Kayla Timmo reports for the Casper Star Tribune
Eight hundred seventy-four wind turbine blades have been entombed in Casper Wyoming’s regional landfill. The blades once powered Wyoming’s burgeoning fleet of wind turbines but have succumbed to a utility company’s effort to upgrade several wind farms across the state.
Eight hundred seventy-four wind turbine blades have been entombed in the city of Casper’s regional landfill.
As utility companies look to replace aging wind turbines, the machines’ blades are being buried in stacks at a handful of landfills around the country, including in the Casper Regional Landfill.
Rapid technological advancements in renewable energy have led many utilities to ramp up wind energy installation to supply ratepayers with cheap electricity. Yet the growing number of wind farms sprouting up across Wyoming’s blustery plains have caused many lawmakers and residents loyal to the state’s robust fossil fuel industry to bristle.
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When Casper’s landfill began accepting the blades, criticism of the wind industry here ballooned. The blades have swept Casper into a national discussion around renewable energy, waste and environmental responsibility.
Each turbine blade is 120 feet long and cut into 40-foot pieces before being buried. Compare that to a typical single-story house, which stands between 12 and 14 feet tall. The thinner two pieces are stored inside the wider third to minimize needed space, but each turbine blade and the motor housing unit still take up about 30 cubic yards combined. The landfill has accepted 289 motor housing units.
The sheer size of the equipment and the potential environmental ramifications of disposing something that can’t decompose have raised concerns among wind energy critics.
But Casper Solid Waste Manager Cynthia Langston hopes to dispel some of those concerns. Despite the size of the blades, Langston said the landfill has plenty of space for them. She said the landfill won’t need to open another cell, or separate space, for the blades until 2034, at the current rate.
“I wish people were so interested in all the garbage,” she said, not just the wind turbines.
Looking ahead: 2020 could be a big year for wind in Wyoming
Accepting the blades at Casper Regional Solid Waste Facility also provides an economic benefit for the city, Langston noted. The deal has already earned Casper nearly $450,000, and when more come this spring, the total earnings for the city could reach $600,000.
Turbine blades are not the only form of “special waste” the city takes in for revenue. The city estimates it gains roughly $800,000 annually from accepting special waste from various entities, including the oil and gas industry.
Waste from oil and gas operations puts more pressure on the landfill than anything, she said, with tires and dewatering liners among the bigger drivers of waste encountered by Langston’s team at the landfill.
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