Wind turbine carbon footprint upgrade#

“The main reason for these projected high carbon payback times is the assumption that all displaced peat becomes fully oxidized and that the construction not only causes drainage within the immediate construction area, but that the effect can extend outwards by a distance of up to 400 m.

The report further summarized: “Installing large wind turbines on peatland has the disadvantage of exposing carbon long trapped in the ground to decomposition, and some estimates suggest a turbine can take several years of operation to compensate for the associated carbon dioxide emissions. This is based to an extent on an influential report by Nayak and collaborators at the University of Aberdeen who developed a carbon dioxide calculator, variations of which are still used to estimate the impact of a wind farm proposal (both by supporters and opponents)”. Lutz carried out her research at Beinn Ghrideag near Stornoway in the Autumn, with the academic support of mentor Alasdair MacLeod from Lews Castle College UHI and financial support from community wind farm owner Point and Sandwick Trust.Īccording to her report, entitled “CO₂ Emissions from Wind Turbines on Peatland: A Practical Calculation”: “Estimates for the payback time for turbines on peatland have been quoted as 2.3 years (Pearce, 2009). When peat is disturbed for large concrete foundations to be laid for turbines, greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere. ‘Carbon payback’ is a term referring to the length of time it takes for the negative environmental impact from the construction of a wind farm on peatland to be offset by the positive environmental impact of generating clean energy instead of burning fossil fuel. University research finds this wind farm had a carbon payback time of just 47 days – a drastic reduction on the previous estimate of 2.3 years. (Photo: Sandie Maciver of SandiePhotos) All progress on the long path to net-zero.Point and Sandwick Trust’s community-owned wind farm at Beinn Ghrideag. Increasingly these old blades are being put to modest new use - broken down, ground up and added to cement as filler.

Wind turbine carbon footprint upgrade#

Wind farm operators tend to upgrade or “repower” their turbines about once a decade, which results in piles of old blades that typically end up being landfilled. Those blades, made of carbon fiber and fiberglass composites held together with plastics, are tougher to recycle. They won’t run out of material - the International Renewable Energy Agency predicts that we’ll have to deal with a cumulative 78 million metric tons of antiquated solar panel waste and tens of millions of tons of old turbine blades by 2050 At Arizona State researchers are working on electrochemical processes to extract metals like tin, copper and lead from solar cells by dissolving them in baths of nitric acid, then hydrofluoric acid and sodium hydroxide. In Italy a company called Sasil aims to recycle 3,500 tons of old solar panels a year, while Veolia in France intends to increase the capacity of its panel recycling to 4,000 tons a year. They’re working as well on reducing the carbon footprint on the backend of wind and solar projects - by recycling old photovoltaic panels and turbine blades. Instead of burning metallurgical coal to fire a traditional blast furnace to reduce iron ore into pig iron, they will use green hydrogen electrolyzed via renewable power.

(Photo by Geng Yuhe/VCG via Getty Images) VCG via Getty ImagesĪnd they could be trending lower, thanks to the advent of so-called green steel. Swedish companies Hybrit and H2 Green Steel are investing billions to make millions of tons a year of green steel. factory on Apin Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province of China. LIANYUNGANG, CHINA - APRIL 27: Employees work on the assembly line of wind turbine blades at a.