SOLAR PANELS/WIND TURBINES WASTE
Green Energy Waste Overlooked In Climate Agenda
The amount of waste piling up from solar panels and wind turbine blades can be measured in tons. And the industry is just getting started.
Almost all spent solar panels in the United States end up in landfills, and many first- and second-generation panels are already tapping out, well ahead of their anticipated 30-year lifespan.
Added to that will be an estimated 9.8 million metric tons of dead panels to deal with between 2030 and 2060, according to a study published in Science Direct.
Tossing a solar panel into a U.S. landfill currently costs about $1, maybe $2. To recycle that same panel, the cost balloons to $20 to $30, according to an estimate reported by PV Magazine.
Wind turbine parts present a similar challenge, with thousands of blades having already found their way into dumps and fields in Texas, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Iowa.
It’s no small feat to dump a blade. The length of a single wind turbine blade can be more than 200 feet or longer than the wingspan of a Boeing 747, according to the Department of Energy. Offshore wind rigs are even larger.
Currently, about 7,000 blades are scrapped per year in the United States, according to David Morgan, chief strategy officer for Carbon Rivers, a Tennessee-based recycling center for advanced materials.
Of all the glass fiber waste that Carbon Rivers receives, wind turbine blades are the most challenging, Mr. Morgan said.
“They’re a very hardy, robust material. They’re large and cumbersome to deal with,” he told The Epoch Times.
Expanding Industry
As the so-called renewable energy industry expands—largely because of massive subsidies from the Biden administration—so does the waste on the back end.
Solar generation capacity is forecast to increase by more than 38 percent in 2024, according to a Dec. 12 report by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), a U.S. government agency. Wind energy capacity is forecast to increase by 4.4 percent.
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