Fact Check: Wind turbine blades were not being buried to eliminate evidence of a failure project
A viral post claims wind turbines are not environmentally friendly and therefore the renewable energy companies are burying the evidence in soil.
As the world is slowly switching to green energy amid rising global temperature, India is focused on harnessing energy from the wind, which is renewable and non-polluting. Despite the country being a low-to-moderate wind speed market, it’s current installed capacity of wind energy is 47.36 GW.
Gujarat has emerged as the leading state in terms of wind energy capacity. The state accounts for 25.8 percent of the total wind energy generated across the country. The state government is targeting to increase its output to 100 gigawatts of power through conventional and renewable sources and various initiatives.
In India, Tamil Nadu is a pioneer in wind mill installations as it installed its first wind turbine in the 1980s. The state government has introduced ‘the Tamil Nadu Repowering, Refurbishment & Life Extension Policy for Wind Power Projects – 2024’ to extend the life of old turbines through upgradation or replacement of the old turbines.
Meanwhile, a photo of piles of long, white wind turbines lying in a landfill is going viral on social media with the claim that these “wind turbines are a colossal failure for the environment. So, they bury the evidence (in soil).”
The claim link here and archive link here.
Here’s the screenshot of the viral claim on Facebook.
Fact Check:
During the investigation, the Telugupost fact check team found the claim to be misleading.
We ran the viral photo through Google Reverse Image Search tool and found a Bloomberg news article featuring the same image. The caption of the photo shared in the article, dated February 5, 2020, reads, “Fragments of wind turbine blades await burial at the Casper Regional Landfill in Wyoming.” The article stated that the companies are searching for ways to dispose of tens of thousands of first generation wind turbine blades that have reached the end of their lives.
According to Cowboy State Daily, “wind farms repurpose and recycle 90 percent of the materials in a wind turbine unit. The only materials not recycled are the fiberglass blades and motor housings.” It further said researchers at Washington State University are still studying ways to reuse the fiberglass components.
ScienceDirect website explains that the wind turbine blades are “primarily made of composite materials that combine high-tensile-strength fibers with polymer resins to form glass- or carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers (GFRP or CFRP).” And these composite materials present challenges for disposal. It also stated that landfilling is the most common method for disposing of blades in the United States. Over a period of time, organic materials in the blades will biodegrade, potentially releasing methane and other volatile organic compounds.
Wind turbine making companies say burning of waste blades will be detrimental to the environment and currently landfilling is the more appropriate disposal method. Meanwhile, Danish wind company Vestas claimed to have found a breakthrough solution which will allow wind turbine blades to be recycled.
In the light of above media reports and investigation, we can conclude that the wind turbine making companies were not ‘burying the evidence’ but disposing the 20-30 year old turbine blades through the most environment-friendly landfilling process as researchers have still not found a way to recycle them. Hence, the claim is misleading.
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