Wasting Away in Wind-and-Solarville
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Sunday, May 18, 2025 13:13
VIEWED: 717
PAGE 1 of 2
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2025/05/15/wasting_aw
ay_in_wind-and-solarville_1110296.html
I wish I knew where I was posting about this a few years back and I laid out the numbers after doing a ton of research on the topic and compare the notes.
And this article is all about the back-end of what we're going to be facing in the future. It doesn't appear to ever even bring up the environmental costs and pollution that it takes to make things like the fiberglass blades for the mills and what a carbon deficit they need to overcome by the end of their lives to justify their creation in the first place before they've ever made a single rotation.
Quote:
The current amounts of fiberglass, resins, aluminum and other chemicals – not to mention propeller blades from giant wind turbines – pose no threat current to local town dumps, but this largely ignored problem will become more of a challenge in the years ahead as the 500 million solar panels and the 73,000 wind turbines now operating in the U.S. are decommissioned and replaced.
Greens insist that reductions in carbon emissions will more than compensate for increased levels of potentially toxic garbage; others fret that renewable energy advocates have not been forthright about their lack of eco-friendly plans and the technology to handle the waste.
“Nobody planned on this, nobody had a plan to get rid of them, nobody planned for closure,” said Dwight Clark, whose company, Solar E Waste Solutions, recycles solar panels. “Nobody thought this through.”
...
“They’ve been either silent, or incoherent – or just hand-wave that we should recycle all this stuff without telling us how,” said Mark Mills, executive director of the National Center on Energy Analytics. In the headlong effort to make solar and wind seem as inexpensive as possible, they have not included fees that address the eventual cost of disposal, which could leave taxpayers holding the bag.
Some renewable supporters acknowledge Mills’ point. The Alliance for Affordable Energy, which supports government-funded research on recycling panels and turbines, said the “circular economy” Mills referred to has yet to materialize.
“With the existing energy infrastructure, a lot of end-of-life questions have never been addressed,” the Alliance’s executive director, Logan Burke, told RCI. “It may be that those costs have to be embedded in the front-end, but somehow we need to make the market circular. How do we find that market at the end of their useful life?”
...
Just how many panels the U.S. will dispose of or retire each year is also unclear. No clearing house keeps track of national figures, according to Meng Tao, an energy engineering professor at Arizona State University and a consultant on renewable waste issues.
The estimates can vary widely. Solar panels generally have a life expectancy of 25 years, but factors like damage and system upgrades make the number of panels coming out of circulation each year impossible to ascertain. In 2021, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which did not respond to a request for comment, estimated that between 3,000 and 6,000 panels would be retired annually through 2026.
Critics say even the high end of those numbers seems suspiciously low given the hundreds of millions of panels now in use and tens of millions yet to come.
The problem will not be confined to the U.S. Several European countries are further down the NetZero road than America, and in March, the European Union estimated it “will cumulatively amass 6-13 and 21-35 million tons of (solar) waste by 2040 and 2050, respectively.” The waste coming from wind turbines will be even greater, the EU said, sounding a hopeful note that recycling renewables will become more prominent.
Unfortunately, as I always tell everyone, energy isn't magic that comes from Hogwarts. Just because you're not seeing smoke in the sky where you live doesn't mean it ain't choking up the atmosphere somewhere else...
... or some other time in the fu
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Bladed wind turbines are called “bird choppers”.
I do not know why they do not use bladeless wind turbines. Although they may have problems too…but at least they do not kill bald eagles.
https://www.solarcycle.us/ says they recycle 95% of a solar panel. Couldn’t find a fee on their website. Searching the internet says they charge $18 a panel.
Checked https://www.staples.com/stores/recycling and not there yet. Lol!
I think the only thing right now that is cheaper to recycle than make is aluminum cans. And there are places that will pay you to let them take your cans.
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Quote:Compare weight. The weight of waste CO2 compared to the weight of solar panels and wind turbines:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Unfortunately, as I always tell everyone, energy isn't magic that comes from Hogwarts. Just because you're not seeing smoke in the sky where you live doesn't mean it ain't choking up the atmosphere somewhere else...
... or some other time in the future, for that matter.
Think, people. Think.
Globally, approximately 1,079 metric tons of CO2 are released each second due to the burning of fossil fuels. This equates to about 35 billion tons of CO2 emitted annually. Annual emissions from fossil fuels, industrial processes, and land-use change are estimated to be 42.2 Gt, which is equivalent to 1,337 tonnes per second.
https://www.google.com/search?&q=how+many+tons+of+CO2+are+emitted+
each+day
How many tons of wind turbines and solar panels are produced per year?
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+tons+of+wind+turbines+and+sol
ar+panels+are+produced+per+year
6ixStringJack, do the arithmetic. The weight of a year of machinery production is less than a few seconds of CO2 production.
Somehow, a place for storage of the few thousand tonnes of scrapped machinery will be found per year, but there is no place for the storage of the billions of tonnes of CO2 produced each year.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Don't talk to me about math, retard. I already did the arithmetic YEARS ago here. And you bounced immediately from the thread after I did because you had nothing to say. I'm not doing it again. Go dig it up and continue our conversation you dropped years ago.
Let's not forget that you goofballs just burn the things or throw them in the ocean when you're done with them. And any graphs you use as proof these things put out enough to justify their existence use stats showing what these blades and turbines if they're running 100% of the time, 24/7. Anybody who's driven past a windfarm in their lives knows that this is not reality. Hell anybody who's stepped outside of their house and hasn't seen a windmill knows that this is not reality.
Your "green" energy is anything but green, and your energy "revolution" is dead along with the Democratic Party that you killed.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:You did no math and you know it. Here is more: How much ice is on Earth? Enough to raise the sea level by 57.9 meters. That is 190 feet.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Don't talk to me about math, retard. I already did the arithmetic YEARS ago here.
Where are Trumptards going to dispose of that amount of water? If Trumptards think solar panel disposal takes up a huge volume, they will have a really big problem with all that water flooding their houses.
https://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/what-is-the-glo
bal-volume-of-land-ice-and-how-is-it-changing/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
You did no math and you know it.
I had pages worth of math and research on that.
You saw it, because I destroyed you with that data.
Your denial of that here means this conversation is over because you are interested in nothing more than lying again today.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:You have nothing and did nothing. But there is plenty known, all contradicting everything Trumptards say, do, and believe:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
You did no math and you know it.
I had pages worth of math and research on that.
You saw it, because I destroyed you with that data.
Your denial of that here means this conversation is over because you are interested in nothing more than lying again today.
Let’s consider U.S.A.'s biggest energy sources, coal, oil & gas, nuclear, wind, and solar.
1. Reinvigorating coal. According to a post by the US EIA, a quarter of the coal-burning power plants in the US are scheduled to shut down by 2029, and the last time a coal-burning plant was brought online was 2013. Coal plants were closed during Trump’s first term, and he didn’t manage to see any opened up. We can’t expect him to do better now, because the situation is economically even less in favor of coal than it was when he was a presidential newbie.
2. “Drill, baby, drill.” Trump’s solution has a problem. The oil & gas industry, despite the promises Trump made to encourage opening up new oil and gas supplies, seems not to be bothering to drill new wells. A CleanTechnica article, “Trump Promised to ‘Drill, Baby, Drill.’ Big Oil Won’t Let Him,” gives the reason why that is not happening. The oil price, at about $60 per barrel, is too low for the industry to make money. We might suspect that the tariffs Trump imposed on anything imported are not helping.
OPEC is increasing production, and that will keep prices low. CleanTechnica just published a forecast, “US EIA Forecasts World Oil Consumption Growth To Slow.” Supplies are available and prices are too low already, so why would American oil & gas companies increase production?
Also, CleanTechnica has posted many articles showing that manufacturing is flat or declining for internal combustion cars, while it is ramping up for almost all EVs. This is a worldwide phenomenon. It indicates that the oil and gas industry is entering into decline while the world is transitioning to clean power.
Perhaps the best indicator of this is China, which was covered in a recent CleanTechnica article, “Clean Energy Shifts China’s CO2 Emissions From Growth To Decline.”
3. Pushing nuclear power. Nuclear power is the center of a lot of news activity. Big tech companies want to build nuclear power plants. The problem is that this can’t happen quickly enough to supply them with the power they will soon need.
According to an article at Energy Intelligence, the Trump administration’s answer to the problem is to reduce regulations and speed things up. New executive orders are expected that would circumvent NRC controls, making it possible for the Department of Energy and Department of Defense to take over some of regulatory functionality. That bit of news speaks to a stunning extension of executive power.
Part of the problem for the Trump administration is that it is not just regulations that stand in the way. Small Modular Reactors (SMR) may need to be approved, but that is not all they need. They are to be built in factories, and the factories themselves have to be built. This takes time. And even when the factories are built, turning out functional reactors will not happen overnight.
One other problem for all this is that there will be opposition. The time it will take to get a new SMR built in a factory would probably collide with the next election cycle, and it will be a big issue if it does. My guess is that not many people will like the idea of having a lower level of protections than the NRC has provided.
4. Blowing away wind energy. The Trump administration seems to be out to ruin American wind power. In the process, however, it is teaching the world that investing in the United States is a risky business.
Donald Trump took office and immediately started issuing orders on wind power. New onshore wind farm leases would no longer be offered on federal land.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:You have nothing and did nothing.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
You did no math and you know it.
I had pages worth of math and research on that.
You saw it, because I destroyed you with that data.
Your denial of that here means this conversation is over because you are interested in nothing more than lying again today.
I have a ton of free time. Maybe I'll dig it up and throw it in your dumb fucking face again, so you can scurry away like the little rat you are again. Liar.
Hey Jaynez... if you read this, you're the one most likely to know where that would be at. If you have any ideas to help me find it, let me know.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:So, you have a ton of free time, but you want Jaynez to do your work for free. It is very Trumptard of you to dump your work on somebody else. I see that at work all day long. The lazy, stupid, and incompetent Trumptards are asking others for help because the Trumptards are lazy, stupid, and incompetent, asking questions such as: Where is the tool? (Where you left it, dumb-ass) Why isn't this working? (Set the switches, dumb-ass) There is something wrong with the interlocks. (You left the machine in an unsafe mode, dumb-ass) All day long it is one dumb-ass thing after another with the Trumptards.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I have a ton of free time. Maybe I'll dig it up and throw it in your dumb fucking face again, so you can scurry away like the little rat you are again. Liar.
Hey Jaynez... if you read this, you're the one most likely to know where that would be at. If you have any ideas to help me find it, let me know.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Shut up, stupid. I'm on it. I'll find it and shut your stupid fucking face up again like I always do when you've annoyed me enough to go out of my way to put you in your place and I've got nothing important to do.
You wouldn't know anything about asking somebody who you're not adversarial with for assistance.
Reason number one is you're adversarial with everyone and everybody you've ever known hates you and wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.
Reason number two is that you are too stupid to even think to ask somebody like Jaynez for assistance because you wouldn't even recognize that he's the person on these boards most likely to know where this is because he is always pouring through old threads.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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