Wind Turbine Blades: an Environmental Disaster from Start to Finish
And that’s even when they don’t fall apart.
As pieces from the Vineyard Wind turbine blade that fell apart on July 13 continue to wash up on Massachusetts, and most recently Rhode Island beaches (a good 60 miles away), a plan is “in development” to retrieve larger sections of the blade that “detached from the hub…and landed in the water column” on July 29.
Requested by the island town of Nantucket, which was hit with the first wave of debris from the blade that measures a gigantic 351 feet in length, the manufacturer, GE Vernova, provided a 485-page material safety data sheet (MSDS) listing the numerous chemical components that go into the manufacturing process.
Along with fiberglass, the blades contain a wide variety of “complex industrial materials,” including adhesives, resins, gel coats, chemical “balancing materials,” hardeners, epoxies, coatings, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Now if you had to choose one of the most environmentally unfriendly materials available, it might be hard to beat that last one.
As described in a study published in 2023, PVC is considered the most environmentally damaging plastic and one of the most toxic substances for inhabitants of our planet. From cradle to grave, the PVC lifecycle (production, use, and disposal) results in the release of toxic, chlorine-based chemicals, and it is one of the world’s largest dioxin sources.
The environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council (a big supporter of offshore wind) lists PVC as among “The Worst of the Worst” in a report by that name, calling for it to be phased out. Greenpeace, a super-duper backer of offshore wind, calls PVC the “poison plastic” and the “single most environmentally damaging type of plastic.”
Then there are the 240 “aerodynamic add-ons.”
According to Arcadis, the company GE Vernova retained to assess the environmental “considerations” of the “crisis” (as Nantucket officials call it), there are even more blade ingredients.
A section of the blade referred to under the vague heading “aerodynamic add-ons” contains PTFE, part of the large PFAS class that are commonly referred to as “forever chemicals” as they last evermore in the environment. PFAS substances have a long and toxic history of contaminating the air, water, and soil, beginning with DuPont’s novel coating Teflon in 1946. As the Environmental Working Group says about PFAS ‘What began as a ‘miracle of modern chemistry’ is now a national crisis.”
And despite Arcadis’s own description of the blade and its debris as “inert, non-soluble, stable, and nontoxic,” any type of plastic, including fiberglass, can deteriorate into another ongoing oceanic disaster, microplastics, which are plastic particles smaller than 5 mm.
As stated in this 2024 study – Plastics in the marine environment cause many negativities by attaching to organisms, reducing their mobility, causing death, and negatively affecting organisms living in benthos by accumulating in sediments. Microplastics are easily ingested due to their micro-level sizes. They also move easily through the food chain and persist in the environment…
As for the debris that has been landing on beaches in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and who knows where else, and what’s still in the ocean, that’s all just part of one 70-ton, football-field-length blade. According to ten-year-old statistics, worldwide blade failure rates come to around 3,800 incidents per year. Should Vineyard Wind continue with its planned construction, there will soon be 186 more blades with the same potential of falling into the Atlantic. And that’s just in a single “wind energy area.”
Not in our landfill
Disposing of a blade, even ones much smaller than those installed by Vineyard Wind, is another polluting element of wind turbines. Not recyclable, these monstrous pieces of wind junk are sent to landfills around the country that have the space to accommodate them.
But even that disposal method is becoming an iffy proposition. As noted in a document from Solid Waste Management Officials, oddly provided by Arcadis:
Landfilling the blades presents its own problems due to the material memory. In short, the blades do not easily stack without being cut, and once stacked they do not compact once covered, so premium landfill airspace is lost.
Decommissioned turbine blade disposal is becoming increasingly problematic as landfills have less space that can be dedicated for blade burial, and more wind farms are being constructed. States such as New York, Wyoming, and Nebraska are already seeing the consequences of the lack of regulation and recycling availability. In 2021, multiple cases were noted of decommissioned turbine blades found openly dumped. In response, legislation has been proposed in several states to address this situation.
Even the incidental waste produced by these monstrous parts adds up as another document provided by GE Vernova reveals. Apparently intended to prove the blades qualify as “non-hazardous solid waste,” it shows that from just one GE manufacturing plant in North Dakota, LM Wind Power, the plastic film that the blades are wrapped in to “cure” generates 130 tons of “bulk solids” a week that get dumped in the Grand Forks landfill. And that’s been going on at least since 2018.
So even if wind turbines aren’t coming to a locale near you, it’s quite possible that its waste products will be.
This could be the greatest ecological disaster of our time if we don't stop it now Thank you Linda for your always spot on investigative reporting
Great piece, Linda! Thanks for shining a bright light on this mess.