Arguments
Software
Resources
Comments
The Consensus Project
Translations
About
Support
Latest Posts
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #47 2024
- Durability of carbon dioxide removal is critical for stabilizing temperatures
- Sabin 33 #3 - Solar panels generate too much waste and will overwhelm landfills
- Here’s how governments could fix their Paris climate commitment failures
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #46
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #46 2024
- 20 fact briefs published in collaboration with Gigafact!
- Sabin 33 #2 - Are toxic heavy metals from solar panels posing a threat to human health?
- 2024 will be the first year above 1.5°C
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #45
- Fact brief - Is there an expert consensus on human-caused global warming?
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #45 2024
- The planet is ‘on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,’ scientists warn
- Sabin 33 #1 - Are electromagnetic fields from solar farms harmful to human health?
- Volunteer activity: Evaluate automated climate misinformation debunkings
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44
- Fact brief - Are most glaciers growing?
- Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles thanks to the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #44 2024
- The hidden health toll of hurricanes
- Climate Adam: Is climate change fuelling mega hurricanes?
- Jobs in wind, solar, and energy storage are booming. Is your state keeping up?
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #43
- Fact brief - Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans?
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #43 2024
- Why widening highways doesn’t reduce traffic congestion
- Climate Risk
- Welcome to the world of personal air conditioning
- 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42
- Skeptical Science New Research for Week #42 2024
Archived Rebuttal
This is the archived Intermediate rebuttal to the climate myth "Wind turbines will generate an unsustainable amount of waste". Click here to view the latest rebuttal.
What the science says...
|
Roughly 85% of the mass of a wind turbine, including the tower, gearbox, and generator, consist of metals that are easily recycled. |
Roughly 85% of the mass of a wind turbine, including the tower, gearbox, and generator, consist of metals that are easily recycled1 (also Khalid et al. 2023). The remaining 15%, including the blades, consist of composite-based materials, such as fiberglass, that are more difficult to recycle (Khalid et al. 2023). However, new technologies are in development for recycling turbine blades, and turbine blades are in fact being recycled in some facilities2 (also Jensen & Skelton 2023). A recent breakthrough supported by the Department of Energy enabled all turbine components to be recycled3, and private companies in the United States have begun developing turbine blade recycling plants.4
One study from 2017 estimated that global annual waste of turbine blades will reach 2.9 million metric tons per year by 2050, with a total of 43 million metrics tons in cumulative waste generated between 2018 and 2050 (Liu & Barlow 2017). This is not insignificant. However, Nature Physics has projected that global cumulative waste from fossil fuel-based power generation between 2016 to 2050 is expected to produce roughly 45,550 million metric tons of coal ash alone, along with 249 million metric tons of oily sludge (Mirletz et al. 2023). In other words, the cumulative waste from coal ash is expected to be roughly 1,000 times greater than that of turbine blades, and the cumulative waste of oily sludge is expected to be about 5-6 times greater than that of turbine blades. Importantly, both coal ash and oily sludge are known to be toxic. For further context, in the United States alone, roughly 600 million short tons, or 544 million metric tons, of construction and demolition debris were generated across all sectors in 2018.5 In effect, the annual construction and demolition waste in the United States alone is roughly 187 times greater than the anticipated annual waste from wind turbine blades across the globe in 2050.
Footnotes:
[1] Alejandro de la Garza This Group Is Helping Find New Ways to Recycle Old Wind Turbine Blades, Time, Sept. 25, 2023.
[2] Recycling & recovery of wind turbines, Roth International (last visited June 4, 2024).
[3] Wind Energy Technologies Office, Carbon Rivers Makes Wind Turbine Blade Recycling and Upcycling a Reality with Support From DOE, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy (October 17, 2022).
[4] Dave Downey, Here’s How One Iowa Company is Taking Wind Turbine Blades Out of the Landfill, We Are Iowa (January 24, 2023).
[5] Construction and Demolition Debris: Material-Specific Data, United States Envt’l Protection Agency (last visited Apr. 1, 2024).
This rebuttal is based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School in 2024. Skeptical Science sincerely appreciates Sabin Center's generosity in collaborating with us to make this information available as widely as possible.
Updated on 2024-09-01 by Ken Rice.
THE ESCALATOR
(free to republish)