Trent Brome writes on his Facebook page:
Arlington, WY – avg annual wind speed of 31mph, gusts above 110mph, seems like a great place for a wind turbine ….right?
Photos from Feb 1, 2011 as the cold air mass that formed Snowzilla barreled through. The wind chill in the area from yesterday was extreme, -54F !!
0453 AM EXTR WIND CHILL PUMPKIN VINE 41.05N 105.46W 02/01/2011 M-54.00 F ALBANY WY DEPT OF HIGHWAYS
A new record low was set in Cheyenne:
RECORD EVENT REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHEYENNE WY 523 PM MST TUE FEB 01 2011 ...RECORD DAILY LOW HIGH SET AT CHEYENNE WYOMING... A RECORD DAILY LOW HIGH WAS SET TODAY AT CHEYENNE WYOMING. THE OLD RECORD WAS MINUS 5 SET IN 1899. THE NEW RECORD LOW HIGH IS MINUS 9.
Combine cold temperatures that make steel brittle along with gusty winds, and you have a Titanic recipe for disaster. For those that will argue that I’m being unfair to the promise of wind power, I welcome you to provide photos of any power plant in the USA that has been collapsed due to weather. Downed power poles sure, but power sources?
h/t to Eric Nielsen for the photo
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UPDATE: While the Facebook page source of these photos shows them dated yesterday, Feb 1st, it appears the event actually happened November 25th. A similar photo here:
http://www.windaction.org/pictures/30961
The same author, Trent Brome, submitted them. It is unfortunate he did not make note of the correct date on his facebook page, and given a strong storm had just passed, I had no reason to expect otherwise. I apologize for not checking further. Thanks to V Marti for pointing out the other website link above. – Anthony
Looks like a ductile rather than brittle failure of the tower. Maybe the windmill froze and didn’t feather so that loads exceeeded the design limit. The tower seems to have failed at 90 degrees to the axis of the shaft with the blades at 90 degrees to the wind. Maybe some oscillation involved too. Guess that door didn’t help either.
Oh for the reliability of coal or oil!
Some panel beating and a bit of pollyfilla and she’l be right mate.
Score at half-time:
Birds 1
Wind Turbines – god only knows how many
I used to be a great believer in “alternative energy” until these monstrosities began appearing, spoiling the view in in many of my favourite “wild places” here in the UK. It never struck me (as they do our avian wildlife) then just what a blight they are. I hate the damned things. I think I’ll use the second pic for my PC desktop. It gives me a little comfort and great satsifaction.
We have Red Kites (http://www.redkites.co.uk) here in the southern Chiltern Hills, and I can see at least one over the valley here most days, soaring effortlessly. I’m not a “greenie”, but I’d hate to think of even one of these magnificent birds being shredded in the name of unreliable “renewable energy”.
The second – iconic pic for WUWT stuff?
I would have thought that if you are constructing a steel structure which is subject to dynamic loads and where the temperatures are very low the structure should be subject to frost protection measures?
The modes of failure for repetitive loads can be due to fatigue and where temperatures are low due to brittle fracture.
In the Uk we have standing comittee on strutural failure this is one for them and if you have a similar organisation in the US please can someone notify them.
Wind Turbine suffers “erectile dysfunction”
Most wind turbines go into neutral and stop generating at wind speeds above 35 mph, which means they’re probably non-productive for a large percentage of the time…
I can’t wait to see the Blair Windfarms in the North Sea looking like this, or better yet, the ones defacing the Scottish Hills and the Welsh Mountains…
Wizzy new Pius Hybrid – 28 Thousand Dollars
Wizzy new windmill, with local utility contract of 14 cents/Kilowatt-hr to pay for it – 250 Thousand dollars
Finding your new investment in a heap of twisted frozen metal? – … yep. Priceless.
At least the windmill didn’t get air born. I love it.
Nature doesn’t like wind power.
Every time I drive by a rotating wind turbine just off the local interstate, I am struck again by how unsafe it looks. What happens if the axle cracks or a blade breaks off in a strong wind? Nothing good …
Clearly these conditions werent engineered for, but the failure of one wind turbine adds nothing to the debate about GW in the same way the Chernobyl nuclear plant failure doesnt.
Would be interesting to know how many turbines have collapsed or shed blades in recent years.
Wind power, hahahahaha…hahahaha, sorry, couldn’t help myself
‘Record daily low high’ –
Stress-testing the language?
Mother Nature hates horizon pollution and has an icy cold way of dealing with it 😉
I wonder how the Australian wind farms are going to cope with 300 km per hour winds. A constant wind won’t pose a problem. The big gusts typical of a cold front passage do the work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_farms_in_Queensland
-54F eh? Just think how cold it would have been without global warming…
Oh – I LOVE that picture..!!
One more nail in the coffin…
Please send copies of the photos to Joe “Rantin’ Joe” Romm c/o CAP in Washington, DC!
And the cost to build that was?
Yeah but, I hear those unanticipated and excessive deliveries of coal can shut a plant right down.
Hey! Give credit where it is due!
Considering how brittle steel is at that temperature I think that the tower folded up quite well.
I suppose sildenafil citrate is out of the question, for resurrecting these derelict assemblages