A wind turbine blade disposal bill that would have created landfill deposits in some unlikely places isn’t likely to move forward, thanks in part to the Biden administration’s last-minute approval of a novel, Wyoming-led idea to use the blades in coal mine reclamation.
The House Minerals, Business Committee & Economic Development Committee voted unanimously Wednesday to table the bill after hearing from several agencies that the federal government’s unexpected approval of Wyoming’s coal mine disposal idea, in the waning days of Biden’s term, has solved the problem in the Cowboy State.
Wyoming Energy Authority Director of Fossil Fuel Development Kyle Wendtland and Department of Environmental Quality Director Todd Parfitt both told lawmakers that putting the turbine blades in coal mines makes more sense to them than creating many windblade landfills across the state.
“Wyoming’s mines are large,” Wendtland told the committee. “They have large pit capacity and an ability to take that kind of volume.”
Allowing coal mines to take the blades as fill material will also help the coal industry by creating a revenue stream at the final pit, Wendtland added.
“You don’t have a revenue stream when you’re not mining coal anymore and you’re closing that pit,” he said. “So that helps with the reclamation, and it also creates potential jobs, or retention of jobs, because you’re creating a way to dispose or repurpose those blades as back fill in those final pit voids.”
Wyoming would also get a 25% cut from whatever revenue is generated by the coal mines.
What About Recycling
One other benefit of landfilling the blades in coal mines is centralizing them.
That will make it easier to set up future recycling programs, Wendtland suggested, because the blades would all be in one place, or a couple of places, that already have good transportation logistics.
“So, you may bring in a potential future industry to the state, as far as being able to recycle those blades,” he said. “And you’d have the facilities to do that. There’s been a lot of discussion about repurposing coal facilities to other entities. This would align with that.”
Presently, recyclers are able to handle about 3,000 blades annually, according to U.S. Department of Energy figures. But the nation’s wind blades are being retired at much greater rates than that, and are projected to grow to up to 20,000 blades annually by 2040.
Wind blade recycling has struggled in part because the blades are difficult to break down. They were made to be extremely durable, given the fact they would be pummeled by wind and potentially struck by birds for decades at a time.
That’s also made their disposal problematic. Unless they are crushed, they take up a large amount of space, but crushing or shredding is just as difficult as breaking them down for recycling. That’s led to a buildup of more than 79,000 wind blades nationwide.
Wyoming’s unique approach would allow coal mines to accept wind blades for disposal from anywhere in the nation, helping to consolidate the blades in fewer locations and making the logistics for future recycling operations easier.
Have A Plan
Rep. J.R. Riggins, R-Casper, said one of the main thoughts behind his bill was to ensure that there was a clear and cogent plan for disposal of the blades at the time a wind farm is proposed.
He added that he wasn’t “married” to on-site disposal for every new wind farm, even if that may not have been entirely clear from his bill.
“You have to think about 20 years down the road, 25 years down the road, 10 years down the road,” he said. “And I don’t think that was quite spelled out in here, but I do want to make it clear that you can have other arrangements off the side and put that in the exceptions.”
Several other groups testified against the bill, including Jim Magagna, Wyoming Stock Growers Association executive vice president.
“A wind project may be on some federal land, some state trust land and private land all at once,” he said. “It’s unclear whether the blades that come off of each of those segments have to be buried on those segments or all in one place.”
What Magagna fears would be likely to happen, were the federal government to say it wouldn’t allow blade disposal on federal land, is that the landowner, who might have just 5% of the land involved, ends up forced to accept all of the blades from the entire project at the end of the wind farm’s lifespan.
“I think we would concur with those who say the availability today of the coal mines resolves this problem,” he said. “And this legislation may not be needed.
“But I appreciate it being brought forward by Rep. Riggins and, if it is needed, I think it needs a significant amount of work before it’s ready for this committee to move it forward.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
