Solution needed for turbine blades

While wind farms generate “greenhouse gas free” electricity, there is increasing concern over the rapidly growing number of worn out blades ending up in landfills.

Those blades, housed on giant towers reaching over 200-feet in the sky, are starting to reach the end of their useful life (15 to 20 years) and are being taken down, cut up and hauled to dumps in Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming.

Adding to the spent blade disposal problem is utilities are retrofitting existing wind farms with longer blades and more powerful generating units. For example, “PacifiCorp is embarking on a $200 million “rep...