Turbine and Solar Dilapidations

Its now becoming clear that as thousands of wind turbines reach 'end of life', they are not economically viable.

Decommissioning costs end up incredibly expensive - 160,000€ - 305,000€ per wind turbine - (Blackout News De) which is why their broken metal limbs and blades are lying around rusting. What company will want to pay out such sums?! We've seen images in USA and Europe of piles of turbine blades laying waste, even going to landfill.

There is still no 'industrial solution', no process for recycling rotor blades made of GRP and CFRP.  German data on replaced rotor blades is not available.  Wind turbine scrap, held in temporary storage, will become a bigger problem in future decades.  Between 326,000 and 430,000 tons of waste from glass fibre reinforced plastics (GRP) from rotor blades will be generated by 2040. PLUS 835,000 tons of steel and 5.5 million tons of concrete.

American President Trump has highlighted this issue over the years and even recently.

Now Australia has a problem: asbestos has been found in the brake pads of the lifts. (Did we even know there were lifts inside the column?).  Made in china by 3S Industry. This will be a temporary loss as they will all have to be replaced, but still financial damage to the wind turbine industry.

At Australia's $4 billion Golden Plains wind farm, testing on turbines has come back positive. Units are now quarantined and the manufacturer is launching global checks across its supply chain. This follows the asbestos found at a number of Chinese turbine manufacturers.

This has been refuted as not so serious. I would think that ANY asbestos found will make the manufacturers liable if they knew about the harmful effects.  Chinese manufacturing may not have legal rulings on some materials, as we do in Europe.  If not the manufacturers, then the importers, who should have seen detailed specifications for turbines prior to purchase, asbestos being illegal in Australia since 2003.  More slack governance.

While politicians in Berlin raise their moral index finger and preach austerity and sacrifice to the population, the toxic waste of their “sustainable” energy transition is being illegally dumped on Czech soil. Non-recyclable rotor blades from German wind turbines – weighing tons, highly toxic to the environment and groundwater – are secretly disposed of instead of being properly recycled. Packaged as progress, delivered as hazardous waste!     Meme From X

Looking at SOLAR

Spain is one of the sunniest places in Europe, so we'd expect it to be a centre of solar power.

Elon Musk suggested at DAVOS 2026 that 'empty Spain' areas could power Europe with solar energy.

This was indeed envisioned from the start, but solar hasn't always been the boon expected though, and €billions of legal claims are in the mix.  It started off badly, when after 2007, companies went bankrupt as a result of Spanish subsidy cuts.

'Spain once had the fastest growing solar sector in Europe. A 2007 subsidy law guaranteed huge fixed payments for solar electricity, and investors poured in. Then the economics collapsed, and the government couldn't afford the scheme. Between 2010 and 2012, Spain retroactively cut the subsidies it had already promised. Thousands of solar operators went bankrupt, with more than 62,000 investors hit. Banks wrote off $30 billion. And international investors sued Spain in more than 40 arbitration cases. Across the country, half-built and abandoned solar farms sit idle. Ghost infrastructure from a failed policy. Spain tried to engineer a solar boom with subsidies. Instead, it triggered one of the largest renewable bankruptcies in the world.'   Electroverse

2022 News:  Spain faced €8billion in renewable legal claims

After the 2008 financial crisis, Spain was no longer able to guarantee the initial incentives and between 2012-2014, the government retrospectively removed them, prompting legal claims by the investors.

Images below of the dilapidated state of solar farms when finance is withdrawn. The fields have to be kept free of weeds and broken panels replaced after storms. etc.

Read about the Energy Charter Treaty, which European countries are leaving now.

Spain is now continuing with huge solar parks

One example being the 95MW Almódovar solar PV park, due operating end 2025 but German owner BayWa r.e. has sold it.

“We have been active in the Spanish market for more than ten years and have realised over 600MW of wind and solar projects there. It is one of the key markets for BayWa r.e. and we will continue to play a leading role in advancing the energy transition in Spain and beyond.”