Meet the Cork-based woman turning old wind turbines into bridges

WHEN Angie Nagle left her homeplace of Alaska in 2003 for the greener pastures of Ireland, she was flying high.

A qualified mechanical engineer, who had worked in Israel and Oregon, she had taken a six month break to go cycling in Europe and Africa, when a job with Intel lured her to Leixlip in Co. Kildare.

“I only intended staying for two years but I was living the high life in Dublin,” she says. “The money was really good back then.”

Back in Alaska, Angie’s mother felt she was in danger of developing ‘notions’ in Ireland.

“When she heard what we’d spend on a night out, my mother exclaimed ‘Your brother could live on that for a month!’, Angie admits.

Intel was very supportive of her ambitions and, after three years of full-time work, they agreed to Angie doing a reduced three-day week to allow her to pursue a part-time Masters’ degree in Biomedical Engineering.

“It is an unwritten given that many women get into engineering in order to help people,” she says.

“My whole driving force was to use my engineering skills to build assistive devices (prosthetics). But then I realised there wasn’t a whole lot of that going on in Ireland.”

Having secured her Masters degree from Trinity College, Angie unsuccessfully spent the next year looking for a job.

By this time, she had married Roger and decided to relocate to Cork with him with the intention of building their forever-home and a family in his homeland outside of Mallow.

“I never really settled in Dublin,” she admits, “but I instantly loved Cork. The people working in the city were so welcoming.”

She worked for two years in Boston Scientific while she and her hubby took on the challenge of building their new home.

“We put our hearts and soul into the house, and did a lot of the work ourselves.”

Angie recalls one particularly memorable Valentine’s Day when her husband hired her a digger as a gift.

“I dug the trench from the well to our house,” she explains gleefully.

Not exactly a conventional St Valentine’s date, but one they both truly relished!

“We also used sheep’s wool insulation in the walls, which was a pleasure to install during that cold snap of 2011,” Angie adds wistfully.

On completion, it was the first passive-standard house in Cork, “possibly in Munster,” Angie adds proudly.

Three months after they moved into the house, she was pregnant with their eldest daughter. And life seemed pretty rosy.

She spent her maternity leave in Ballyclough, far from the madding crowd. But the months that followed were particularly difficult as post-partum depression kicked in.

Towards the end of a very tough year, Angie was chatting with a colleague from Boston Scientific, Teresa McCarthy.

“I mentioned in passing that there seemed to be no places in Ireland where new parents could buy used baby goods.”

In Alaska, garage sales selling second hand baby things were quite commonplace. The two friends decided it might be a good idea for a business.

“The recession was in full swing in Ireland at that time,” says Angie. ”The perfect time to start a second hand baby goods market.”

And, three months later, on November 18, 2011, The Baby Market was born.

“It was such a wonderful time,” recalls Angie.

“We franchised them all around the country and they ran for a staggering eight years.”

“CUH would send people to interview mums in the market queue as they waited to buy used baby goods, and St Vincent de Paul came and collected anything that was left over at the end of the day.”

While she realised from the get go that The Baby Market was never a business that would make her a wealthy businesswoman, Angie felt richer than she had ever been.

Healed and nourished, and mum to an expanded family of two daughters and a son, she decided the timing was right for her to re-engage with education.

So, in 2018, she embarked on a PhD in energy engineering with a focus on repurposing wind turbine blades.

Wind turbines seemingly have an in-built obsolescence.

“After 20-30 years, they need to be replaced and nothing can be done with the blades except to landfill or incinerate them,” explains Angie.

There were about 30 researchers between the U.S, Ireland and Northern Ireland, working on the Re-Wind project and Angie says it was “a very collaborative group”.

“My research focused on doing a life-cycle assessment of repurposing options for the wind turbine blades .”

One of the ideas the Re-Wind group came up with was to repurpose the blades into pedestrian bridges.

Together with her business partners in BladeBridge, UCC lecturer Dr Paul Leahy and MTU lecturer and bridge designer Kieran Ruane (who designed the iconic Mizen bridge), they explored the business possibility of sourcing the growing number of discarded wind turbine blades from wind farms and using them as girders in pedestrian bridges for Ireland’s expanding cycling network.

“BladeBridge serves a two-sided market,” outlines Angie. “The first is procurers of bridges, like county councils, local land owners and local development groups.”

“The second includes wind farms who are repowering or decommissioning turbines.”

By replacing steel girders with these repurposed turbine blades, there is a measurable (20%) reduction in CO2 emissions in the fabrication process.

“We want to ensure businesses are credited for this contribution to the circular economy. We will offer waste diversion declarations for the wind farms, which will state that their waste product has become girders in a bridge and has replaced an amount of steel.

“We also offer environmental product declarations for the bridge market, supported by the ISO certified Life Cycle Assessment methodology.

“I can quantify the environmental impact reduction realised in choosing a more circular end-of-life option for blade waste,” explains Angie. “We believe businesses should get partial credit for choosing that pathway.

“We have received a priming grant from LEO. Kevin Curran has been so incredibly supportive.

“The New Frontiers Programme at the Rubicon has been so beneficial to me. It has taught me to look at the project objectively before we launch it and ask myself, is it purposeful? Is it needed? And, only then, ask is it viable?

“My research was focused primarily on us making measurable improvements in areas in which Ireland is struggling, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions due to infrastructure. The programme has made me look at the finances, quantifiable SDGs (Sustainable Development goals), the reduction in impact on the environment, and to be more focused on the business side of things.

“It has been a lot of work but it is such a stimulating programme and the group is so supportive. I genuinely can’t believe I’m on it!”

BladeBridge’s pilot project was commissioned by Cork County Council and part funded by MTU.

“Our first bridge, using repurposed wind turbine blades, is a 5 metres long pedestrian bridge located along the as-yet unopened Middleton to Youghal greenway. It was fabricated in 2021 and installed on January 6, 2022.”

Despite their pilot project already in existence, BladeBridge was only incorporated on December15, 2022.

It is a very exciting time for entrepreneur Angie and her BladeBridge team mates. With wind turbines dotted all around the globe, one suspects BladeBridge is a company that is about to get very busy indeed.

Over the coming weeks, Linda Kenny will also interview the other women taking part in the New Frontiers programme in the Rubicon at MTU:

Claire Keane of Second Street Bakeshop

Clodagh Ryan of CRAOI

Kate and Rebecca Popova of Everywhere English

Monika Woijtek, BuildZon

Mary O’Riordan of HaPPE Earth

• Catch up on previous interviews with Dr Justina Ugwah, Clisteprobe here.
• Catch up with our interview with Mary O’Riordan of HaPPe Earth here 

• Read More

  Cork-based researcher is working to accelerate breast cancer diagnosis