Cushing will no longer be the site of an operation where outdated wind turbine blades are “downsized” and cut into small pieces for the eventual creation of mulch for a steam-generating electric generating plant.
John Bok with North Coast Enterprise, the Ohio-based firm that specializes in helping wind farms decommission or dispose of old wind turbine blades indicated its Cushing operation is coming to an end.
He told OK Energy Today, “We’re exploring a new site and will leave Cushing.”
The decision was reached after the Cushing City Planning Commission voted last week to deny the company’s request for a conditional use permit.
“We were unaware we fell under the industrial zone,” explained Bok, adding that the company is in talks with a couple of possible sites in Oklahoma. Once a new site is chosen, the existing wind turbine blades that were transported by truck to the Cushing site will be transported by the same method.
“We hope immediately,” he expressed when asked about the time frame, explaining many of the outdated blades are from Oklahoma wind farms and some in the Texas Panhandle.
Formed in 2021, North Coast Enterprise specializes in what Bok called the “downsizing” or “prepping of the material” to be turned into a mulch that will be transported to Tulsa, site of Reworld, a commercial waste recycling operation that burns the material to generate electricity.
The prepping of the blades, a process of cutting them into small strips, created so much dust released into the air that some Cushing residents complained. It led to city inspectors haulting operations while the Planning Commission considered the request for the conditional use permit.
A Reworld website explained it produced 17 megawatts of electricity “24/7 with our Waste-to-Energy process–enough to power 1,000 homes for a year.”
The wind industry has grappled for years how to deal with old or weakened wind turbine blades. Some sites involved the burial of the massize wind blades while others, such as a site in Sweetwater, Texas are known for the large amount of blades piled on the ground in sort of a graveyard of blades that once produced electricity from wind.
“It’s a challenge for the industry,” remarked Bok. “Fiberglass is a very difficult material to recycle.”
North Coast Enterprise contracts with an Iowa company that specializes in the grinding process as well as the waste to energy project in Tulsa.