New York's First Wind Farm Was Torn Down (For A Good Reason)

Twenty seconds. That's about all it took for a demolition crew to tear down seven wind turbines in Madison County, New York. Until then, those turbines had been standing for twenty years providing clean, sustainable energy. As part of New York's first-ever commercial wind farm, the towering mechanical beasts came down not for any reason you'd expect. In fact, there's a very good reason they were torn down. It had nothing to do with politics, health concerns, or aesthetics, or that birds might fear wind turbines.

The Madison turbines were inefficient, and it was becoming too expensive for the local municipality to maintain them. Part of the problem is that the turbines were early prototypes, expected to have a lifespan of 20 to 25 years. Additionally, the parts and components required to keep turbines operational are expensive, and since these were older machines, the parts could also be difficult to source. New technologies offer more capabilities and some of the tech will even let wind turbines build themselves. That's wild.

Rachel Smith, Senior Project Manager at EDP Removals, the team responsible for the turbines, explained to CNYCentral that "the most economical way" to address the aging farm was to take down the existing turbines and "start a new project sometime in the future." They simply were no longer worth repairing or refurbishing. Overall, however, the Madison Wind Farm provided several economic benefits during operation, including a $26 million total impact, $1.6 million paid to landowners, and $22.5 million spent locally to infuse the local economy. The farm had an installed capacity of 11.5 megawatts or 11,500 kilowatts. For comparison, 843,000 kilowatt-hours per month is enough to power 940 U.S. homes on average. It's about time for something bigger and better.

Calling out the time alone that it took to bring down the turbines is a bit disingenuous considering workers didn't manually take them down bit by bit. Instead, they were dismantled in a controlled demolition, with pre-prep and planning to ensure it was safely carried out. It's not hard to imagine, but the turbines were felled using explosives placed at the base of each tower.

It may seem haphazard, but there was some thought behind the demolition itself. If crews used heavy machinery, like cranes, to dismantle the turbines that would take much longer and would also be more costly. Above all, because more equipment would be needed and the Madison wind farm is in a remote location, infrastructure would be needed to support the additional resources. Crews would actually have to build roads leading to the farm for the heavy equipment, and also to haul away the debris. 

Once cleared and cleaned, the land will be restored for agricultural use. The large turbine blades will go to a waste energy facility, while individual parts will be examined to discern if they can be repurposed or recycled. Wind turbines are huge with inordinately large parts that require lots of materials, so it makes sense to try and repurpose some of the components to help defray the costs of new wind turbines which can range from $2.5 to $4 million per turbine, or in the tens of millions for offshore variants.