A mini-review of end-of-life management of wind turbines: Current practices and closing the circular economy gap

Evaluating future strategies for sustainable growth of fiberglass composites industry in developing countries: A novel hybrid SWOT-Fuzzy extended PIPRECIA approach

The global fiberglass-composite market is expanding tremendously due to its extensive applications in the construction and automotive sector. The progress in low-medium income developing countries is slow. This study explores an exclusive hybrid model of SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis and Fuzzy extended PIPRECIA (pivot pairwise relative criteria importance assessment) to evaluate the strategies for sustainable development of fiberglass composites industry in Pakistan as a representative of low-medium developing countries. SWOT analysis is employed for examining the factors and sub-factors which have been extracted from a real-time industrial survey. While internal and external factors are also critically established to formulate a TOWS matrix comprising nine proposed strategies. Later the preferences as proposed by experts are evaluated by Fuzzy extended PIPRECIA i.e., a MCDM (multi-criteria decision making) model. Finally, SWOT factors, sub-factors and strategic choices are orderly ranked and presented. The results of the study reveal that development of a suitable environment to attract investors for the advancement and growth of the local fiber composites manufacturing industry (WO2 i.e., 0.175) is a most desirable and highly prioritized strategic choice. While maximizing environmental research to reduce environmental impact and better management of resources (WT2 i.e., 0.076) is the least favorable. The application of this exclusively developed MCDM model will provide an insight to the policy makers and assistive in strategic management and sustainable development of composite industry in developing countries. While this model can also be effective for other complex planning and decision-making processes.

Circular economy performance and carbon footprint of wind turbine blade waste management alternatives

It is estimated that 570 Mt of blade waste, whose management is complex and expensive, will be generated by 2030 in the European Union alone. Accordingly, alternative blade waste management techniques are being investigated to optimize material recovery. This study evaluates the correlation between the circular economy performance and the carbon footprint of seven end-of-life management solutions for wind turbine blades: repurposing, grinding, solvolysis, pyrolysis, co-processing in cement kilns, incineration with energy recovery and landfilling. The circular economy performance is analyzed through the calculation of the product circularity indicator, while the carbon footprint is determined through life cycle assessment, using the global warming indicator and considering the management of three blades from cradle-to-gate as functional unit. As the performance of solvolysis and pyrolysis recycling is expected to change in the future, a sensitivity analysis is also carried out to evaluate the variability of the results by changing their process efficiency and the quality of the recovered materials. The results indicate that blade recycling through solvolysis is the most circular (0.47-0.77) and low-carbon (225-503 CO₂ eq.) solution overall. Blade repurposing, grinding and cement co-processing have a similar circularity (0.52-0.55) and a global warming impact ranging from 499 t CO₂ eq. to 615 t CO₂ eq. Although the circularity of pyrolysis is 59% (0.35) to 118% (0.48) greater than the circularity of incineration and landfilling (0.22), its carbon footprint can range from 566 t CO₂ eq. to 744 t CO₂ eq, which could be up to 19% higher than the carbon footprint of these linear EoL management alternatives (623 t CO₂). Based on these findings, proposals for sustainable industrial innovation and methodological recommendations for the development of integrated circularity and sustainability studies are proposed.

Circular solar: Evaluating the profitability of a photovoltaic panel recycling plant

Photovoltaic (PV) panels have a crucial role in coping with the global warming mitigation and the energetic crisis currently affecting the European Community. However, from the circular perspective of end-of-life (EoL) management, there are still big issues to be solved in order to recover materials from this kind of e-wastes. Because of several reasons (e.g. type of embedded materials, illegal shipments, location of manufacturers) EoL businesses do not have the interest in approaching them. This poses a significant environmental concern in terms of their management. This work wants to assess the profitability of a specific PV module recycling plant, by evaluating several market contexts in which multiple scenarios of material price, investment and process costs will be considered. The results for a 3000 tonnes plant show that profitability is not verified in the absence of an avoided landfill cost. Instead, when a value of 200 €/tonnes is applied, the net present value is positive in 35.2% of the scenarios and at 87.6% when a value of 350 €/tonnes is considered. The policy choice of this value requires linking the PV module disposal fee to the circular benefits associated with its recovery.