Driving sustainable change
Yesterday, GE Renewable Energy announced an agreement with Veolia to recycle our wind turbine blades from US-based wind farms. With this agreement, the first of its kind in the wind industry, we are taking another important step in our journey towards sustainability for our business and the world.
In our agreement with Veolia, a global leader in optimized resource management, blades removed from our US-based onshore turbines, during upgrades and repowering efforts over the next four years, will be shredded and then used to replace the use of coal, sand and clay at cement manufacturing facilities across the US.
This agreement highlights a previously unseen alignment, where sustainability improvements in the renewable energy industry can benefit other industries. On average, nearly 90% of the blade material, by weight, will be reused, more than 65% of the blade weight will replace raw materials that would otherwise be added to a cement kiln to create the end product, and about 28% of the blade weight will provide energy for the chemical reaction that takes place in the kiln. As a whole, this will enable a 27% net reduction in CO2 emissions from cement production.
Every step that is taken to decrease the use of raw materials, to create greener products – whether in our industry or in another – are ultimately making the world we live in a better place for future generations. Finding this sustainable option, where our turbine blades can be used in another industry as fuel as a repurposed engineered material, is an innovative feat that showcases the ingenuity for our businesses that are looking to make imperative change.
In 2020, we have been working hard to improve our energy efficiency, eliminate waste and to optimize logistics within our operations. As shown through this announcement, there are ways that we can positively impact other industries and I am excited we have found such a creative solution that is beneficial to our business, our customers, and the world.
In true GE fashion, we are paving the way with innovative, first of-its-kind improvements that will drive sustainability.
RINALDI4NEWYORK / Fndr. of the Kathy Rinaldi Group, Inc. We fight for the betterment of kids through curriculum, policy, and resources- ie. “The Book of Henry,” so that every child may live their best life. est.1997.
3 年I’ve been wanting to speak with you. First of all, we met you all back in 2013 when GE generously offered Sandy Hook a $25m gift to build a children’s center. We worked tirelessly, however the Sandy Hook CenTer was shelved for a Newtown Community Center/ Elderly center. No mention of either one of the 26children. We would like to discuss VAWT, and how it’s imperative we start collaborating to get these up, running, and working in our more populated areas. We’ve been discussing back and forth with The Dept. of Energy. high techers, NY hedge fund’ers, and now Joe Biden’s immediate cabinet. I called one of their mother’s “Gran.” We grew up with them. In peace, much wellness and safety your way in these most auspicious times. j.
"Retired" from Mosaic Associates Architects Construction Administration Rep.
3 年Thank you for finding a way save.
Quote: "More recently and until 2014, the company Zagons in Germany collected and grinded wind turbine blade material to be used in cement production. The procedure implemented by Zagons started by cutting the blades onsite to pieces of 10–12 m. At the factory place, these sections were further reduced to pieces of about 1 m in length. These smaller sections were then transformed to shredded composite material by a series of crushing and shredding steps. The resulting material had a size of 5 cm and was mixed with other wet waste materials. Finally, this mixture was sent to the cement production factory Holcim, which used it as a substitute for fuel, to reduce coal-ash, and as a raw material to replace virgin washed sand (Job 2013). Since 2012, using composite waste in the production of cement is considered as a viable recycling solution by the European Union (European Commission Directorate General Environment 2012; European Composites Industry Association 2013). Unfortunately, Zagons was the only industrial scale factory able to process end of life wind turbine blade for cement production worldwide." Read: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-39095-6_23
Good development