WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.129 --> 00:00:04.930 Look at this bus stop, this bridge, and this playground. 2 00:00:05.730 --> 00:00:06.910 Notice anything? 3 00:00:07.290 --> 00:00:08.280 Let's take another look. 4 00:00:08.289 --> 00:00:11.360 They're all made of wind turbine blades. 5 00:00:11.369 --> 00:00:14.850 Because it looks cool, yeah, but also because we don't really know 6 00:00:14.850 --> 00:00:17.310 what else to do with them once they're worn out. 7 00:00:19.960 --> 00:00:22.509 We can recycle up to 90% of a turbine, 8 00:00:22.520 --> 00:00:25.600 like the steel from the tower or the copper from all the wires, 9 00:00:25.680 --> 00:00:29.160 but the gigantic blades mostly get dumped into landfills. 10 00:00:29.710 --> 00:00:32.100 A field day for opponents of wind energy. 11 00:00:32.110 --> 00:00:34.380 The big wind turbine junkyard. 12 00:00:34.390 --> 00:00:35.950 They're just lying around. 13 00:00:35.960 --> 00:00:38.970 There's there's nothing much renewable about these things. 14 00:00:39.110 --> 00:00:41.449 But the wind industry won't let that stand. 15 00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:45.190 They're working on making wind turbine blades recyclable and 16 00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:46.900 saving their green image. 17 00:00:47.080 --> 00:00:50.680 Wind turbine blades are mainly made of glass or carbon fibres and stuff 18 00:00:50.680 --> 00:00:52.150 called epoxy resin. 19 00:00:52.159 --> 00:00:55.220 This acts like a plastic super glue that binds them together. 20 00:00:55.400 --> 00:00:58.150 You end up with a very strong and resilient material. 21 00:00:58.160 --> 00:01:00.710 Dumping them into landfills and forgetting about them is a 22 00:01:00.720 --> 00:01:02.390 massive waste of materials. 23 00:01:02.400 --> 00:01:05.420 So let's look at some ideas on how to stop it. 24 00:01:14.050 --> 00:01:17.050 One way to deal with old blades is by using brute force. 25 00:01:17.170 --> 00:01:21.200 We can burn off the plastic parts or use strong chemicals to dissolve it. 26 00:01:21.810 --> 00:01:24.319 What remains is the fiber that can be used to make 27 00:01:24.330 --> 00:01:27.610 new things like cars, planes, or snowboards. 28 00:01:28.170 --> 00:01:30.630 But these processes aren't perfect. 29 00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:36.400 All of these take a lot of energy and the products that you get 30 00:01:37.120 --> 00:01:42.120 because they're degraded by the very fierce technology that 31 00:01:42.120 --> 00:01:44.830 you've been using, by the the brutal methods that you've 32 00:01:44.840 --> 00:01:47.580 been using to separate the components. 33 00:01:48.470 --> 00:01:52.110 They're not as strong, not as useful as they were, and so 34 00:01:52.110 --> 00:01:54.340 you don't get so much value from them. 35 00:01:54.350 --> 00:01:58.030 Any recycling process has to be economically viable and 36 00:01:58.230 --> 00:02:00.770 this erodes that. 37 00:02:01.110 --> 00:02:03.820 Recently a different approach has become popular. 38 00:02:03.830 --> 00:02:06.420 Turns out the materials and turbine blades are pretty good 39 00:02:06.430 --> 00:02:07.940 for making something else. 40 00:02:07.950 --> 00:02:09.860 If they are cut into pieces and then shredded, 41 00:02:09.870 --> 00:02:12.170 they can be used in cement production. 42 00:02:12.470 --> 00:02:15.660 You get some energy from the the plastic part of the blade, 43 00:02:15.669 --> 00:02:17.330 the resin as. 44 00:02:17.880 --> 00:02:22.560 That is heated, it gives off energy and then you're left with 45 00:02:22.560 --> 00:02:27.960 this charred glass remains and that goes into concrete. 46 00:02:28.350 --> 00:02:32.270 And so you're able to recover some of the materials and use them 47 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:35.660 for a common material, and then you're also able to recover 48 00:02:35.669 --> 00:02:37.220 some energy waste. 49 00:02:37.230 --> 00:02:40.350 Management firm Veolia has partnered with General Electric 50 00:02:40.350 --> 00:02:42.380 to do exactly that on a large scale in the US. 51 00:02:42.389 --> 00:02:46.389 They say they've already recycled over 3000 blades this way. 52 00:02:46.389 --> 00:02:48.380 And that's not the only benefit. 53 00:02:48.389 --> 00:02:51.260 By burning shredded wind turbine blades instead of coal, 54 00:02:51.270 --> 00:02:54.950 cement makers could save up to 27% of CO2 emissions, 55 00:02:54.950 --> 00:02:57.490 according to an analysis by a consulting firm. 56 00:02:57.990 --> 00:03:02.190 If you have cement industry which is located 57 00:03:02.230 --> 00:03:06.070 close enough to the place that you've got your wind turbine blades, 58 00:03:06.470 --> 00:03:09.570 then this is actually something which is viable, 59 00:03:09.669 --> 00:03:14.910 it's economically advantageous and it's environmentally favourable 60 00:03:14.910 --> 00:03:18.110 as well and certainly better than the landfill. 61 00:03:18.389 --> 00:03:21.710 But wouldn't it be better still if we could use old turban blades to 62 00:03:21.710 --> 00:03:22.850 make new ones? 63 00:03:27.850 --> 00:03:30.480 We really need to ensure that we get into 64 00:03:30.490 --> 00:03:35.210 circularity and get into more sustainable life cycle designs. 65 00:03:35.690 --> 00:03:38.690 This is Maximilian Schnippering, who leads the sustainability 66 00:03:38.690 --> 00:03:41.640 department at Siemens Gamesa, one of the world's largest wind 67 00:03:41.650 --> 00:03:43.190 turbine manufacturers. 68 00:03:43.370 --> 00:03:45.720 They develop what they call the recyclable blades, 69 00:03:45.730 --> 00:03:47.360 which you might have guessed is a blades 70 00:03:47.370 --> 00:03:49.600 that's supposed to be easily recyclable. 71 00:03:49.610 --> 00:03:52.110 That's down to a new type of resin they've invented. 72 00:03:53.280 --> 00:03:57.480 Resin can be dissolved easily in the mild acid solution at 73 00:03:57.480 --> 00:03:59.860 the end of the life and then. 74 00:04:00.190 --> 00:04:03.390 This solution separates basically the resins from the glass 75 00:04:03.390 --> 00:04:07.630 fiber and the other core materials so that we can recover the separated 76 00:04:07.630 --> 00:04:10.950 materials again and use them for new products. 77 00:04:11.230 --> 00:04:13.420 For the moment, these new products are things like 78 00:04:13.430 --> 00:04:16.790 suitcases, PC cases, or cars, not new blades. 79 00:04:16.950 --> 00:04:18.910 The plan is to ultimately close the loop, 80 00:04:18.920 --> 00:04:20.930 but more research is still needed. 81 00:04:22.120 --> 00:04:24.990 The recyclable blades are more expensive than traditional ones. 82 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:27.270 How much, exactly, Siemens Gamesa wouldn't say, 83 00:04:27.279 --> 00:04:29.690 but they're already being used in some wind projects. 84 00:04:30.510 --> 00:04:33.830 Unfortunately, Siemens Gamesa also wouldn't say how high the share of 85 00:04:33.830 --> 00:04:35.100 total sales is. 86 00:04:35.110 --> 00:04:38.510 Yeah, that's something we cannot disclose, which is a shame 87 00:04:38.510 --> 00:04:42.070 because obviously the more of them we use now, the more of a dent and blade 88 00:04:42.070 --> 00:04:44.490 wise the solution could make down the line. 89 00:04:44.589 --> 00:04:47.420 What's clear is that it doesn't help with traditional blades we have to 90 00:04:47.430 --> 00:04:48.490 deal with now. 91 00:04:55.990 --> 00:04:59.870 You will not see the impact of that until 25 or 30 years when 92 00:04:59.870 --> 00:05:01.730 those planes are being taken down. 93 00:05:02.190 --> 00:05:05.230 This is Lisa Ekstrand, who's head of sustainability at 94 00:05:05.230 --> 00:05:08.370 Vestas, another leading wind turbine manufacturer. 95 00:05:08.630 --> 00:05:11.570 They're taking a different approach in their recycling strategy. 96 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:15.270 As soon as we have scaled up our solution, we can already start 97 00:05:15.279 --> 00:05:19.320 recycling epoxy infused plates that were put up many years ago and that 98 00:05:19.320 --> 00:05:22.380 will be taken down now as well as future blades. 99 00:05:22.670 --> 00:05:25.220 They say they've figured out a way to separate the materials 100 00:05:25.230 --> 00:05:27.860 in existing turbine blades and make them reusable, 101 00:05:27.870 --> 00:05:29.810 including the epoxy resin. 102 00:05:29.910 --> 00:05:33.029 It's supposedly done with a chemical solution that breaks it down. 103 00:05:34.990 --> 00:05:37.620 Vestas doesn't let on much about the new process, just 104 00:05:37.630 --> 00:05:40.410 that so far it's only been proven in the lab. 105 00:05:40.589 --> 00:05:43.340 They'll now be testing it in the real world for two years to see 106 00:05:43.350 --> 00:05:44.620 if it can be scaled up. 107 00:05:44.630 --> 00:05:49.470 What we do know is that the chemical solution is, it's nothing exotic, 108 00:05:50.510 --> 00:05:53.250 it's chemicals that you will find off the shelf. 109 00:05:53.790 --> 00:05:58.670 And that of course gives us very good indications that this has a lot 110 00:05:58.670 --> 00:06:01.089 of opportunities to be a very cost competitive. 111 00:06:01.750 --> 00:06:03.170 So let's recap. 112 00:06:03.230 --> 00:06:06.310 There's a bunch of ideas out there on how to tackle blade waste. 113 00:06:06.710 --> 00:06:09.500 Some that already work at scale and some that still have to 114 00:06:09.510 --> 00:06:10.530 prove they do. 115 00:06:10.950 --> 00:06:14.020 Wind power companies across the board are throwing money at this, 116 00:06:14.029 --> 00:06:18.110 and while researching the story, I've repeatedly wondered why. 117 00:06:18.710 --> 00:06:21.300 If you ask them, they'll say something like this. 118 00:06:21.310 --> 00:06:23.779 Sustainability is at the core of our business. 119 00:06:23.790 --> 00:06:26.210 It is also very much part of our DNA, 120 00:06:26.310 --> 00:06:29.529 which somehow only felt like half the answer. 121 00:06:29.550 --> 00:06:32.260 I mean, don't get me wrong, throwing things in the dump and 122 00:06:32.270 --> 00:06:35.670 forgetting about all the materials that went into making them should not 123 00:06:35.670 --> 00:06:36.980 be the way forward. 124 00:06:36.990 --> 00:06:40.790 But with old blades, it looks and feels a lot worse than it is. 125 00:06:41.029 --> 00:06:44.510 I mean, these things are literally built to not decompose. 126 00:06:44.830 --> 00:06:50.150 It should be pretty stable, they will just stay there basically forever. 127 00:06:50.270 --> 00:06:52.500 So the main problem with landfilling is really that 128 00:06:52.510 --> 00:06:54.410 blades take up a lot of space. 129 00:06:55.190 --> 00:06:59.310 There will be 43,000,000 tonnes of discarded blades by 2050. 130 00:06:59.310 --> 00:07:02.870 Well, there will be 12 billion tonnes of plastic waste and landfills and 131 00:07:02.870 --> 00:07:04.260 the environment by then. 132 00:07:04.270 --> 00:07:06.780 If we drown and waste, it's very likely not going 133 00:07:06.790 --> 00:07:08.780 to be down to wind turbine blades. 134 00:07:08.790 --> 00:07:10.170 But that's not the point. 135 00:07:10.310 --> 00:07:12.980 Compared with plastic waste, it's tiny. 136 00:07:12.990 --> 00:07:15.970 Compared with lots of other bits of waste, it's tiny, 137 00:07:16.270 --> 00:07:20.270 but it's really important in the public eye. 138 00:07:20.270 --> 00:07:21.970 It's sort of iconic. 139 00:07:22.430 --> 00:07:25.550 So we've got these huge wind turbines which are making 140 00:07:25.550 --> 00:07:27.730 green electricity for us. 141 00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:29.060 And people say. 142 00:07:29.350 --> 00:07:33.510 Yes, but at the end of life you've got parts of 143 00:07:33.510 --> 00:07:37.710 this structure which are going to landfill that is not green. 144 00:07:39.280 --> 00:07:42.420 So it's partly really. 145 00:07:44.200 --> 00:07:47.300 To improve the image of wind turbine technology. 146 00:07:48.840 --> 00:07:51.750 In the public domain. For the wind industry, 147 00:07:51.760 --> 00:07:54.270 solving the recycling challenge is the best way to live up 148 00:07:54.280 --> 00:07:57.280 to their image and future proof their business.