"We have solar here, we have wind here, we even have a company that makes nuclear products - we are fans of all of the above," Ken said. It transpired that underinvestment in the grid and problems with the natural gas supply were also to blame - but it was a reminder of the tensions that still exist between those who favour old, traditional fossil fuels over renewable energy, even at a time when calls to cut carbon emissions are growing ever louder amid a worsening climate crisis.īack in the town of Sweetwater, Ken Becker said there are no tensions between the old and the new - pumpjacks turn in oil fields that are surrounded by wind turbines and solar panels. Millions of homes were left without heat, power or water and hundreds of people died.Īt first, the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, blamed frozen wind turbines and solar panels. In February, an unprecedented winter storm hit Texas and overwhelmed the power grid causing widespread blackouts. We are repurposing oil rigs for wind turbines like what has been done in the North Sea," he added. "The Gulf Coast is magnificently situated for wind power and we have plenty of infrastructure there. We have yet to address offshore wind here and we are just starting to get around to that," Ed said. "We've got the largest wind farms in the US and bigger than most countries in the world and that is in west Texas. They would find no shortage of raw materials in Texas, a state that has become one the biggest producers of wind energy in the world.Įd Hirs, a lecturer in energy economics at the University of Houston, said climate, geography and infrastructure have all made Texas the perfect place for renewables like wind and solar. The reason there are so many disused wind blades here is because there are so many wind turbines in the surrounding plains, thousands of them, stretching as far as the eye can see.ĭealing with disused wind turbine parts is becoming somewhat of an issue for the industry but a team of researchers in Cork could have the answer.Įngineers at the Munster Technological University are using old turbine blades to create a pedestrian bridge which will soon be installed on the Midleton to Youghal Greenway. Ken Becker of the Sweetwater Economic Development Agency So far it hasn't been possible, financially, to make that happen but hopefully sometime in the future it will," Ken said. "They were trying to find of a way of reusing this material and to make wind energy greener than it already is. Ken Becker of the Sweetwater Economic Development Agency said that a company had intended to recycle the parts but it has not happened yet. It is in recognition of the fact that the town is surrounded by some of the biggest wind farms in the world.Īcross the road from the Sweetwater Cemetery is a graveyard of a different kind: a turbine graveyard where thousands of enormous, disused turbine blades lie across a vast field. It's time to stop the madness.We need more support open your eyes to the environmental issues with windmills they will only be wasted and decommissioned just like all the others have been.As you enter the town of Sweetwater, Texas, you are greeted by a welcome sign that is made from a wind turbine blade. This cost taxpayers $200,000 or more per unit to have them transported and decommissioned. And disposing of them in an environmentally-friendly way is a growing problem. About two gigawatts worth of turbines will be refitted in 20. Turbines from the first great 1990s wave of wind power are reaching the end of their life expectancy today. Each will be cut into three, then the pieces will be stacked and buried.
These blades, which have reached the end of their 25-year working lives, come from three wind farms in the north-western US state. It stretches a hundred meters from a bend in the North Platte River in Casper, Wyoming.īetween last September and this March, it will become the final resting place for 1,000 fibreglass turbine blades.
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