Updating a wind farm near a small southern Minnesota community has meant the replacement of over a hundred immense fiberglass turbine blades. The no-longer functional blades remain on a rented lot in the village of Grand Meadow where they've been an eyesore and nuisance for four years, according to this story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
A convoluted story begins with Florida-based Next Era Energy, who did the blade replacements, then a Spanish company, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, who made a deal with River Cap Ventures to recycle the blades, which didn't work out. Wind farm owner and regional power supplier Xcel Energy says it can't do anything because it doesn't own the scrap blades. Estimates for their disposal amount to a half million dollars. Public regulators have been no help in the matter.
What this incident illustrates is that renewable energy projects are far more complicated than their advocates admit and more expensive as well.
Back in the 1940s, the Vermont Public Service Commission erected a wind turbine on Grandpa's Knob near Rutland. The first sleet storm caused it to fly to pieces and it wasn't replaced. Certainly in that era wind turbine design and the materials used to build them were in their infancy. Engineers now know much more about the necessary designs and the available materials are more suitable. More recently, a turbine at the St. Cloud, Minnesota VA campus failed in its purpose but hung around immobile for years before being demolished at considerable expense, a huge embarrassment for those in charge. Even if a wind farm is successful, however that might be measured, it must be maintained and repaired just as hydrocarbon-fueled generators must be. Turbines will go off-line and their production must then be replaced by other sources until they are put back into action.
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