shipped

Wind turbines have been getting bigger all the time. Larger turbines have real advantages. They can operate at lower speeds so they can be deployed in more places. They capture more wind, so they make more power. Large wind turbines can have blades more than 200 feet long and even larger ones are on the way. An offshore wind farm in China has turbines with 400-foot blades.

Giant wind turbines face a thorny problem: getting the blades to where they are to be installed. The enormous blades can’t be easily shipped across aging roads and bridges. Tunnels are too narrow, bridges are too low, and roads can be too tight to allow turns when transporting these massive turbine parts. Some developers have actually had to build special roads for wind projects.

For nearly a decade, a Boulder Colorado company called Radia has been working on what would be the world’s largest plane. The WindRunner aircraft would have a dozen times the cargo volume of a Boeing 747. The WindRunner will be 356 feet long and 79 feet tall. While its primary purpose would be transporting wind turbine blades, the plane could also be used to aid the military or businesses that are thinking really big. Product developers often don’t even try to invent really big things because there is no way to transport them. Radia expects the WindRunner to be rolled out before the end of the decade.

The wind industry is currently facing strong opposition from the Trump administration, but wind energy is not going away and bigger and better wind turbines will ultimately be built and will have to be transported.

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Building the World’s Biggest Plane to Help Catch the Wind

Photo, October 10, 2013, courtesy of Allan Der via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

In January 2018, China enacted its “National Sword” policy which banned the import of most plastics and other materials headed for that country’s recycling processors. Those processors had handled nearly half of the world’s recyclable waste for the past quarter century. China took this step because the deluge of soiled and contaminated materials was overwhelming its processing facilities and creating yet another environmental problem for the country, this time not even of its own making.

Prior to China’s ban, 95% of the plastics collected for recycling in the European Union and 70% in the U.S. were sold and shipped to Chinese processors. A combination of favorable rates for shipping in cargo vessels that carried Chinese goods abroad and low Chinese labor rates made it a very profitable enterprise.

Before China’s ban, only 9% of globally discarded plastics were being recycled and 12% were burned. The rest ended up in landfills or simply dumped into the environment. Over the coming decade, as many as 11 million tons of plastic will have to find a new place to be processed or otherwise disposed of. There is already evidence that plastic waste is accumulating in countries that are dependent on exporting. In many places, including a number of American cities, there are curtailed collections and new restrictions on what kinds of plastics are accepted.

Some experts are hopeful that China’s ban might actually have an upside if it leads to better solutions for managing the world’s waste. North America and Europe need to expand processing capabilities and manufacturers need to make their products more easily recyclable. Mostly, the Chinese ban should be a wake-up call to the world on the need to greatly reduce single-use plastics.

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Piling Up: How China’s Ban on Importing Waste Has Stalled Global Recycling

Photo, posted August 8, 2017, courtesy of Sino-German Urbanisation Partnership via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A giant plane for giant wind turbines

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China And Plastic Waste

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