[schimmy_changa]

TL:DR:

Turbine blades have previously been challenging to recycle due to the chemical properties of epoxy resin, a resilient substance that was believed to be impossible to break down into re-usable components. This has led to many technology leaders attempting to replace or modify epoxy resin with alternatives that can be more easily treated. Vestas’ solution is enabled by a novel chemical process that can chemically break down epoxy resin into virgin-grade materials. The chemical process was developed in collaboration with Aarhus University, Danish Technological Institute, and Olin the partners of the CETEC project, a coalition of industry and academia established to investigate circular technology for turbine blades.

[bagels]

It turns cured epoxy in to... something. I wish they said what. There's still all the fibers to deal with as well, is that resuable too after the process?

[jaggederest]

"virgin materials", in this case, would mean epoxy monomers, which would be very interesting chemically - polyepoxide bonds are really strong, which is the source of their utility, so reversing that bond without pyrolizing or otherwise damaging the polyepoxide structure would be a very interesting feat of chemistry and chemical engineering.

I wonder if they're testing it on pure cured blocks of epoxy, or actual samples of turbine rotors - often these kinds of processes end up having a loss fraction in real world usage, which would be understandable. I'm just an armchair chemist, but I do see a lot of epoxy resin used all over the place, so breaking it down completely would be pretty extremely useful, and certainly make me a lot less reticent to use it.

[alfor]

Is there a good reason to not simply burn it all, filter the fumes, etc. At high temperature you end up with CO2, H20 and other bening products.

I don’t think the amount of waste is that important, relatively speaking. It’s probably far, far less than 1% of solid waste.

[glumreaper]

"Burn it all and filter" is basically pyrolysis - use high temperatures to break chemical bonds and turn complex substances into much simpler substances which can then be reused.

Problem is the energy input required for those high temperatures. It costs money to consume that energy, quite often more money than you make by reselling the simpler substances that come out the end of your pyrolysis process.

[wkat4242]

CO2 is not benign, it's the cause of one of the biggest problems we have these days.

[alfor]

Even if you still believe that (it’s clearly overblown) the CO2 from the blade of wind turbine is irrelevant in the scale of everything.

Transporting the blade to the facility, processing them, developing all the equipment will probably make more CO2 anyway.

Maybe it’s even possible to burn them directly in a coal plant and recover the energy. (they have very good filtration systems)

[pas]

can you please go into some details about the "clearly overblown" part? do you think that the IPCC models/predictions are too inaccurate, or you doubt that we are a turning point where we might be able to influence the outcome, compared to decades later when there will be entirely too much GHG in the atmosphere?

[alfor]

In a nutshell I think we are in an bubble of climate/CO2 focus.

We look at all the signs that go in that direction(climate apocalypse) and throw out all the ones that that point in the other side.

We are in a feedback loop where more awareness create more funding who find more "evidence" who create more funding.

On the other side, the scientists who express doubts are labeled "deniers" are cast out of their professions, get their funding cut out.

The government get an easy excuse for every problems: climate change ! the media get clicks and headlines, the research get funding, etc.

Going to solar electricity is a good thing, EV too, big fan and investor in all of those. But I think we should focus more on human flourishing and that at the speed of transformation we have (solar panels price) we will be fine with climate.

I like Tony Seba on Solar/Wind/Battery transition of energy and Bjorn Lomberg on the priorities for our world.

[ars]

The idea is burn it for energy, and avoid burning some other thing. The CO2 does not increase.