Recycled wind turbine tower [image credit: inhabitat.com]
Like it or not, there are already industrial quantities of renewable installations and their hardware in many places around the world. Sooner or later the problem of what to do with hordes of obsolete wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and suchlike ‘green’ paraphernalia has to be addressed to prevent a massive pile-up of industrial waste.
Renewable energy has been hailed as the great salve for the world’s climate change woes, says Chemical & Engineering News.
Building massive infrastructure for solar and wind energy, and introducing electric vehicles, will help citizens in developing countries live the lifestyles they desire without the need to burn dirty fossil fuels.
But though these technologies have existed for decades, there’s no plan to make sure they remain green to the end.
Experts forecast hundreds of thousands of tons of old wind turbine blades, batteries, and solar modules will need to be disposed of or recycled in the next decade—and millions of tons by 2050.
Read on about the technologies evolving around the world to handle this unusual waste stream – here.
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Even Russia is playing the greencrap window-dressing game…
«Like most big renewable projects in Russia, this is not about making money, but more about prestige,» he says to the Barents Observer.
The current Russian Energy Strategy includes an ambition to produce 2,5 percent of the country’s total electricity generation and consumption from renewable sources by year 2024. The Murmansk wind project is part of that picture.
According to Sergeev, there are no consumers in the region for the energy that will be produced by the wind plant.
«In this region, there is from before very much energy production, the Kola Nuclear Power Plant, 17 hydro power plants and two heat power plants. We have more energy than we need. We are selling power, but still have a lot.»
http://thebarentsobserver.com/en/node/3774
more “subsidy farm” in the making
Not hard to work out that when it’s minus plenty of degrees outside, nobody wants to be waiting for the wind to blow to get some heating.
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Wind Power – A Few Facts
APRIL 8, 2018
‘…standby capacity has to be kept in reserve. By 2020/21, this will be costing £1.3bn in capacity market payments.
In all, subsidies for wind power and standby will be costing the country more than £7bn a year, equivalent to about £270 per household.’
One man’s subsidy is another man’s guaranteed profit.
When the bird-shredders and fryers fall apart, the scammers who pocketed the subsidies will be well gone.
Leaving Joe Public to pick up the clean-up bill.