Some day we’ll be recycling wind turbine blades into yummy gummy bears
Enlarge / Old wind turbine blades are usually sent to landfills, which rather undercuts the concept of sustainable energy production. (credit: Imagevixen/Getty Images)
Wind power is a rapidly growing industry, with a 53 percent increase in new installations in 2020 alone, according to the Global Wind Energy Council. The massive fiberglass blades can be as long as half of a football field and keep getting larger- the bigger the blade, the more electricity is produced. That poses a problem when the blades outlive the mechanical parts of the turbines. They're usually sent to landfills, which undercuts the whole concept of sustainable energy production.
Fortunately, John Dorgan, a chemical engineer at Michigan State University, has come up with a new polymer resin that can not only be recycled into a new generation of turbine blades but also materials for a wide range of commercial applications. These include the manufacture of car taillights, diapers, kitchen sinks-even edible gummy bears. He described his research at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Chicago this week.
Dorgan terms his approach "molecular flexibility," inspired in part by an article he once read by Isaac Asimov, describing a future where people would be able to resynthesize raw protons, neutrons, and electrons into anything they wanted. "It's almost like the replicator from Star Trek, where they can just sort of make atoms into anything that they want-ice cream floats, or new clothing, or what have you," said Dorgan during a press conference at the ACS meeting. "Of course, we're a long way from the replicator idea, but we did draw some inspiration from those sorts of things."