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Comment by jeffbee | Hacker News Reader

Bookmark it as a reply for the next time someone tries to claim that end-of-life wind turbine blades are a major waste problem in West Texas. Like these idiots https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/sweetwater-wind-t...

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This article seems perfectly valid? They aggregated all of the blades, and it’s ugly, and it Sweetwater never actually gets to processing (eg bankrupts), it’s effectively permanent.

Though I don’t see why sweetwater cant simply put up a fence and call it a day

There are fields of unneeded pipes in the area that are multiple times as large as this little lot full of fiberglass, and unlike the fiberglass the drilling pipes are contaminated with heavy metals from the "thread compound" which is 30% lead. Spending any time or attention to the supposed waste of wind energy in West Texas is completely ridiculous, and lending any credence to it as a valid issue is to be a pawn in the petrochemical propaganda game.

I opened the article, read '30 acres of wind turbine blades' and immediately closed it.

Come on, 30 acres in Texas? What a nothingburger compared to the footprints of other dirty industries.

Here's a 300-acre pipe yard. https://www.google.com/maps/@31.8107601,-102.3917116,2359m/d...

30 acres is probably, what, 2 H-E-B parking lots?

That whole stretch of Midland/Odessa on 20 is one of the most miserable landscapes I've ever driven through. The crushing heat, the off-gassing flame stacks across the horizon, the man camps, the junk and trash everywhere... all of it is grim.

Horrifying. That beautiful property at the corner of Industrial Drive and Robert E. Lee Street has been desecrated. Will Sweetwater ever recover?

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