Fox News' Dana Perino Makes 'Nonsensical' Comment About Wind Power

Tucker Carlson didn't even blink at the remark as the two discussed wind turbines, but there was a gusty outcry on Twitter.
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Fox NewsDana Perino caught some blowback Thursday for suggesting that wind power isn’t green because the turbines are not recyclable. (Watch the video below.)

The Five” co-host was talking to guest Tucker Carlson about the “green energy agenda,” including wind power, when Perino made an observation that at least one person on Twitter called “nonsensical”:

“There’s one other thing that we haven’t mentioned here, that was a part of that, which is when these wind turbines ― when the blades end their life, their useful life ― when they go into a landfill, they do not disintegrate. You cannot recycle them. They will be there forever. So, I think that there’s just a misunderstanding of just how really green these are.”

Carlson, who was on the show promoting his “Tucker Carlson Originals” episode decrying the wind power industry, replied, “Well, that’s right. There’s no painless way to get energy. Every energy has a downside.” 

While the two appeared unclear about the concept of renewable energy in the clip, Perino also seemed to mislead about the actual renewability of the materials in wind turbines. She noted a landfill in Wyoming, where retired turbine blades, usually made of carbon fiber, are buried.

But she failed to mention that “about 85% of turbine components, including steel, copper wire, electronics and gearing, can be recycled or reused,” Bloomberg wrote in a 2020 article about turbines in landfills.

Th American Wind Energy Association in Washington says the blades are “landfill-safe, unlike the waste from other energy sources, and represent a small fraction of overall U.S. municipal solid waste.”

Mocking Perino’s comment was a breeze for many on Twitter:

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