors industries will enable us to do it the most effective way.”
In the United States, Texas-based Global Fiberglass Solutions is repurposing waste material such as decommissioned wind turbine blades into green manufactured products that are commercially viable. According to a GFS press release, they are “thermoplastic fiberglass pellet[s] usable in injection mold and extrusion manufacturing processes.”
The nonburning option, turbine blades are not as valuable when recycled and hard to separate, unlike steel and copper. So, keep them intact and place them in landfills.
But an Associated Press article reported Iowa landfill operators are refusing to take the blades because they are difficult to manage due to their size.
Des Moines, Iowa–based MidAmerican, which spent $11.6 billion on wind projects from 2004 through 2019 in Iowa and has utility plans to spend $2.3 billion to repower 1,215 turbines across the state through 2022, is hoping to talk with other wind developers that may be interested in acquiring used blades for their own projects.
There is a movement, however, toward a recycling option. With the global wind energy market continuing to grow, Vestas intends to produce zero-waste wind turbines by 2040, reinforcing its commitment to sustainability. And besides recycling through cement co-processing, alternative technologies such as mechanical recycling, solvolysis and pyrolysis are being developed, which will ultimately provide the industry with additional “green” solutions for wind turbines’ end-of-life.
