Wow! We're saved! The British have introduced recyclable wind turbine blades!!! I learned about it right here at DU.

Last edited Wed Aug 27, 2025, 04:59 PM - Edit history (1)

RWE's Sofia is the UK's first offshore wind farm to use recyclable rotor blades

The post includes a wonderful picture of the cranes and industrial facility for handling these "recyclable blades," an industrial facility that I'm sure is 100% powered by so called "renewable energy."

I have a few comments on this wunderbar - let's use the German word since Germany is a so called "renewable energy" heaven, despite it's carbon intensity which is usually several hundred grams CO₂/kWh than that of France - "first."

We hear about lots of "firsts" here at DU. "First hydrogen helicopter," "First hydrogen 30 MW turbine," "First hydrogen Walmart truck," "First hydrogen hybrid scooter," "first hydrogen BMW"...on and on.

One of the first things a high school science student should learn about, in my view - and anyone in a decent college or university taking a physical science course must learn - would be the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which has something to say about hydrogen if one is capable with even a shred of comprehension of said physical law, which apparently some posters here lack.

And now we have another "first," again, so wonderful that I have to link it again: the first recyclable wind turbine blade in the UK.

We're saved, right?

The wind industry has certainly been meeting its goals which has always been to prevent the nuclear industry from ever being able to do what it might have done to have prevented the collapse of the planetary atmosphere, a subject of some gloating by wind industry apologists.

One such antinuke graciously and happily informed me - a long time pronuclear activist - of as much:



That "if" statement won't happen of course; the so called "renewable energy" advocates have met their goal, which was to attack the only truly sustainable form of energy, nuclear energy. As the planet is already burning, it's too late. Should I congratulate the antinukes for their literally pyrrhic victory over nuclear energy?

Apparently, knowing almost nothing about thermal chemistry, the apologists for the wind industry are concerned that nuclear power can't provide energy to their fucking cars, which is unsurprising to me.

Depolymerization for recycling, for anyone who is familiar with the chemistry of polymers, generally requires heat, the thermal chemistry that apologists for the wind industry know nothing about, any more than they know anything about nuclear energy other than that they hate it.

I can only imagine poor people hired in some impoverished country - maybe this one, since we're well on our way to third world status in our worship of the orange pedophile - cutting huge wind turbine blades into pieces - polymer dust in their lungs be damned - to shove them into electric furnaces that will operate only when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining.

Most polymers - the overwhelming majority of them - are products of the petroleum industry, not that the wind industry has ever given a shit about the use of fossil fuels. They don't. Their goal is and always has been to attack nuclear energy.

There will be no discussion of whether "recyclable wind turbine blades" will contribute to the crisis of micro and nano plastics in the environment, but it is known that in the wind, wind turbine blades do shed their surface material although there won't be much discussion of it...

...because wind energy is "green," right?

I note that in recent decades, apologists for the wind industry have pretended to have a new goal, which has to do with claiming it has something to do with preventing the accumulation of dangerous fossil fuel waste in the planetary atmosphere. At this, the wind industry has been a miserable failure, not that it matters to wind industry apologists. Clearly it doesn't.

I track the accumulation of dangerous fossil fuel waste weekly and sometimes post the more remarkable features of this ongoing tragedy as it accelerates, typically during the annual spring peaks of concentrations, each year's greater than the previous year, generally well over 2.00 ppm:

New Weekly CO2 Concentration Record Set at the Mauna Loa Observatory, 430.86 ppm

This year's peak, recorded in the week beginning May 4, 2025 was 2.92 ppm higher than 2024's peak, 427.94 ppm, recorded in the week beginning April 21, 2024.

In those posts I generally include graphics which I'm happy to reproduce here.

This graphic reflects the lack of effect of the trillion dollar wind industry on the accumulation of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere:



Monthly Average Mauna Loa CO2

Some text from the post which I'm happy to reproduce:



I can now update those remarks to reflect the state of affairs for the 10 year to year comparators for weekly data recorded at the Mauna Loa CO₂ observatory as of the week beginning August 17, 2025. All but two of the top 50 highest comparators in week to week comparisons with that of ten years earlier have taken place either in 2024 or in 2025. The two that weren't in 2024 or 2025 were in 2021, a 26.53 ppm/10 year increase recorded in the week beginning April 25, 2021, the 29th highest of all such data points going back to the 1970's and 26.28 ppm/10 years, recorded in the week of April 4, 2021, the 43rd highest of all such data points going back to the 1970's.

That post also includes some information on the amount of money squandered on so called "renewable energy" and the grids to connect all that unreliable shit together in the vain hope that the lights don't go out, as they did recently in Spain and Portugal, the cause being apparently, a lack of "inertia" at thermal power plants that so called "renewable energy" is supposed to make obsolete, though it hasn't so made, isn't so making, and won't so make:



.

But again, the money has been squandered on so called "renewable energy" not to address the collapse of the planetary atmosphere, but rather to attack nuclear energy, it's only real success, if "success" can be defined as leaving the planet in flames.

Activist climate scientists have noted that even under relentless attack by so called "renewable energy" apologists, nuclear energy was able to prevent about a year's worth of fossil fuel waste being dumped into the planetary atmosphere.

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

Interestingly - or appallingly, depending on how you see it - antinukes show up here to pretend to give a rat's ass about the collapse of the planetary atmosphere and appeal to the authors of the paper just cited, Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen.

I can only shake my head at this disingenuous practice. Just as the orange pedophile "won," they "won." It is far too late for nuclear energy to save their fucking cars, far too late for nuclear energy to save the wilderness destroyed for industrialized so called "renewable energy" infrastructure, far too late for nuclear energy to slow the vast mining requirements for this shit that will all be rotting in less than 25 years, far too late for nuclear energy to save the planetary atmosphere.

Again, a literally pyrrhic victory for the antinukes - the planet is burning - but a "victory" all the same.

History will not forgive us, nor should it.

Have a nice "hump day."