@deprecated_ii @GrungeQueef @Marshall1Banana @cowanon >they don't last that long, like 10-15 years
quick google search says 20, up to 25 maybe. Then they are mostly recycled (steel, copper, magnets, so on). about 95%
>the blades do end up in landfills, there's no good way to recycle composite materials like that
hm Orsted says they aren't doing that and I think the euros turn them into construction boards and stuff.
>the gigantic concrete bases the windmills stood on are left in the ground.
Concrete is mostly inert so that's nowhere close to what the article says about the blades flying off. Would probably be better to clean it up fully and apparently there's tech to do that with high pressure water jets now. We should force companies to clean their trash up in general. There's a lot of junk that's left standing or ends up in the ocean.
>sometimes, the entire wind farm is just abandoned and left standing
in North America? The absolute state of the law...

>there's the fact that they kill millions of birds a year
I think this is mostly factored in when they do environmental assessments. Weighed against no pollution etc. They did a test recently where they painted one blade black and it reduced collisions by 70%. It's not like the birds get sucked in or something, they just collide with the turbine because they can't see the blades well.
When millions of plants kept dying because coal fired plants spewed acidic clouds everywhere, the government forced them to install filters. We should do that here too. They make these lawnmower robots and some countries have laws now that they need to integrate hedgehog protections, because the little guys just curl up and the mower slices them :sadge:

>when a windmill gets out of control the blades tend to self-disassemble. all that requires is busted controls or a broken gearbox
Is this a common failure mode? They shut them down automatically in storm conditions last I've heard.

>you can't just leave the thing standing there to do whatever
I think it's already law that you can't just abandon your property and recklessly endanger the public or the environment but I'm not a lawyer