Emerging Environmental Scandal: “Thousands Of Tons Of Toxic” Wind Park Rubbish To Get Dumped At Sea!

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Bard Offshore windparkFace it. When it comes to environmental protection, the EU can be awfully strict. Drop just a single molecule of something hazardous out somewhere in nature, and expect it to be treated like the crime of the century. That’s the way it usually is with eco-bureaucrats, except of course when it comes to green energies like ugly wind turbines. There everything suddenly has no real environmental impact, and so they get a free pass.

German news weekly Der Spiegel here recently reported on how windmills are now polluting the North Sea through their corrosion protection systems. Spiegel writes:

With the continued expansion of wind parks out to sea, over the coming decades thousands of tons of toxic metal compounds will be brought into the North and Baltic Seas. The reason is the use of so-called sacrificial anodes. These are for preventing the corrosion of the steel bases of the wind parks.

Spiegel describes how these sacrificial anodes, which contain heavy metals, dissolve over time in the water and that no environmental impact study has ever been conducted. According to Spiegel just the interior corrosion protection of each steel tower will dump up to ten tons of aluminum over its 25-year lifetime. Yes, “each tower”!

With plans to install 6500 turbines out to sea by the year 2020, Spiegel calculates that this means 13,000 tons of aluminum rubbish could end up in the North Sea.

The German weekly also writes that the electrical method of corrosion protection, such as that used on ships, is also possible, but that the method is too expensive due to “higher maintenance requirements”. After all, wind power is already unaffordable enough!

So in Europe are 13,000 tonnes of chemical rubbish getting dumped into the sea anything to really worry about? Obviously not if they comes from “green” sources.

Photo credit: Bard 1.


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42 responses to “Emerging Environmental Scandal: “Thousands Of Tons Of Toxic” Wind Park Rubbish To Get Dumped At Sea!”

  1. sod

    I am not sure, how big the effect is,m, in comparison to the same system being used on many ships.


    Has anyone got some data?

    1. Henning Nielsen

      Does that have any relevance to offshore windmills, your intention seems to be distraction from a painful subject?

      1. sod

        There is also this interesting link (but in german) provided in the commet section of “Spiegel”:


        It looks like the number might be much smaller than named in the text.

        Again: is this more aluminium than from the same procss on ships?

        Is this a relevant effect?

        1. DirkH

          It is UNNATURAL and the result of INDUSTRIAL activity, i.e. EVIL. Come on sod, you know the song and dance when it’s about any other power plant dontcha.

        2. Henning Nielsen

          So any kind of pollution anywhere in the world is relevant to this story? C’mon sod, you are just trying to make a smoke screen.

    2. AndyG55

      Can’t you read, bozo ???

      The German weekly also writes that the electrical method of corrosion protection, such as that used on ships… but its too expensive so they use toxic heavy metals instead.

      Get that.. TOO EXPENSIVE to do the right thing !!

      1. Pethefin

        Of course sod can read. Don’t feed him/her.

      2. DirkH

        Obviously the greed for profits has blinded the wind turbine industrialists to the damage they inflict on all creatures in the food chain including humans which will suffer the most because the heavy metals get concentrated up the food chain.

  2. Henning Nielsen

    The green hypocrisy is beyond belief.

  3. gnome

    Let’s not get too carried away with this sort of green nonsense. Aluminium is not a heavy metal and is of very low (probably zero) toxicity in a neutral or basic environment.

    Sacrificial anodes I have met have been all zinc. Again- toxicity zero.

    Leave toxicity scares over non-toxic substances to the greens.

    1. DirkH

      What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

      let’s refine the argument, ok, so the alu isn’t harmful, I agree, but here goes: It has to be MINED (meaning, injuring Gaia) and REFINED (meaning energy waste) so the sacredness of wind turbines is now gone.

      What we have to achieve is that the sods of the world admit that their gods, the wind turbines, are unclean.

  4. Peter

    Imagine all those greenpeace warriors climbing the towers like they did in 1995 with the Brent Spar …

  5. dimby

    10 tonnes per windmill is not 13000 but rather 65000 tonnes.

  6. Rob

    Well, aluminium is the most abundant metal, (˜ 8.3% by weight) and the third most abundant element in the earths crust. So its not exactly possible to pollute the earth with aluminium. Its not a heavy metal either (airplanes are made of it). As far as Al goes, relax.

    1. DirkH

      You talk as if it were also not possible to pollute the planet with carbon, but we know via the EPA that it is.

      So claiming that the aluminum is pollution is fair game.

  7. BobW in NC

    So, these are the plans…”With plans to install 6500 turbines out to sea by the year 2020…”

    I recall reading some years back the useful life expectancy of wind turbines at sea is relatively short. The data I recall included 10–12 years of the UK coast, and 12—15 years off the Danish coast—not the 30 as proclaimed.

    All that money to build and install, power provided is a fraction of rated capacity from data you’ve provided, Pierre, a relatively short useful life span, killing of 10s (100s ?) of thousands of bats and birds, and now, toxicity from heavy metals?

    And these uneconomical, ecological, and environmental disasters get a free pass in the name of saving the planet from anthropogenic CO2?

    Can’t comment further…blood boiling…

    What a bargain!

  8. turboblocke

    Here https://www.energy-charts.de/price.htm you can see how renewables are reducing the wholesale price of electricity in Germany through the “merit order effect”. So I get a pissed off at idiots who are causing my electricity bill to be higher than necessary because of some irrational hatred of renewables.

    1. DirkH


      LOL! So you don’t even know that consumers in Germany, California and Melbourne (3 regions with comparably expensive electricity tariffs for private customers) do not pay bulk prices – and call other people idiots…

      1. turboblocke

        Hands up those who don’t know what wholesale means. That apparently would be P Gosselin and DirkH. And also, who stupidly assumed that I lived in Germany…

      2. turboblocke

        Now that you two have had the obligatory rant, how about addressing the fact that renewables lower wholesale prices? You see that does make electricity cheaper. Of course, your electricity supplier may not want to pass the saving on to you, but that just means more profits for them.

        BTW: if you take out the levys and taxes, German household electricity costs hardly more than the EU average… 0.005 E/kWh. That’s the equivalent of less than €5 per year per person on average. http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableAction.do

  9. turboblocke

    I would also like to point out that the principal means of protecting structures from corrosion is… paint.

    1. DirkH

      …which consists of all kinds of nasty, petroleum-derived chemicals, thanks for pointing out this overlooked multiple-polluting factor (first when the oil is drilled and second when it is refined and third when the paint dissolves and poisons baby seals).

      1. turboblocke

        well DirkH how about applying that same life cycle analysis to fossil fuel power and reporting back to us…

      2. turboblocke

        Good to see that you are capable of a life cycle analysis: would you care to turn your expertise to fossil fuel plant?

  10. ES

    Sacrificial anodes are used in water heaters in your homes. They last from 5 to 10 years and should be replaced before they before then. The sacrificial metal goes into the water but because it takes so long to be used up it has no effect on the water. The same will apply in wind parks.


    Impressed Current Cathodic Protection (ICCP) system as used on ships and pipelines is also used on wind farms but it requires power to operate.


    ICCP does no work on cars


    1. DirkH

      We don’t have highly corrosive saltwater in our drinking water supply, [-snip, ES only making a legit point PG].

      1. turboblocke

        OMG: a water corrosion denier as well.

        1. DirkH

          you don’t know the differnce between bulk and private customer tariffs, and you don’t know the difference in corrosivity between seetwater and saltwater? Then I suppose you also do not know the energy density, and how many wind turbines (and batteries) it would take to replace one ordinary 300 MW gas power plant. Confirming my impression I have of the common renewables fanblocke.

  11. patrick healy

    I have asked previously on various websites, are these windmillers forced by law to remove redundant windmills both on and off shore?
    All redundant north sea oil installations have to be safely disposed of by their owners, at no cost to the taxpayer.
    Does anyone know the answer to this?

    1. DirkH

      For on-shore this is the case in Germany after 20 year license expiration, they must be dismantled by the owner, I cannot imagine anything else for off shore, as Germans are extreme eco-loons and would never accept anything else. Licenses can be renewed but only at the will of the regulators.

  12. turboblocke

    Look, I know that you guys are against solving the AGW problem… but really… making a fuss about sacrificial anodes. Where are the big disasters from yesterday: you know, when you told us that an ice age was coming, that economies would fold, the lights would go out, we would all be living in caves, one world government, black helicopters etc. Aluminium is a bit meeh in comparison.

    1. Squildly

      “…solving the AGW problem…”

      ROFLMAO …. hahahahaha

  13. John F. Hultquist

    By Jonathan Waldman
    Simon & Schuster, 288 pages, $26.95

    Amazon (for ~$20) has 30 customer reviews.

    There is a book review in the Wall Street Journal.

  14. Mervyn

    Never before has Europe and the UK experienced so much pollution than as seen today with all the wind turbines built in the sea and built on land. They look bloody awful. The only winners are the manufacturers and recipients of government subsidies.

    The only cheap, reliable, efficient and effective form of renewable energy is hydro-electricity.

  15. Squildly

    I am amazed at the level of ignorance about “green” energy and specifically wind and solar. Amazing … I suggest you go read Google’s report on the subject to get you started. After a decade of research and $billions spent, their conclusion is that “green” energy is IMPOSSIBLE! … get that? … IMPOSSIBLE! … And it isn’t like Google didn’t try. They had some pretty smart people on the case, they spent (wasted) a heck of a lot of dough on the subject … result … they are pulling out of it …

    Look, dumb_sses … it all comes down to one VERY simple formula … ENERGY DENSITY … PERIOD! … figure it out…

  16. jaydubvee60

    So the waste may be a lot of aluminum. Hope they had access to tons of crushed beverage cans during production…raw aluminum is typically extracted from bauxite ore at a cost in electrical energy that is astronomical!

