Balsa

[Steve Dwyer]

Should we expect to see more balsa available, better quality and ultimately lower prices with the new administration's Emergency Energy Program halting leasing and permitting for wind energy projects?

Steve

[Ken Culbertson]

Maybe we could get our hands on one blade from a decommissioned generator.  It would supply the entire of PAMPA for a generation.  What I read, they burn the balsa when they retire the blades - that is Heresy!   

Ken

[Lauri Malila]

I think the balsa in them blades is not in very usable form. Vertical-grain core in the gf laminate.
Now it goes to oil- and gas ships instead💩
L

[Dan McEntee]

Maybe we could get our hands on one blade from a decommissioned generator.  It would supply the entire of PAMPA for a generation.  What I read, they burn the balsa when they retire the blades - that is Heresy!   

Ken

    It's not what you think it is. They grind up the wood to mix it with resin to make a flake board that they use to build the spars and such with and then mix it with other composites to mold the skin to forum the shape. Some one poste pictures here on the forum years ago. Once out of service they were cutting them up and burying them but that fills a big hole up pretty quick!! No way to compact it. Now they are grinding them up and suing that a parts of the fuel for high temp furnaces for making cement powder for portland cement and concrete. The article that I read is that it burns quite hot and complete, and the only left overs is ash, which can then be mixed into the concrete as filler. That's about the only positive bit a news about the stupid things that I have ever heard of!!Take away government subsidies and they will quit building them!!
   Type at you later,
    Dan McEntee

[Brett Buck]

Now they are grinding them up and suing that a parts of the fuel for high temp furnaces for making cement powder for portland cement and concrete. The article that I read is that it burns quite hot and complete, and the only left overs is ash, which can then be mixed into the concrete as filler.

  Burning while releasing enormous quantities of CO2 and CO, just like other plant matter treated similarly - e.g. coal. Oops!

[Dan McEntee]

  Burning while releasing enormous quantities of CO2 and CO, just like other plant matter treated similarly - e.g. coal. Oops!

    Well, yeah!! The article just said there was very little to no residue left after, just ash. Those furnaces that they dry cement in burn really , really hot and if the stuff is ground small enough, I could see that it burns pretty quickly and is consumed almost completely.. At least they ain't filling up holes in the ground at a great rate. Between what it costs to build one, all the energy it takes to produce one and the fact that you only ever see about half of them on a windmill farm actually turning, I just can't see any satisfactory ROI from that damn things. I don't believe any of the numbers that they spew out about their efficiency. I read one little blurb that was "dispelling myths about wind mills." One addressed the issue of most of them never seem to be turning. The way the question was answered tried to make it out like they are producing even when standing still!!  It was some of the best BS I have ever written!! My car gets 20 miles to the gallon, but when I don't drive it, it gets 200 miles to the gallon!! That kind of thing. It was just plain silly!! Some people probably really believe it!! But like I said,  grinding them up and using them for fuel almost makes sense out of the whole freaking mess!

[Dave Harmon]

My car gets 20 miles to the gallon, but when I don't drive it, it gets 200 miles to the gallon!!

Good one Dan....
That reminds me of one time I was saving a dime for fuel instead of riding the bus home from school so I just ran alongside the bus so I wouldn't get lost.
Then I saw my Dad driving home from work and he hollered out the window to run alongside a Taxicab and save $5!!

[EricV]

    Well, yeah!! The article just said there was very little to no residue left after, just ash. Those furnaces that they dry cement in burn really , really hot and if the stuff is ground small enough, I could see that it burns pretty quickly and is consumed almost completely.. At least they ain't filling up holes in the ground at a great rate. Between what it costs to build one, all the energy it takes to produce one and the fact that you only ever see about half of them on a windmill farm actually turning, I just can't see any satisfactory ROI from that damn things. I don't believe any of the numbers that they spew out about their efficiency. I read one little blurb that was "dispelling myths about wind mills." One addressed the issue of most of them never seem to be turning. The way the question was answered tried to make it out like they are producing even when standing still!!  It was some of the best BS I have ever written!! My car gets 20 miles to the gallon, but when I don't drive it, it gets 200 miles to the gallon!! That kind of thing. It was just plain silly!! Some people probably really believe it!! But like I said,  grinding them up and using them for fuel almost makes sense out of the whole freaking mess!

When we were teens, my eldest brother was a jack of all trades and a fantastic welder... and a bit of a science nerd. A dangerous combo! He got the idea from a Pop Mechanics article and welded together a 42" long octagon wood burning stove out of heavy 1/4" boiler plate, with forced air heating up to the 1st and second floor for our home up north. Could take a 36" log and burn all night keeping the house warm, waaay better than the little old Ben Franklin in our basement that it replaced, even though this didn't have burners for cooking like the Franklin, this was mainly for radiant heat.

So, one day he comes home with a bunch of wood paneling scraps from a job site he was on where they re-did a huge apartment complex. It was all cut perfect size to load into the stove so we thought it would be great. I have never seen ANYTHING burn so hot as to turn the back of that stove and part of the exit pipe start to glow cherry red before!!! We got scared and only used it as kindling from that point on, heh. Must have had a lot of resin in it or something. In hindsight, it probably wasn't healthy to breath, but being a stove, we weren't breathing much, if any of it, it all went out the chimney. The forced air heat was just a squirrel cage fan on the rear surface of the stove that ran up a duct parallel to the chimney with outlets on the 1st and second floors. Heated the house great, and free, way cheaper than filling the 300 gal #2 heating oil tank! My dad thought my brother was a genius and loved saving the money no doubt, heh.

EricV

[Paul Taylor]

For what it’s worth I did read where they are moving away from using balsa wood so they don’t over harvest the trees.

As much as I like the looks of a three blade prop, I don’t care for seeing them scattered everywhere.