They should be recycled as street art in Brunswick & Northcote.   (or nominate your own green suburb.)

Travelling through Europe you see life expired wind turbines quite often. They’re easy to spot if you look. As above the blades are often stacked, often the towers are laying exactly where they were felled next to their foundations, metres away is a brand new turbine on a brand new foundation.

Renewable energy infrastructure is recyclable? Maybe, but only if you want to, and the bulk of the carbon emissions in wind turbines comes from the concrete foundation and that is never recycled.

The big issue with wind turbine blades is that they're mainly made of carbon fibre for which we don't have large scale recycling of.  The older glass fibre ones could be crushed with the remains used in cement.

Battery recycling is going to be a huge challenge too in the future.

Crushing glass fibre and using it in cement is hardly a recycling technique. It’s more like a ‘reuse’ but it’s actually just a ‘out of sight, out of mind’ hiding it technique.

They should be recycled as street art in Brunswick & Northcote.   (or nominate your own green suburb.)

Shouldn't be hard to convince the Green-dominated inner Melbourne councils to turn it into 'art' -

Travelling through Europe you see life expired wind turbines quite often. They’re easy to spot if you look. As above the blades are often stacked, often the towers are laying exactly where they were felled next to their foundations, metres away is a brand new turbine on a brand new foundation.

Renewable energy infrastructure is recyclable? Maybe, but only if you want to, and the bulk of the carbon emissions in wind turbines comes from the concrete foundation and that is never recycled.

The big issue with wind turbine blades is that they're mainly made of carbon fibre for which we don't have large scale recycling of.  The older glass fibre ones could be crushed with the remains used in cement.

Battery recycling is going to be a huge challenge too in the future.

There are already a number of optiions for used EV batteries including conversion to house batteries, refurbishment for use again as a EV battery and for their materials.

Travelling through Europe you see life expired wind turbines quite often. They’re easy to spot if you look. As above the blades are often stacked, often the towers are laying exactly where they were felled next to their foundations, metres away is a brand new turbine on a brand new foundation.

Renewable energy infrastructure is recyclable? Maybe, but only if you want to, and the bulk of the carbon emissions in wind turbines comes from the concrete foundation and that is never recycled.

The big issue with wind turbine blades is that they're mainly made of carbon fibre for which we don't have large scale recycling of.  The older glass fibre ones could be crushed with the remains used in cement.

Battery recycling is going to be a huge challenge too in the future.

Recycling concrete is growing, today an increasing portion of concrete is made using waste hydrocarbons, concrete, slag, Spent potlining from the aluminum industry, copper smelter slag, fly ash from coal power stations, tyres, medical waste etc etc.

As Aaron is familiar with Germany, he may know that the German cement plants recycle so much combustible material stuff waste that the operate with a net income cost of energy around US$ 30-50/t (old info from 2004). Where as Australian cement plants at the time were spending roughly that much buying coal.

I am familiar with concrete made with recycled ingredients, but next to no one is recycling CONCRETE.

So many boomer comments in this circle jerk. Yawn.
So many illogical 'Ha Ha, that'll own the libs' style comments that you'd see on 4chan or some other internet cesspit.

Ok Boomers

I am familiar with concrete made with recycled ingredients, but next to no one is recycling CONCRETE.

Umm, no! That would be an incorrect statement.

Dangersdan707, yet you pop in randomly and feel the need to comment even though it's a yawn .

The boomer thing.....yawn......

Think it's time to go too bed, you've got school in the morning.

NSW and QLD still copping heavy rain, Cape Byron had nearly 300mm overnight and now Sydney is getting heavy rain, over 100mm in the last 24 hours. It's expected to move across northern VIC and into SA this afternoon and cause some heavy falls across the interior.

Climate change?

NSW and QLD still copping heavy rain, Cape Byron had nearly 300mm overnight and now Sydney is getting heavy rain, over 100mm in the last 24 hours. It's expected to move across northern VIC and into SA this afternoon and cause some heavy falls across the interior.

Climate change?

Well it’s been dry now, it’s wet.
That a change, innit?

Back to dumb and dumber, raining cats and dogs, had heaps of rain.
About  80mm in western Sydney.

It's a change in the weather, not the climate...

It's a change in the weather, not the climate...

So bush-fires are definitely climate change but flood rains aren't. Got it.

It's a change in the weather, not the climate...

So bush-fires are definitely climate change but flood rains aren't. Got it.

The unprecedented bushfires may be a consequence of a changed climate, but a single weather system is just that.

It's a change in the weather, not the climate...

So bush-fires are definitely climate change but flood rains aren't. Got it.

The unprecedented bushfires may be a consequence of a changed climate, but a single weather system is just that.

Doesn't logically follow though, shouldn't large floods also go under the category of 'changed climate' if they're especially 'unprecedented'? That seems to be the primary defining characteristic.

NSW and QLD still copping heavy rain, Cape Byron had nearly 300mm overnight and now Sydney is getting heavy rain, over 100mm in the last 24 hours. It's expected to move across northern VIC and into SA this afternoon and cause some heavy falls across the interior.

Climate change?

Well it’s been dry now, it’s wet.
That a change, innit?

Back to dumb and dumber, raining cats and dogs, had heaps of rain.
About  80mm in western Sydney.

People will drown trying to cross flooded fords in their 4WD tanks thinking 'but this is what they're designed for'... every time this kind of biblical rain event happens the police warn people not to drive into flood waters and every time there will be drownings from doing exactly that.

Travelling through Europe you see life expired wind turbines quite often. They’re easy to spot if you look. As above the blades are often stacked, often the towers are laying exactly where they were felled next to their foundations, metres away is a brand new turbine on a brand new foundation.

Renewable energy infrastructure is recyclable? Maybe, but only if you want to, and the bulk of the carbon emissions in wind turbines comes from the concrete foundation and that is never recycled.

I don't understand why the 'new' tower can't simply be put up on the concrete base of the old wind tower - or does the concrete also get fatigued and life-expired?

NSW and QLD still copping heavy rain, Cape Byron had nearly 300mm overnight and now Sydney is getting heavy rain, over 100mm in the last 24 hours. It's expected to move across northern VIC and into SA this afternoon and cause some heavy falls across the interior.

Climate change?

Well it’s been dry now, it’s wet.
That a change, innit?

Back to dumb and dumber, raining cats and dogs, had heaps of rain.
About  80mm in western Sydney.

People will drown trying to cross flooded fords in their 4WD tanks thinking 'but this is what they're designed for'... every time this kind of biblical rain event happens the police warn people not to drive into flood waters and every time there will be drownings from doing exactly that.

Unfortunately you’re spot on.
4WD-SUV does not equal amphibious.

It's a change in the weather, not the climate...

So bush-fires are definitely climate change but flood rains aren't. Got it.

The unprecedented bushfires may be a consequence of a changed climate, but a single weather system is just that.

Doesn't logically follow though, shouldn't large floods also go under the category of 'changed climate' if they're especially 'unprecedented'? That seems to be the primary defining characteristic.

Bushfires are not weather events: their severity is a product of accumulated weather events. Long term history of weather events is climate. This is especially clear in Western Australia. https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/climate-change/climate-trends-western-australia

Travelling through Europe you see life expired wind turbines quite often. They’re easy to spot if you look. As above the blades are often stacked, often the towers are laying exactly where they were felled next to their foundations, metres away is a brand new turbine on a brand new foundation.

Renewable energy infrastructure is recyclable? Maybe, but only if you want to, and the bulk of the carbon emissions in wind turbines comes from the concrete foundation and that is never recycled.

I don't understand why the 'new' tower can't simply be put up on the concrete base of the old wind tower - or does the concrete also get fatigued and life-expired?

If you are upgrading the turbine to a larger unit with more MW, then unlikely the foundations will be deep enough and wide enough.

If they "future proofed" the foundation by over designing with this in mind, then yes it can be reused.

It's a change in the weather, not the climate...

So bush-fires are definitely climate change but flood rains aren't. Got it.

The unprecedented bushfires may be a consequence of a changed climate, but a single weather system is just that.

Doesn't logically follow though, shouldn't large floods also go under the category of 'changed climate' if they're especially 'unprecedented'? That seems to be the primary defining characteristic.

Bushfires are not weather events: their severity is a product of accumulated weather events. Long term history of weather events is climate. This is especially clear in Western Australia. https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/climate-change/climate-trends-western-australia

Drought is due to a period of lower than average rainfall, its been happening for thousands of years and why the Australian bush normally recovers from such large fires so quickly where as the same in other countries or eco-systems do not.

If the droughts are getting longer and deeper due to a longer term change in climate, then the flora and fauna in the eco-system will ultimately adapt or die. As the claims of climate change is that its all happening within 2-3 generations of trees to date then adaption is unlikely.

The problem is climate on earth has not been stable due to both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial causes and Australia's recorded weather history is less than 100 years old away from major centres. We have no idea how big the fires have ever been or frequent. Man has likely changed the pattern of fires initially by the Aboriginal's and later the rest of us through clearing and fire control.

The word "unprecedented" is already evidence of the lack of understanding of what the F___ has even happened in our own lifetimes which makes this year look like a back yard burn off, so how the F___ would we know what happened before recorded history arrived.

Hint: The worst year for bush fires is not 2019 /2020 and it was also a year of devastating floods and as this is a Railpage Australia™ group it also the year one state govt used the floods as an excuse to close numerous branch lines.

The only thing "unprecedented" about the bush fires this year was the amount of 4K quality video that has been spread around various types of media including social media.

The Australian bushfires—why they are unprecedented.

https://www.science.org.au/news-and-events/news-and-media-releases/australian-bushfires-why-they-are-unprecedented

The Australian bushfires—why they are unprecedented.

https://www.science.org.au/news-and-events/news-and-media-releases/australian-bushfires-why-they-are-unprecedented

There was nothing in that article whatsoever that managed to prove the recent fires are 'unprecedented'. Nothing at all.

They were not earlier than usual (December is about average); the weather was NOT unseasonable - December is always one of our hottest months; the fires were intense and burnt a lot of property and took many lives but so did Ash Wednesday (1983)  and Black Saturday (2009). They did not burn a record amount of area - fires in 1973 and 1854 burnt much more in terms of area; and finally the air pollution across Sydney and Melbourne was also not unprecedented. Fires in 1951 caused the closure of airports for days at a time and caused deaths from asthma; it has happened before and it will almost certainly happen again.

The people who wrote that article are trying to alarm people just as the Greens do as part of their stock and trade - the problem is that they're totally bereft of facts.

A Cambridge University professor proposes the extinction of the human race as a solution to the challenge of 'climate change'. And she's serious... Cambridge University;

A Cambridge academic has proposed a radical new way to solve climate change – letting humanity become extinct.

Patricia MacCormack, a professor of continental philosophy at Anglia Ruskin University, has just released her new book The Ahuman Manifesto, which will officially be launched in Cambridge today (Wednesday, February 5).

The book argues that due to the damage done to other living creatures on Earth, we should start gradually phasing out reproduction. But rather than offering a bleak look at the future of humanity, it has generated discussion due to its joyful and optimistic tone, as it sets out a positive view for the future of Earth - without mankind.

It also touches on several hot-button topics, from religion and veganism to the concept of identity politics, tying these into how the creation of a hierarchical world among humans has left us blind to the destruction we are causing to our habitat and other forms of life.