{"id":117959,"date":"2025-08-29T08:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T08:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/117959\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T08:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T08:12:10","slug":"wind-turbines-are-tough-to-recycle-this-firm-wants-to-transform-them-into-micro-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/117959\/","title":{"rendered":"Wind turbines are tough to recycle. This firm wants to transform them into micro homes"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Sitting inside the minimalist-chic interior of Nestle, you\u2019d never guess it used to be a wind turbine.\n <\/p>\n

\n From the outside, though, the tiny home\u2019s former life is more apparent. Nestle has a caravan-like aesthetic: a cream-colored, elongated metal box topped with four solar panels and a single skylight. Inside, glass doors and windows at each end create a surprisingly light and airy space in the compact 35-square-meter<\/a> (376-square-foot) pod.\n <\/p>\n

\n Nestle \u2014 a loose homonym of \u201cnacelle,\u201d the part of a wind turbine containing its engine \u2014 is made from a decommissioned, 20-year-old V80 2MW turbine<\/a> donated by Business of Wind, a Dutch company that purchases used turbines for reuse.\n <\/p>\n

\n Marking the first time a nacelle has ever been used for housing, the Dutch building code-compliant home is an ambitious demonstration of the possibilities of upcycling, says Jos de Krieger, co-founder of Blade-Made<\/a>, the company behind the project.\n <\/p>\n

\"Nestle's<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis is basically the most complex thing that you can do with it,\u201d said Krieger on a video call, who is also a partner at Dutch architecture firm Superuse Studios, one of the home\u2019s designers. \u201cSo, all the other less complex things are now easier to imagine and to realize, because this has already been done.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Amid a global boom in onshore and offshore wind farming, turbine waste is expected to accelerate in the coming decades. Krieger hopes that projects like Nestle can provide an end-of-life alternative for decommissioned blades and nacelles.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cEverything in the built environment \u2014 everything that you see around you \u2014 has an end of life,\u201d said Krieger. \u201cAnd we need solutions besides waste or landfill, incineration or something without value.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cChanging that perception is really something that has to happen in the eyes of everyone,\u201d he said, calling for \u201cprocesses that create stories, instead of waste.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n While Nestle is Krieger\u2019s most ambitious upcycling project to date, it\u2019s not his first time working with turbine waste.\n <\/p>\n

\n In 2008, one of his first projects as a then-intern at Superuse, involved transforming five decommissioned turbine blades into a children\u2019s playground<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\"Superuse's<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe main challenge, in most cases, is that it has never been done before,\u201d he explained. \u201cSo it\u2019s innovation at its core, where you try to do something that nobody knows if it\u2019s possible and what it takes to make it possible.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Superuse, which dedicates its practice to sustainable and circular design, went on to pioneer more turbine-upcycling projects over the next 15 years. The firm launched Blade-Made in 2021 as an initiative to take its design concepts to market. Two years later, Krieger turned it into a separate company with Rotterdam-based design firm New Citizen Design<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n Krieger describes Blade-Made as a \u201cmediator\u201d between the wind industry and the field of design. And Nestle, which debuted at the 2024 edition of Dutch Design Week<\/a>, epitomizes this collaborative cross-sector approach. Commissioned by Swedish power company Vattenfall, the project involved the work of several companies<\/a>, including structural support by IMd Consulting Engineers, interior design by Woodwave and Reliving, technical installations by Feenstra and design by Superuse.\n <\/p>\n

\n Blade-Made has also transformed decommissioned turbine blades into a range of other structures, from benches to bus stops to street sculptures.\n <\/p>\n

\n The size and weight of blades and nacelles make them difficult to transport and work with, \u201cso we need simple ways to adapt and change it into something usable,\u201d said Krieger.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n Wind turbines are increasingly vital to renewable energy infrastructure, with global wind power operating capacity reaching around 1,000 gigawatts<\/a> in 2025 (for context, 1 gigawatt is enough to power 100 million LED lightbulbs<\/a>). Last year, they accounted for 8% of global electricity<\/a> production, a share that\u2019s expected to grow to 14% by 2030<\/a>, according to the International Energy Agency.\n <\/p>\n

\n But as more wind power is installed, a new challenge is emerging: What to do with turbines after their 20- or 25-year operational lifespan? While around 90%<\/a> of each turbine\u2019s mass, excluding its foundations, can be recycled, blades and nacelles typically cannot, due to their complex structures and high fiberglass content<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cUnfortunately, blade recycling is technically challenging,\u201d said Justine Beauson<\/a>, a development engineer at the\u202fTechnical University of Denmark\u2019s (DTU) Department of Wind and Energy Systems, in a video interview. \u201cThe nature of the material is difficult to process, and the component is actually just one piece. It\u2019s not something that you can re-manufacture, like you would do with a washing machine, where you can take things apart.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n A lack of open-source data on blade composition further complicates recycling and upcycling efforts, she added.\n <\/p>\n

\"Power<\/p>\n

\n The scale of the problem is growing. In the US alone, wind blade waste could reach over 2.2 million tons by 2050<\/a>, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and another study estimates<\/a> that by 2033, around 200,000 tons of wind turbine blade waste will need to be disposed of globally each year. But DTU\u2019s Beauson notes that projections on waste volumes are often speculative, as there\u2019s limited data on whether decommissioned turbines are disposed of, recycled or put back into service in other countries.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe forecast of waste is almost impossible to make,\u201d she added.\n <\/p>\n

\n Many countries in Europe have now banned turbine parts from landfills, adding urgency to the search for waste solutions.\n <\/p>\n

\"Discarded<\/p>\n

\n Last year, the US Department of Energy invested $5.1 million in prizes<\/a> for researchers developing cost-effective recycling technologies for wind energy systems. And in 2021, renewable energy giant Siemens Gamesa developed the \u201cworld\u2019s first<\/a>\u201d recyclable wind turbine blades, made with a resin<\/a> that allows the materials to be separated at the end of their life, which were recently fitted across half of the turbines<\/a> at one of the UK\u2019s largest offshore windfarms.\n <\/p>\n

\n Currently, Beauson doesn\u2019t believe there is enough blade waste to sustain large-scale recycling operations. But this could be where repurposing solutions, like Blade-Made, prove valuable, as they require less specialized equipment than mechanical or thermal recycling, making them more accessible. \u201cYou don\u2019t need rocket science technology; you need to understand the material, you need knowledge about the structure of the blade, and you need to understand what you can and cannot do,\u201d Beauson said.\n <\/p>\n

\n The wind power industry is also beginning to explore \u201cmaterial passports,\u201d which track all the materials used in a product through its lifecycle, to improve transparency and aid recyclers, said Beauson. But while this could bolster upcycling, turbine manufacturers can be surprisingly reluctant to share detailed blade designs, even for outdated models, she added.\n <\/p>\n

\n Krieger said that insufficient transparency is one of the biggest challenges his team faces. He likens the upcycling process to remodeling an old house: \u201cYou break open a wall and you find something that you did not expect.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n He called on manufacturers to publish more information on material composition, design sketches and strength testing records, particularly for models that are no longer made: \u201cIf that becomes more open source\u2026that would help with repurposing solutions.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Blade-Made<\/p>\n

\n Blade-Made\u2019s latest project converts turbine blades into sound barriers used at the sides of highways. The 37-meter-long (121 feet), 5,600-kilogram (6.1 ton) blades can be used in their entirety, without needing to be cut into pieces, a process that requires a lot of energy.\n <\/p>\n

\n According to Krieger, standard concrete sound barriers need steel or concrete foundations every 6 to 10 meters (19.7 to 32.8 feet), whereas the Blade Barrier uses a support structure every 25 meters (82 feet), which reduces carbon emissions and material use. A prototype is currently being tested on a roadside in North-Brabant in the Netherlands.\n <\/p>\n

\n Blade-Made\u2019s projects have predominantly been completed in the Netherlands, but Krieger is eager to collaborate with clients and designers in other countries. He hopes to adapt his concepts to different geographies and regulatory requirements.\n <\/p>\n

\n So far, the response to Nestle has been \u201coverwhelming,\u201d said Krieger, and the company is now in \u201cearly-stage preparations\u201d to create its first run of around 10 micro homes, which will help \u201coptimize production and make it fit-to-market.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n As more potential uses for the wind turbine parts are showcased, \u201cthe easier it will be to convince people, clients and wind farm owners that it is also an option for them,\u201d he added.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facebook Tweet Email Link Sitting inside the minimalist-chic interior of Nestle, you\u2019d never guess it used to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-117959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}