{"id":336123,"date":"2024-07-11T08:37:26","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T06:37:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=336123"},"modified":"2024-07-11T08:37:29","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T06:37:29","slug":"fibreglass-from-shredded-wind-turbine-blades-renders-farming-land-useless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=336123","title":{"rendered":"Fibreglass From Shredded Wind Turbine Blades Renders Farming Land\u00a0Useless"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From STOP THESE THINGS<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Farmers foolish enough to enter contracts with wind power outfits soon live to regret it. Having their land permanently contaminated by shredded fibreglass when turbines explode into balls of flame and\/or their blades merely disintegrate (known in the trade as \u201ccomponent liberation\u201d) is just one of a list of disasters waiting to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first blush, being paid an annual license fee of $10-25,000 per turbine, per year sounds lucrative enough. However, put that against the $600,000 plus cost of demolishing and removing a single turbine, and the deal soon loses its gloss. Indeed, the ultimate multi-million-dollar cost of removing dozens of turbines from a farming property, makes the piddling revenue stream look like chump change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With plenty of evidence to show that these things have an economic lifespan of around 15 years<\/a> \u2013 not the wildly ambitious 25 years touted by the wind industry \u2013 farmers considering signing up to 25-year landholder agreements<\/a> have good reason to think hard before they sign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a sorry (but perfectly avoidable) tale from Iowa, regret comes in the form of the inability to use their land for farming at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The saga started with one self-immolating unit that spread its shredded fibreglass blades far and wide, followed by another that torched itself a year later and did much the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wind power outfit concerned resorted to the usual suite of lies and hollow promises. Leaving the farmers concerned with scorched piles of junk and without land to farm, or fodder for their livestock \u2013 as well as rendering them liable to compensate their neighbours for the loss of their fibreglass contaminated land, as well. Welcome to your wind powered future!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iowa farmer regrets signing wind turbine lease after both turbines on her land burned to the ground<\/strong>
Bucoa
Mike the Writer
1 June 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple of hours before the final BOS vote on the WECS on Wednesday, May 29, we received an email from a concerned lady in Iowa who has \u2013 well, had \u2013 two wind turbines on their farm and asked us to share their story. One turbine is still there, but it\u2019s a non-functional burned out husk as of May 13. The other one also burned a year ago. Her name and exact location are being withheld because more than a year later, they are still trying to resolve their problems with the wind energy company that put the turbines there.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The second wind wind turbine burning<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

On March 25, 2023 the first of their turbines was struck by lightning and burned. The second turbine burned on May 13, of this year. The wind energy company told her that one got hit by lightning too. But there was actually no lightning in the area at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she asked about lightning and fire suppression systems? They told her that it\u2019s cheaper to clean them up after they burn than it is to maintain the lightning protection and fire suppression systems. You\u2019ll see why later in this article when you discover what they actually did to \u201cclean\u201d up the mess they left behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company has removed the first turbine but has not cleaned up any of the debris. It is now completely worked into the ground. Because it was windy and the wind changed direction the next day, the second turbine spread debris over at least 300 acres, which included 3 neighboring farms. They now have a cornfield that is growing fast and full of wind turbine fiberglass. They bale corn stalks to feed their cows. She didn\u2019t know what they would have done if this had happened in October as they would not have been able to feed those cows. As it is, they can\u2019t graze them on land that is heavily contaminated with fiberglass.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Part of the their field that burned after one of the wind turbine fires<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Their volunteer fire department could do nothing to put out the fire on the turbines. Rural fire departments never can because of the difficulty of trying to fight a fire that is a combined material fire, chemical fire, and possibly electrical fire that is burning hundreds of feet in the air. In addition, the fire department is not allowed to even go within the fall radius of the turbine for safety reasons. So all they can do is let the ground burn for a distance on all sides of the turbine out to the height of the tower (300 feet on all sides in this case) and hope they can stop it from going farther once it has burned beyond the fall radius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They can construct firebreaks, but good luck building them fast enough for an area that large, especially if it is windy. The amount of manpower required would be enormous. In fact one firefighter told her they would probably have had to \u201ccall in the cavalry.\u201d If the fire had happened in the Fall, it could have spread too fast, or jumped the breaks, and destroyed thousands of acres of crops due to the amount of dry fuel available (dried corn stalks).<\/p>\n\n\n

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One of the destroyed wind turbines<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

After the first fire, the wind company contracted with a clean-up crew to clean up the damage. It was three people with three shop vacs to clean up the \u201cheavily contaminated\u201d areas over an area of around 20 acres for three days. Yes, you read that right. Three people, three shop vacs, three days, to clean up around 20 acres of land. They have no intention of cleaning any of the land that is less heavily contaminated and plan to just leave the debris in the fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No cleanup plan has been made yet for the second turbine, and they are not allowed to talk to the cleanup company anymore. Is it any wonder it is cheaper to \u201cclean them up\u201d after they burn than it is to maintain fire suppression and lightning protection systems so they don\u2019t burn in the first place? She and her family are now picking up the debris by themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An instant shower is necessary to rid their bodies of the fiberglass they have handled and dug out of the dirt. Some studies have suggested that small fiberglass particles can lodge deep in the lungs and cause health problems years or even decades later. A gigantic crane has been sitting on their property for a year but has done nothing. Their soil is compacted and their drainage tiles are ruined. The erosion from the fields where cover crops could not be planted because it would hide the fiberglass is terrible. And the rain is washing the contamination into other fields.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A large ball of fiberglass found in their field after one of the turbines burned<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Smaller fiberglass strands in the field. Seems the wind company has no intention of even looking for, much less trying to clean up the thousands, if not tens of thousands of strands like this that contaminate the field now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

She also said the turbines have had one problem after another. Even the technicians complained about having to continually work on them. One of the biggest problems was the constant leaking of oil into the fields. Oil, as you probably know, is insoluble in water, so rain will not the dilute the oil. It will just keep getting pushed farther and farther into the ground until it eventually ends up in the aquifer, where it will contaminate rural wells with industrial machine oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a side note, I used to work on the ground crew at a regional airport. One of my duties was refueling large passenger aircraft up to, and including Boeing 737s and Air Force C-130 transports. If we spilled more than a few gallons of jet fuel (which is similar to kerosene and basically a type of fuel oil), we had to call in a hazmat cleanup team immediately. But it seems wind turbine companies are subject to no such regulations if one of their turbines suffers a catastrophic failure and spills dozens of gallons of industrial machine oil into the soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lady who contacted us was so frustrated that she called the farmer in New York who had the same problem to see if there was any solution (you can read that article here Updated: This article was corrected on 6-3-2024. The original article stated that the cleanup contract was 3 people with 3 shop vacs who had 3 days to clean 300 acres. The actual contract is for them to clean heavily contaminated areas of less than 20 acres. As of now, there are no plans at all to clean anything other than the heavily contaminated areas within a distance of approximately 20 acres around the turbine.<\/a>
Bucoa<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Farmers foolish enough to enter contracts with wind power outfits soon live to regret it. Having their land permanently contaminated by shredded fibreglass when turbines explode into balls of flame and\/or their blades merely disintegrate (known in the trade as \u201ccomponent liberation\u201d) is just one of a list of disasters waiting to happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":336141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691829639,691825414,691829640,691829641],"class_list":{"0":"post-336123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-iowa-farmer","9":"tag-wind-turbine-blade","10":"tag-wind-turbine-burning","11":"tag-wind-turbine-fiberglass","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/0636281232925835548-WindPower1.webp?fit=1200%2C678&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1prl","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":263329,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=263329","url_meta":{"origin":336123,"position":0},"title":"Holiday 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Across the USA, wind power outfits are being repeatedly busted for dumping their blades and simply cutting and running.","rel":"","context":"In \"Blade Runners\"","block_context":{"text":"Blade Runners","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=blade-runners"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-427.png?fit=1200%2C899&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-427.png?fit=1200%2C899&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-427.png?fit=1200%2C899&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-427.png?fit=1200%2C899&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-427.png?fit=1200%2C899&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":215812,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=215812","url_meta":{"origin":336123,"position":4},"title":"Spontaneous Combustion: Wind Turbine Fires Way More Common Than Industry Claims","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"27\/08\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cWe were very surprised to see it. I was just really fearful it was going to drop and because of what\u2019s next to it, possible explosions.\u201d","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Turbine-Fire-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Turbine-Fire-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Turbine-Fire-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Turbine-Fire-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/0Turbine-Fire-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":215397,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=215397","url_meta":{"origin":336123,"position":5},"title":"Michigan State: Recycle Wind Turbine Blades as Gummy Bears","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"25\/08\/2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Still, I guess the recycled wind turbine gummy bears will add welcome variety to our future diet of edible insects and green party politicians.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-1049.png?fit=750%2C410&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-1049.png?fit=750%2C410&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-1049.png?fit=750%2C410&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/image-1049.png?fit=750%2C410&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=336123"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":336142,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336123\/revisions\/336142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/336141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=336123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=336123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=336123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}