Wednesday's Energy Absurdity: About that Giant Wind BladeGraveyard in Sweetwater...

David Blackmon May 8

READ IN APP

Upgrade to paid

Many readers here will remember the stories that broke lastSeptember about the enormous wind blade graveyard occupying acres of land onthe periphery of Sweetwater, Texas. Russell Gold wrote an excellent expose’ in Texas Monthly about the junkyard, one of many that have popped up across West Texas and the Texas Panhandle in recent years as the wind developers avoid investing any real money in properly disposing of their massive amount of waste.

Share

The story was picked up by other outlets across the country.Robert Bryce travelled to Sweetwater and recorded some social media videosfeaturing the junkyard. Gold himself quoted the head of the Global FiberglassSolutions, which has the contract from the wind developer to collect and“recycle” the blades, as promising, “If you come back nine months from now, youwill not see the material.”

So, Gold waited nine months, and recently travelled back toSweetwater to view what he had been promised would be an empty wind bladegraveyard.

Guess what? The graveyard isn’t empty, not at all. All the sameblades that were in place there nine months ago remain, with still more piledatop them. In his follow-up story at Texas Monthly, Gold reports no activity taking place at the junkyard, which has all the appearances of having been abandoned.

Indeed, Gold writes in the excerpt below that GFS may well beout of money now, having apparently squandered the $16.9 million in funds paidto it by developer General Electric:

GFS may be out of the funds it would need to begin grinding upthe blades. Last September, General Electric filed a lawsuit claiming it hadpaid GFS $16.9 million to recycle about five thousand blades, which the companyinstead stockpiled in Sweetwater and Iowa. GFS took the money and the bladesand then “all but shut down,” according to the complaint. GFS has asked for anextension because it can’t hire a lawyer. “GFS has not been able to raisesufficient funds to convince counsel that they will get paid for their work,”company cofounder Ron Albrecht said in a court filing in January. GeneralElectric expects to file for a default judgment later in May.

…

There can’t be any new products fashioned from the material inSweetwater until someone takes ownership of the problem that GFS has apparentlyabandoned. The State of Texas could take charge, but its wheels of justice areturning much more slowly than Iowa’s. In late 2022, the Texas Commission onEnvironmental Quality fined GFS $10,255 and gave it a year to obtain a permitto store industrial solid waste. That year lapsed in November, and the companynever finished paying the fine.

[End]

There’s a lot more to this story, and I highly recommend youreading it in full.

The bottom line here, of course, is this: These big industrialwind developments are a menace, and Texas has not bothered to implement stronglaws and regulations needed to mandate the proper retirement and disposal ofthe massive amount of industrial junk they create.

Is this growing problem a product of irresponsible, griftingdevelopers? Of course, it is. But it is also a problem of irresponsiblepolicymakers who are happy to take money from wind developers to fund theircampaigns and look the other way as they fail, session after session, to enactproper laws and regulations to force the cleaning up of these scars on thelandscape.

Until the Texas government forces the issue, Mr. Gold will beable to keep writing follow-ups to this story. That’s reality.