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
If the cold made the steel brittle, how come it’s bent?
Yo, ho, blow the man down. Arrrr!
Best,
Frank
Oops! Back to the drawingboard.
Or dis-assemblages ??
This is a good example of some of the problems with these monsters. It is clear that these things are useless in cold conditions and unsuitable as an energy source for winter.
I recently read a paper that suggested that one reason why these wind farms are not producing the level of output theoretically calculated (on a per windmill basis) is due to the windmills being spaced too closely together.
I cannot remember the details but apparently as the wind passes accross one of these windmills it is either robbed of energy (the energy required to turn the windmill) and/or vortices are set up such that by the time the wind passes by the next windmill there is considerably less energy to impart into that windmill. As I say, I cannot recall the details but I seem to recall that the paper suggested that the windmills are being placed to near to each other and to optomise the output of each individual windmill they need to be placed apart by a factor of 2 in each direction; in other words each wind farm needs to cover 4 times the total area if it is to deliver anything approaching it’s theoretical output. This would greatly add to the expense and the eyesore of these farms. I guess that it is back to the design board.
I have seen this one in denmark, but i dont know if the brakes failed too, or it could be the steel tower in this case ( we can see the crack in the photos)
Surely this whole issue is overblown . . .
Wow, one wing turbine feel over? What huge news. WUWT claimed one well exploding in the Gulf as minor, and that was much biggger than this, WUWT is all for nukes even after Chrnobyl and 3 Mile Island!
This fair and balanced reporting is just great, and adds lots of cred to this site, it realy does!
At least one cop died of a gunshot wound last night, should we halt all gun sales too?
At least one car crashed last night should we stop all car sales?
At least one person claimed AGW as real, should we stopp all carbon dioxide creation?
Stupid article, pull it.
How is .00000001% of the wind infrastructure failing news?
I guess it is if the site is funded by the Koch brothers…
It’s not a power plant, but the source of energy for power stations disrupted by Hurricane Dennis in 2005. Could have been a lot worst than a blow over wind turbine as we only know too well!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunder_Horse_PDQ
What a wonderful monument to commemorate the collapse of cAGW.
Send a copy to Chris Huhne, UK minister for energy, and his US equivalents.
I used to live in Cornwall,southern tip of England, a narrow peninsula in the atlaantic, whenthe winds were strong thy feather the blades to prevent damage, many times a year I saw that, they used concrete for the eyesores there.
I’m failing to see the brittleness. The steel seems like it was still very maleable. It wouldn’t have deformed like that if it wasn’t still maleable, it would have just snapped off clean. The ductile/brittle transition temp for common steels these days is way, way, WAY below zero. Near liquid-nitrogen temps.
But I do get your point.
MattN<—has a materials science degree…..
And nobody thought of this at the design stage???
It’s a known known problem, guys! Not a known unknown or an unknown unknown. This is Metallurgy/Materials 101.
(Google steel brittle and cold is one of the suggestion, low temperature is another. Using cold gives over half a million hits.)
While impressive, this kind of failure is rare in wind power.
Still, the picture highlights the fragility of wind turbines very well.
However, the weakest parts are inside the hub, the gears and bearings that allow the generator to turn.
That is why wind turbines are so often still, even in good wind. They are simply broken.
My guess, based on random observation, is that the mean time to failure for this technology is less than a year.
Catastrophic wind turbine failure is infrequent along with reliability statistics are not widely publicized for obvious reasons. Turbine failure, blade failure, tower collapse, and fires are all hazards associated with this technology.
See statistics at: http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/accidents.pdf
Proof that one picture is worth a thousand words…
http://www.investors.com/EditorialCartoons/Cartoon.aspx?id=561634
One of the best summations of the dilemma being inflicted on us I’ve seen yet.
Ow.
That’ll take a lot longer and cost a heck of a lot more to replace than some downed power lines…
Is this an isolated incident (mfg QA went bad) or are all of the towers in the area down?
So that’s where old turbines go to die.
Trust it did not crush any wandering polar bears
It’s certainly amusing to see a wind turbine brought down by the wind!
But of course the only ‘promise’ of wind power is huge energy bills and endless power cuts if – heaven forbid – wind power becomes a major power source (our UK government is aiming for about 30%, a completely mad fantasy).
I would recommend this site:
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm
It gives the percentage wind power output for the entire UK (current, for the last 30 minutes and 24 hours, go to the table near the bottom).
Today the 24 hour average is about 3%, but it is often a small fraction of 1%. On one occasion a few weeks ago, when we were suffering exceptionally cold and snowy conditions, the current value was zero percent (0.1% for the last 24 hours). For the entire UK, these pointless monsters were putting out something like 80 Mw, a tiny amount. And precisely at a time when we needed all the energy we could get for heating. Complete madness.
Chris
I recall the early 1960s when ‘UK’ Ferrybridge ‘C’ cooling towers collapsed due to Wind
On 1 November 1965, three of the cooling towers collapsed due to vibrations in 85 mph winds.
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Ferrybridge_power_station
By the look of it that was a compressive buckling failure – so all about the wind speed (or a spinning broken rotor imbalance), not cold making steel brittle.
I wonder how many others had the same fate in that area;
Foote Creek I – 69 turbines
Foote Creek II – 3 turbines
Foote Creek III – 33 turbines
Foote Creek IV – 28 turbines
or was this just maybe a cow bumping into it too many times.
And to think the California wind farm only wanted the PUC to allow it to charge a $1 a KWH … I wonder did that include batteries and replacement wind mills … And what about the birds whacked? Who pays for clean up.
Snows mean global warming is going to kill us all, if we still have anything to eat.