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Is this what "unintended consequences" means? Renewable, you say?


John Ranalletta

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Well ...as reported, true,  but possibly not the complete story ...,. things can change ...  if this report is factual. 

 

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1 hour ago, Danny caddyshack Noonan said:

I would submit that engineers likely thought about recycling.  Management, however.............

 

All decisions are economic.

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1 hour ago, Danny caddyshack Noonan said:

I would submit that engineers likely thought about recycling.  Management, however.............

Working with engineers daily,.......probably not. If it’s not in the task orders descriptions, it’s not considered. 

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Typical hit piece article. Take a fact and make it seem like it means something that it doesn't. The article clearly tries to give the impression that wind turbines are a net loss for the environment. Wind turbines have never been claimed to be renewable themselves. The energy they produce is renewable.

 

The question is: have those blades contributed more positive impact to the environment than negative over their life? I don't think anyone would argue they have not.

 

The article conveniently omits the fact that they aren't recycled only because it is costs more to recycle them than it does to pitch them in a landfill. In Europe, wind turbine blades ARE recycled.

 

And, let's do the math. Assuming a 20 year life (the article say 15-20, everything else I find says 20-25, so we'll use 20), that's 2,500 tons per year. The US sends 140 million tons of solid waste to landfills per year. So,  wind turbines contribute .00179% yearly to the total solid waste buried in landfills. 

 

 

 

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John Ranalletta
Just now, realshelby said:

My simple question it this:

 

How can you accept something like this having only a 20 year life cycle?

 

I agree.  IMO, in our life times, the fields will be littered with non-operational wind farms that are too expensive to demolish.  

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In the early days of coal surface mining, even the underground minings surface facilities, it was common for a company to just up and leave a site never to return. Old buildings, shafts, refuse piles, and equipment so large it has to be cut up on site to be removed would be left to decay as eyesores. 

 

Later laws were passed to prevent that. But they were not 100% effective, and guess who footed the bill for the cleanups? 

 

I can see Sweetwater Texas being a post nuclear war looking landscape if their windfarms ever became unprofitable!

 

 

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The thought of abandoned windmill farms hadn't crossed my mind. It paints quite a picture in my brain.

All decisions are economic. All decisions.

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2 hours ago, John Ranalletta said:

 

I agree.  IMO, in our life times, the fields will be littered with non-operational wind farms that are too expensive to demolish.  

They are already profitable to demolish. Most of the components from old wind turbines are already being recycled. Only the blades aren't currently being recycled in the US.

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John Ranalletta
26 minutes ago, poodad said:

They are already profitable to demolish. Most of the components from old wind turbines are already being recycled. Only the blades aren't currently being recycled in the US.

 

Assuming, of course, the operators are reserving enough cash to do that and not leave them rotting in the ground. Not likely as history suggests.

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33 minutes ago, John Ranalletta said:

 

Assuming, of course, the operators are reserving enough cash to do that and not leave them rotting in the ground. Not likely as history suggests.

I took his post to mean that even if abandoned for whatever reason the remaining structures would have Enough salvageable materials to make it worthwhile for someone to demolish and recycle. I realize there are other environmental impacts, but at least unlike coal mining there won’t be large amounts of toxic byproducts left behind in these theoretical abandoned fields. 

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55 minutes ago, John Ranalletta said:

 

Assuming, of course, the operators are reserving enough cash to do that and not leave them rotting in the ground. Not likely as history suggests.

Please - this isn't the 70s and the coal industry we are talking about. I think organizations have started to figure out that they can't simply leave huge messes in someone else's back yard and walk away.

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John Ranalletta
1 hour ago, szurszewski said:

I took his post to mean that even if abandoned for whatever reason the remaining structures would have Enough salvageable materials to make it worthwhile for someone to demolish and recycle. I realize there are other environmental impacts, but at least unlike coal mining there won’t be large amounts of toxic byproducts left behind in these theoretical abandoned fields. 

 

No.  Not what I meant.  More like Superfund sites that taxpayers clean up...oh, btw, the same taxpayers who subsidized their construction.

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John Ranalletta
1 hour ago, poodad said:

Please - this isn't the 70s and the coal industry we are talking about. I think organizations have started to figure out that they can't simply leave huge messes in someone else's back yard and walk away.

 

When the the vein's played out, the operators will walk.  That's what bankruptcy laws are for.

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1 hour ago, poodad said:

Please - this isn't the 70s and the coal industry we are talking about. I think organizations have started to figure out that they can't simply leave huge messes in someone else's back yard and walk away.

I left the coal industry in 1998. Do you believe large and small scale coal operations were not left "as is" from the 70's through today? I can show you ones that were left in the 80's, 90's and beyond. Sure they have a bond that is supposed to pay to clean up but our good government felt sorry for the operators and made that optional if you were in good standing for a few years. So, the government ( us ) will have to do it. 

 

The coal industry isn't ANY different from the power industry! Guess who is behind many of the large scale coal operations? Yes, companies that generate power!

 

You could salvage the copper ( aluminum ? ) power conductors running between the mills. The generators could be good scrap metal. But I don't see a use for the towers unless Verizon figures out a way to tote them to new cell sites. 

 

What about the huge concrete bases? Those will at least have to be drilled and blasted to below grade level and backfilled with soil. 

 

Let me say I am in no way against wind power. But I have been around for a while and things that couldn't happen.....happened!

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16 hours ago, John Ranalletta said:

 

No.  Not what I meant.  More like Superfund sites that taxpayers clean up...oh, btw, the same taxpayers who subsidized their construction.

I should have been more clear - when I said “his post” I was referring to @poodad ‘s post rather than yours. 

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19 hours ago, John Ranalletta said:

 

When the the vein's played out, the operators will walk.  That's what bankruptcy laws are for.

Well, OK, lets say that some are abandoned. Let's say that the taxpayer is left footing the bill for the cleanup.

 

Most of the material in wind turbines is recyclable, so we taxpayers will foot the bill for disposing of a big chunk of concrete, and some blades. Again, I'd argue that you have to consider the net value of the wind turbines as a whole. The cost to the tax payer clean up a few is dwarfed by the ecological and economical benefit of keep a few gazillion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere. 

 

Its kind of like cars. We know there are people who will drive without liability insurance, and when they cause accidents, those costs are pushed to us. But the net advantages of cars make this acceptable. 

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On 1/11/2020 at 4:33 PM, John Ranalletta said:

 

When the the vein's played out, the operators will walk.  That's what bankruptcy laws are for.

I don't think the wind will play out :)

 

But seriously, I have no doubt there will be a few players who will manage to leave wind turbine related messes for us to clean up. That happens in almost every industry. But it won't be rampant like it was in the 70's.

 

My daughter works for a rural REC - I'll ask her if turbine companies are required to put up a cleanup bond before building.

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2 hours ago, poodad said:

if turbine companies are required to put up a cleanup bond before building.

On the other end of the "renewable energy" equation is the oil industry.  It's my understanding that they are required to post bonds for removal and restoration of their facilities on the North Slope of Alaska https://www.gao.gov/assets/160/157248.pdf.  I don't think that requirement has been tested yet, but it's getting closer.  The oil pipeline from the North Slope to Valdez is now moving less than 50% of what it was years ago.  And BP is in the process of selling all its facilities to a small company and moving out.

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On 1/11/2020 at 10:29 AM, poodad said:

.........

Only the blades aren't currently being recycled in the US.

Not anymore.

 

 

It took a bit to "spool up" for the end of life of these systems.

like most things in life, hindsight is perfect vision. 

Hopefully end of life will be factored into subsequent technology. 

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Joe Frickin' Friday
On 1/10/2020 at 4:07 PM, John Ranalletta said:

 

This article claims wind power generation results in 50,000 metric tons of turbine blade waste every year.  Suppose all of those blades end up in the landfill.  OK, that's a lot of waste material compared to how much trash my wife and I generate every week.  But how does it stack up to coal?

 

Wind is currently generating about 7% of the electricity in the US, generating 50,000 metric tons of waste per year.

 

Coal is currently generating about 25% of the electricity in the US, producing coal ash as a waste product.  If coal were comparable to wind in terms of solid waste output, we might expect 25/7 = 3.6 times as much waste, or 179,000 tons of ash per year.  But it's not.  Coal for power production generates roughly 130 million tons of ash per year.  This is a rate of solid waste production that's about 730 times that of wind power, and of course doesn't even consider the vast difference in greenhouse gas production.  Also, coal ash is far more toxic than a pile of old fiberglass turbine blades; there are numerous cases around the country of groundwater contamination by discarded coal ash.  This also doesn't consider the airborne particulates from coal power generation, which are a whole separate public health nightmare.

 

Natural gas is currently making about 35% of our electricity.  on a kilowatt-hour basis burning natural gas produces about half as much CO2 as coal.  However, fracking results in a large amount of methane being leaked to the atmosphere - reportedly as much as 10% of what is harvested from fracked wells.   This is a problem because methane has a global warming potential 34 times that of CO2.  In other words, when one considers the entire process of producing electricity from natural gas - all the way from the well (or mine) to the power outlet - it's worse for the climate than coal.  

 

Nuclear power of course has its own shortcomings, including environmental and national security risks associated with long-term storage of nuclear waste material.  The question of what to do with this stuff was first raised before I was born, and decades later, it seems nobody can agree on a long-term course of action; I doubt it will be resolved before I'm dead.

 

Nothing we do to generate electricity is without impact, but overall, I think wind power ain't so bad.  

 

2009-08-head-east-089

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John Ranalletta
Just now, Joe Frickin' Friday said:

 

This article claims wind power generation results in 50,000 metric tons of turbine blade waste every year.  Suppose all of those blades end up in the landfill.  OK, that's a lot of waste material compared to how much trash my wife and I generate every week.  But how does it stack up to coal?

 

Wind is currently generating about 7% of the electricity in the US, generating 50,000 metric tons of waste per year.

 

Coal is currently generating about 25% of the electricity in the US, producing coal ash as a waste product.  If coal were comparable to wind in terms of solid waste output, we might expect 25/7 = 3.6 times as much waste, or 179,000 tons of ash per year.  But it's not.  Coal for power production generates roughly 130 million tons of ash per year.  This is a rate of solid waste production that's about 730 times that of wind power, and of course doesn't even consider the vast difference in greenhouse gas production.  Also, coal ash is far more toxic than a pile of old fiberglass turbine blades; there are numerous cases around the country of groundwater contamination by discarded coal ash.  This also doesn't consider the airborne particulates from coal power generation, which are a whole separate public health nightmare.

 

Natural gas is currently making about 35% of our electricity.  on a kilowatt-hour basis burning natural gas produces about half as much CO2 as coal.  However, fracking results in a large amount of methane being leaked to the atmosphere - reportedly as much as 10% of what is harvested from fracked wells.   This is a problem because methane has a global warming potential 34 times that of CO2.  In other words, when one considers the entire process of producing electricity from natural gas - all the way from the well (or mine) to the power outlet - it's worse for the climate than coal.  

 

Nuclear power of course has its own shortcomings, including environmental and national security risks associated with long-term storage of nuclear waste material.  The question of what to do with this stuff was first raised before I was born, and decades later, it seems nobody can agree on a long-term course of action; I doubt it will be resolved before I'm dead.

 

Nothing we do to generate electricity is without impact, but overall, I think wind power ain't so bad.  

 

2009-08-head-east-089

 

 

Nukes

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It never ceases to amaze me how little we learn from the past. This wind turbine debate reminds me of the crap that auto manufacturers and their shills try to pull in the 60's and 70's

 

Putting seat belts in cars is a terrible idea! They can't work! They are too expensive! It's unproven! OMG - what happens if your car stalls on the railroad tracks, or you run off a bridge into a lake and your seat belt jams!

 

We can't make less polluting cars! It's too expensive! It's unproven technology! It kills efficiency!

 

We can't make fuel efficient cars! It's too expensive! It can't work!  

 

Anybody else see any similarities here?

 

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John Ranalletta
1 hour ago, Joe Frickin' Friday said:

To add a bit more of a sense of scale to the amount of solid waste generated by wind turbines (50,000 tons per year),  it's worth noting that the US produces 268 million tons of municipal solid waste every single day.    

 

That's an exercise in relative-ism.  

7 minutes ago, poodad said:

It never ceases to amaze me how little we learn from the past. This wind turbine debate reminds me of the crap that auto manufacturers and their shills try to pull in the 60's and 70's

 

Putting seat belts in cars is a terrible idea! They can't work! They are too expensive! It's unproven! OMG - what happens if your car stalls on the railroad tracks, or you run off a bridge into a lake and your seat belt jams!

 

We can't make less polluting cars! It's too expensive! It's unproven technology! It kills efficiency!

 

We can't make fuel efficient cars! It's too expensive! It can't work!  

 

Anybody else see any similarities here?

 

 

This show isn't over yet.  It's just beginning.  The long view says these monstrosities will become too costly to maintain, inoperable and abandoned.  The Feds bribed investors to build them.  They can't continue to exist without subsidies.  When the subsidies dry up, the operators will move on. IMO

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John Ranalletta
1 hour ago, Joe Frickin' Friday said:

To add a bit more of a sense of scale to the amount of solid waste generated by wind turbines (50,000 tons per year),  it's worth noting that the US produces 268 million tons of municipal solid waste every single day.    

 

IMO, Mitch, not a good example.  I marvel at the amount of plastic/styro/cardboard waste we two generate.  I bought a Polk audio sound bar the other evening.  The packaging we put in the recycle bin weighed nearly as much as the product.

 

It's not a great comparison because the amount of waste we generate is the amount we've decided to generate because, as a culture, we decided convenience and marketing are more important than minimizing waste. How will that not apply to other sectors?  Wind farms are disposable, like Teslas, Leafs, et al.  They rarely make a lot of sense on any basis except as trendy toys; plus, we strip mine the globe to build batteries and then build power plants to energize them.  Loved the picture of diesel gensets powering the Tesla charging station...

 

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17 minutes ago, John Ranalletta said:

 

That's an exercise in relative-ism.  

 

This show isn't over yet.  It's just beginning.  The long view says these monstrosities will become too costly to maintain, inoperable and abandoned.  The Feds bribed investors to build them.  They can't continue to exist without subsidies.  When the subsidies dry up, the operators will move on. IMO

Or, people will start to realize that dumping millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year is not a good idea, and will make alternate renewable energy sources a priority to reduce that number.

 

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12 minutes ago, poodad said:

Or, people will start to realize that dumping millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year is not a good idea, and will make alternate renewable energy sources a priority to reduce that number.

 

 

Now that's one hell of a wake your sailboat is casting right there. :rofl:

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John Ranalletta
57 minutes ago, poodad said:

Or, people will start to realize that dumping millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year is not a good idea, and will make alternate renewable energy sources a priority to reduce that number.

 

 

in the end, one of us will be more right than the other.  i'm betting on human nature not evolving much.

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2 hours ago, John Ranalletta said:

..............

 

This show isn't over yet.  It's just beginning.  The long view says these monstrosities will become too costly to maintain, inoperable and abandoned.  The Feds bribed investors to build them.  They can't continue to exist without subsidies.  When the subsidies dry up, the operators will move on. IMO

 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidy#Allocation_of_subsidies_in_the_United_States

 

I for one would rather disproportionately subsidize a developing cleaner technology vs a well established dirty one even if at a reduced rate.  

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22 minutes ago, ESokoloff said:

 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidy#Allocation_of_subsidies_in_the_United_States

 

I for one would rather disproportionately subsidize a developing cleaner technology vs a well established dirty one even if at a reduced rate.  

Lets also not forget that those subsidies will create new industries and new jobs. They also develop new technologies that will benefit society in other ways.

 

 

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45 minutes ago, poodad said:

Lets also not forget that those subsidies will create new industries and new jobs. They also develop new technologies that will benefit society in other ways.

 

 

 

 

But it if nothing is done & its business as usual more Medical Engineering/Construction  jobs will be created :(

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Joe Frickin' Friday
On 1/13/2020 at 10:58 AM, John Ranalletta said:

 

IMO, Mitch, not a good example.  I marvel at the amount of plastic/styro/cardboard waste we two generate.  I bought a Polk audio sound bar the other evening.  The packaging we put in the recycle bin weighed nearly as much as the product.

 

 

I gotta disagree about it being a good example.  

 

For the average person, the heaviest thing they are familiar with is their car - and they may or may not know that it weighs 1.5-2 tons.  And without any context, very few people have a solid mental grasp of what 50,000 tons of material looks like.  All they know is "50,000" seems like a pretty big number, and "ton" seems like a pretty big unit; without any context, some people might think we're in imminent danger of being buried alive under an avalanche of turbine blades, à la Wall-E.   I think it's highly relevant to know that we here in the US already generate massive amounts of solid waste, and that 50,000 tons of turbine blades isn't that much in the scheme of things.  

 

I cited 268 million tons of solid waste per year, but that's actually overstating the case.  About 94 million tons (including the packaging you mentioned) gets recycled or composted.  The actual amount going to landfills (or incinerators) is about 174 million tons per year.  50,000 tons of turbine blades per year increases this waste stream by a whopping 0.00000287 percent.   Suddenly 50,000 tons doesn't seem so terrible.

 

In one of your earlier replies, you mentioned nukes (it was a post with just that single word; I'm assuming you were advocating wider use of nuclear power for producing electricity).  These also produce some solid waste (2000 tons per year, with serious safety/security concerns), which means there must be some non-zero amount of solid-waste production that you're willing to tolerate in return for the benefit of electricity.

 

 

On 1/13/2020 at 10:44 AM, John Ranalletta said:

That's an exercise in relative-ism.  

 

It sure is.  How else are we to decide what is a good/better/best way to make electricity?  

 

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