In 2019, staff at the Port of Aalborg in northern Denmark were waiting for a new bike shed.
Environmental coordinator Brian D. Rasmussen scrolled the web for something to buy.
In New York, he found a shelter that looked like a wind turbine blade. The idea started there.
A Siemens Gamesa site operated nearby. Danish authorities had already asked the manufacturer to look for new uses for retired blades.
The company donated the middle section of a decommissioned blade.
Not the small scraps most blades become.
A long piece of the blade's outer composite shell, made of tough layered material.
Kærsholm Diamond Drilling cut away the excess.
Brunø Stål, a blacksmith shop in Aalborg, made the steel supports the blade rests on and is secured to.
The hollow side faces the ground.
The bikes sit underneath.
Why this material?
Composite is hard to recycle, yet it lasts outdoors and shields the bikes from North Sea weather.
The engineer put it plainly.
Instead of chopping the blade up and burning it for fuel, use it for something else.
Europe retires about 27,000 tons of blades a year as turbines from the early 2000s come down. The number keeps rising.
Seven years later, the shed still stands.
The blade does not reach a landfill.
It becomes a roof over the bikes.
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