Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Finding a Second Life for Retired Wind Turbines

It looks like we got us a meme. Following up on "A Second Wind for Aging Wind Turbines" is another story about value-added in the wind biz. From Renewable Energy World:

If recycling is green, and wind turbines provide green energy, then how green would it be to recycle the wind turbines themselves? That's the plan for Aeronautica Windpower, a Massachusetts-based company that is hoping to refurbish and find new homes for hundreds of wind turbines that are being retired from the large wind farms of California.
The company is betting that a large variety of new locations can be found for these 50-500 kilowatt recycled, green-power generators across the rest of the country as they get replaced with larger machines.

According to the company's industry research, over 10,000 machines that were installed during the mid ‘80s and ‘90s may soon be replaced by larger, more modern turbines. That's a lot of generation capacity that would otherwise be scrapped....MORE

Thanks to Maril Hazlett for pointing this out. Kansas is the land of opportunity for wind right now and her position as Director of Research for the Climate and Energy Project gives her an excuse for hanging out at the intersection of policy and commerce that I think she'd do anyway, as an avocation (don't tell her employers she'd do it for free). Here's the CEP blog.