By Ian Plimer. First published at The Spectator Australia: https://spectator.com.au/2022/10/australian-notes-322/
The blades from environmentally friendly subsidised bird- and bat-chomping inefficient wind turbines have a short life and cannot be recycled. They weigh 10-20 tonnes, are 40-60 metres long, need to be replaced every 15 years or less and are composed of plastic, fibreglass, balsa wood and resins. Balsa wood is produced by chopping down Brazilian rainforests, in an environmentally friendly way of course. Fibreglass is impregnated with epoxy resins to increase blade strength and are made from petroleum. Previously blades were disposed of in Third World countries for a pittance until these countries ungraciously decided not to be the dumping ground for First World toxic rubbish. The wind industry was miffed and took to dumping used blades illegally until communities objected.
Bisphenol A is a highly toxic synthetic organic compound used in the epoxy resins of turbine blades. Epoxy resins contain 30-40 per cent bisphenol A and turbine blades are the largest global consumer of epoxy resins. The annual global production of bisphenol A is about 2 billion kilograms and is increasing because the spearing of the environment with wind turbines is today’s fad.
Bisphenol A is an endocrine disrupter that has been linked to about 80 diseases including cancers and reproductive disorders. It is lethal for young children. In 2012, the World Health Organisation warned about the potentially carcinogenic properties of endocrine disrupters and concluded that they pose a global threat to public health. The European Food Safety Authority has massively reduced by 1,000 times the dietary intake of bisphenol A to one hundred millionth of a gram per kilogram of body weight per day. All this is public record information which the wind industry must know.
The leading edges of turbine blades shed fine dust and blade edges only have a 5-year guarantee. Each blade sheds a minimum of 0.2 to 2.5 grams of bisphenol A in dust per year. This dust is spread wide and far by wind. If one gram of bisphenol A gets into dam waters, 10 million litres of water are rendered unusable. Over the life of a turbine, this equates to pollution of half a trillion litres of water per turbine. This is real pollution, not the alleged pollution of carbon dioxide, the gas of life. This dust from eroding blades has covered large areas of our planet and bisphenol A is leaching into soils and waterways. This is a toxic time-bomb.
The effects of offshore wind turbines are unknown except that the blades are larger and the blades have a shorter life because the erosion of blades is more rapid in the more extreme conditions. Winds and currents disperse the bisphenol A dust and bisphenol A is acutely toxic for marine life with younger organisms affected far more than the older members of their species. If you want to shuffle off before your time, eat fish caught from near an offshore wind turbine.
Quality assurance, quality control and a technical due diligence obviously did not take place when governments rushed to replace tried and proven reliable cheap coal-fired electricity with ideological weather-dependent wind and solar. Renewables despoil the landscape, sterilise food-producing land, kill wildlife and spread toxins wide and far. This is not environmentalism.
The carbon dioxide emissions released in the manufacture and construction of a wind turbine industrial complex are far greater than the carbon dioxide emissions saved. The energy used to manufacture, construct and maintain wind turbines is far greater than will ever be produced in their working life. The large-scale slaughter of birds and bats, the sterilisation of some 25 hectares of land for each turbine and the criss-crossing of land with construction and service tracks and wires is apparently in the name of the environment. The more renewable energy that enters the grid, the higher the domestic electricity costs and the more infrastructure needs to be built.
Sweetheart deals between governments and renewable energy companies have allowed the wind industry to get away with murder because of the perverse haste of governments to appear to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The wind industry is a closed shop. No data is available on hazards, accidents, fires, safety, health and human suffering as required by other industries. There is no requirement to rehabilitate the site at the end of operations to its original state, including the removal of bisphenol A. Millions of used blades are now destined for landfill. No worries. Out of sight, out of mind. They are cut up, dumped and buried. The cut surface of the blade allows leaching and soils and waterways are contaminated by bisphenol A. At present there are 6,000 blades for dumping in Australia and the number is increasing as Australia surges towards being the mythical renewable energy global superpower.
Wind turbines are meant to help us approach the magical target of ‘net zero’. This stepwise approach is one dead eagle, poisoned cancerous child and sterilised hectare at a time. Who were the politicians and green bureaucrats that allowed such broad-scale pollution when the toxicity of major components of turbine blades was well documented? Who were the bureaucrats and politicians who allowed monstrous eyesores to be speared over the countryside that kill birds and bats? Whatever happened to the environmentalist’s precautionary principle? We’ve been conned and we’ll pay for it many times over.
Stanford U did a deep dive into the making of solar panels more than a decade ago. The deep dive report was deep sixed…
It concluded the same thing: The energy used to manufacture and construct solar panels is far greater than will ever be produced in their working life. And then there is the finite material for the batteries that make the solar panels useful….their shelf life and use life are are limited and their cost requires subsidies.
I don’t remember if any of the material for the panels was toxic and able to mix with the air.
Thank you for the article. I’m going to post a link on Truth Social.