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Wind turbines, in particular, last for only a short time20 years, or sometimes only 15and present major disposal issues when their useful lives are over. This video shows what a blight on the landscape an abandoned wind farm can be. Expect to see many more such desolate landscapes if wind power spreads:

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I don't believe there is anywhere in the U.S. where one can develop a mining project without furnishing financial security, typically in the form of a bond, to pay for the restoration of the site after the mine has finished yielding ore. Obviously nothing like that was done with regard to the project you see in the video. Perhaps it was abandoned by a bankrupt single-purpose developer.

Advocates of wind and solar power never count all the costs when they allege that such sources of energy are affordable. One of the several costs that are consistently left out from such claims is the cost of dismantling and disposing of the remnants of a defunct project. In this Oklahoma case, at least, that turned out to be someone else's problem.

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I don't believe there is anywhere in the U.S. where one can develop a mining project without furnishing financial security, typically in the form of a bond, to pay for the restoration of the site after the mine has finished yielding ore. Obviously nothing like that was done with regard to the project you see in the video. Perhaps it was abandoned by a bankrupt single-purpose developer.

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Agree with schmellba99 here. Every wind farm I've seen proposed has a cleanup bond as part of the agreement.

Looks like an older project, I suspect fraud occurred as to the bond.

https://www.foley.com/en/insights/publications/2019/08/texas-requirements-wind-energy-land-leases

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The Texas legislature recently passed House Bill 2845 modifying Section 301 of Title 6 of the Texas Utilities Code to impose statutory decommissioning requirements on any person ("Wind Developer") that leases property from a landowner for the operation of a wind power facility. The new statute affects all wind power facility lease agreements entered into on or after September 1, 2019. Such lease agreements must provide that Wind Developer is responsible for the removal of wind power facilities from the landowner's property at the end of the lease term...

Wind Developer's decommissioning responsibilities that must be included in lease agreements consist of (i) clearing, cleaning and removal of each wind turbine generator, including towers, pad-mount transformers, and all liquids, greases and other similar substances; (ii) for each tower foundation, pad-mount transformer and buried cable that is installed, cleaning, clearing and removal to a depth of at least three feet below the surface grade; (iii) filling any hole or cavity that is created by the removal process with the same type of topsoil as the predominant topsoil found on the property; and (iv) at the request of the landowner, removing any road constructed by Wind Developer on the property and, if reasonable, removing all rocks at least one foot in diameter that are excavated during the removal process to ensure that the land is returned to a tillable state.

In addition, lease agreements must require Wind Developer to secure, not later than the earlier of the 10th anniversary of the commercial operations date or termination of the lease agreement, evidence of adequate financial assurances conforming with the statute for all decommissioning efforts. Acceptable forms of financial assurances include, (i) a guaranty from a parent company with minimum investment grade credit rating, (ii) a letter of credit, (iii) a bond, or (iv) any other form of financial assurance that is accepted by the landowner.

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CanyonAg77 said:

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I don't believe there is anywhere in the U.S. where one can develop a mining project without furnishing financial security, typically in the form of a bond, to pay for the restoration of the site after the mine has finished yielding ore. Obviously nothing like that was done with regard to the project you see in the video. Perhaps it was abandoned by a bankrupt single-purpose developer.

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Agree with schmellba99 here. Every wind farm I've seen proposed has a cleanup bond as part of the agreement.

Looks like an older project, I suspect fraud occurred as to the bond.

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Thanks. Seemed really odd to me too.

Some of the early leases, and maybe some later ones with little outfits, may not have included a removal bond, but most do.

Nothing like a multimillion dollar windmill thats un repairable.

At the 1:33 mark of the video, you can see how the foundation has come apart. Those things are huge, and look like an inverted mushroom, with the stem sticking above ground. In this case, the "stem" has come loose from the "cap". You can see all the rebar on the "stem".

Unless this was intentionally taken down, that is extremely shoddy construction, to come apart like that.

Why are these wind mills (or whatever they're called) abandoned? Why aren't they repaired/refurbished and put back into service?

If they're a good idea, shouldn't they be that for the next owner? A house survives multiple owners and a commercial property survives multiple businesses in all but the rarest cases.

These companies have been known to file bankruptcy and thus never clean up the abandoned site.

My guess is that in 20 years it will me a problem.

Early wind turbines didn't last long nor pay for themselves. Newer ones do.

I agree that it seems like you could put new blades and generator nacelles on old towers and take advantage of the existing highline and substation infrastructure, but I guess new is easier/more efficient.

Or maybe new gets subsidies/tax breaks, old does not. I don't know.

I will say that the new turbines going in now, have much longer blades than the old ones. So perhaps that requires taller towers, with stronger bases.

84AGEC said:

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These companies have been known to file bankruptcy and thus never clean up the abandoned site.

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That's the scary part. They need to pay into some state fund for cleanup. Or maybe some of these small towns need to invest part of the tax money, instead of building showplace football stadiums for schools with 100 students.

Larger, legit companies put the money into some sort of long-term management fund; which can't be touched unless for the sole purpose of decommissioning.

I also think, like you posted Canyon, that it's a requirement to set aside those funds or a portion of those funds (to be bolstered with profits) for the end of life tear down.

There's a whole side of the wind business called re-powering that can entail full redevelopment to simply putting on a new nacelle/rotor.

For reference, Natural Gas is at $2.86 today. Boone says it has to be at $6 or higher for wind to be profitable.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/natural-gas-price

Granted it's been a few years, but I've had to do a lot of research into wind farms in the past. What everyone knows is that they make no financial sense without federal subsidies. What people (land owners) often don't know up front is that it's often more cost effective to just go put up new turbines rather than tear down and/or repair. I assumed you could use parts of old turbines for new ones, but as technology advances, the old turbines become obsolete. Besides, it's expensive to tear down. That's why you see turbines go out and stay that way for what seems like forever. I've advised many people to consider what happens to broken or abandoned turbines before doing business with wind farm folks (if they must). It was the practice to just abandon the things and cut losses (hey, the government will pay me if I go build a new one and I'm not contractually obligated to clean up after myself per this lease we signed years ago). Luckily, as others have mentioned, it's become common practice to have clean up as part of bond packages to keep these eyesores from sticking around into perpetuity.

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84AGEC said:

These companies have been known to file bankruptcy and thus never clean up the abandoned site.

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That's the scary part. They need to pay into some state fund for cleanup. Or maybe some of these small towns need to invest part of the tax money, instead of building showplace football stadiums for schools with 100 students.

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It happens all the time in oil and gas. The bigger companies sell out their more mature fields to smaller, lower cost operators in part to try to get free of the plugging and abandonment liability, and the seller makes sure the purchasing company posts bond to cover for P & A/restoration costs . If the Mom and Pop goes under the abandonment liabilities are financed by the insurer. If the insurer can't be found then it falls back on the original operator if they can be found, or the state.

I never see the windmills between Buffalo and Groesbeck turning. They look to be in good shape but they never move

I used to have an old "challenge 27" windmill on property I owned that was impossible to keep running. The cost for maintenance was crazy expensive.

I laugh when people call wind power "free energy". Nothing is free

They don't have to generate power to be profitable with the subsidy.

sleepybeagle said:

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I used to have an old "challenge 27" windmill on property I owned that was impossible to keep running. The cost for maintenance was crazy expensive.

I laugh when people call wind power "free energy". Nothing is free

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Which is why you always buy an Aermotor windmill.

I know in Wyoming, they have dismantled some and have buried the blades in landfills. The blades are made out of a composite that makes it difficult to recycle, so they cut the blades into thirds and buried them in a huge pit. Texas currently has over 13,000 wind turbines and 39,000 blades. That is a significant amount of trash that will need to be dealt with. All of it needs to be replaced twice about every 50 years. How is that even sustainable? Same goes for the massive number of solar panels. We can store all of the nuclear waste ever created to date in our country in a building about the size of a Walmart Super Center. But it's going to take massive landfills to contain all of the wind and solar waste over the next 50 years.

Sink them off the coast, they look like the would make a great fish habitat. We can always have more snapper.

wyoag93 said:

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I know in Wyoming, they have dismantled some and have buried the blades in landfills. The blades are made out of a composite that makes it difficult to recycle, so they cut the blades into thirds and buried them in a huge pit. Texas currently has over 13,000 wind turbines and 39,000 blades. That is a significant amount of trash that will need to be dealt with. All of it needs to be replaced twice about every 50 years. How is that even sustainable? Same goes for the massive number of solar panels. We can store all of the nuclear waste ever created to date in our country in a building about the size of a Walmart Super Center. But it's going to take massive landfills to contain all of the wind and solar waste over the next 50 years.

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If we had expanded our nuclear program to where it should be and where we wouldn't need the so-called alternative energy scam sources, we would have a lot more waste. And thus, the need for a lot more Walmart supercenters.

(Make your own jokes about telling a WM SC from a nuke waste facility).

91AggieLawyer said:

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Why are these wind mills (or whatever they're called) abandoned? Why aren't they repaired/refurbished and put back into service?

If they're a good idea, shouldn't they be that for the next owner? A house survives multiple owners and a commercial property survives multiple businesses in all but the rarest cases.

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They are only maintained as long as the tax credits last. Once the tax credits expire, there is no reason to maintain them.

wyoag93 said:

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I know in Wyoming, they have dismantled some and have buried the blades in landfills. The blades are made out of a composite that makes it difficult to recycle, so they cut the blades into thirds and buried them in a huge pit. Texas currently has over 13,000 wind turbines and 39,000 blades. That is a significant amount of trash that will need to be dealt with. All of it needs to be replaced twice about every 50 years. How is that even sustainable? Same goes for the massive number of solar panels. We can store all of the nuclear waste ever created to date in our country in a building about the size of a Walmart Super Center. But it's going to take massive landfills to contain all of the wind and solar waste over the next 50 years.

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There's one fairly good sized wind farm up here that, from what I understand, has seen every blade replaced at least three times.

I know one guy who owns land with a wind farm on it who says that they don't pay nearly as much as they are promised, but they do okay.

One woman from one large farm and ranch family around here told me that they were approached years ago to lease land they own for wind generators. She said that they turned it down because the contract they demanded gave all the benefits to the operator and little to the property owner. They came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth the problems and the restrictions on their use of their own land.

There's a wind farm on 207 between gruver and guymon, ok that is abandoned. Several towers with broken blades. Just been standing there for years.

CanyonAg77 said:

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https://www.foley.com/en/insights/publications/2019/08/texas-requirements-wind-energy-land-leases

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The Texas legislature recently passed House Bill 2845 modifying Section 301 of Title 6 of the Texas Utilities Code to impose statutory decommissioning requirements on any person ("Wind Developer") that leases property from a landowner for the operation of a wind power facility. The new statute affects all wind power facility lease agreements entered into on or after September 1, 2019. Such lease agreements must provide that Wind Developer is responsible for the removal of wind power facilities from the landowner's property at the end of the lease term...

Wind Developer's decommissioning responsibilities that must be included in lease agreements consist of (i) clearing, cleaning and removal of each wind turbine generator, including towers, pad-mount transformers, and all liquids, greases and other similar substances; (ii) for each tower foundation, pad-mount transformer and buried cable that is installed, cleaning, clearing and removal to a depth of at least three feet below the surface grade; (iii) filling any hole or cavity that is created by the removal process with the same type of topsoil as the predominant topsoil found on the property; and (iv) at the request of the landowner, removing any road constructed by Wind Developer on the property and, if reasonable, removing all rocks at least one foot in diameter that are excavated during the removal process to ensure that the land is returned to a tillable state.

In addition, lease agreements must require Wind Developer to secure, not later than the earlier of the 10th anniversary of the commercial operations date or termination of the lease agreement, evidence of adequate financial assurances conforming with the statute for all decommissioning efforts. Acceptable forms of financial assurances include, (i) a guaranty from a parent company with minimum investment grade credit rating, (ii) a letter of credit, (iii) a bond, or (iv) any other form of financial assurance that is accepted by the landowner.

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10 years to secure a bond?????? How 'bout that gets done on the front side before breaking ground? What a dumb move.

Jack Boyett said:

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There's a wind farm on 207 between gruver and guymon, ok that is abandoned. Several towers with broken blades. Just been standing there for years.

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Some also had fires at the turbine. Not all in that wind farm have been abandoned, though. They sure aren't trying to fix those with broken blades and burned turbines.

One of the firefighters on one in the area said that when they arrived on the scene, the wind turbine people wanted them to climb up and put out the fire. The firefighters explained that they were only there to keep it from spreading to the farmland. Even if it were magically not suicide to climb up, their pumpers could not pump the water up anywhere near high enough to be of any use.

There's another west of there just to the south of County Road II in Texas County and west of County Road 2 in Hansford County on the Freeman Ranch that isn't that old but is pretty much abandoned.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.499736,-101.6039984,1692m/data=!3m1!1e3

It's kind of interesting how that image is old enough that they don't show the horrible state of those wind generators. I don't know if any of them are still usable.

By the way, the turbines below have been torn down. From what I was told, they could no longer get parts to keep them operational.

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.4985051,-101.4853779,1196m/data=!3m1!1e3

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.488945,-101.4531791,1196m/data=!3m1!1e3