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
All part of the mix of reasons as to why these things are such a disaster and not a serious contributor to public electrical supply. There have actually been a significant number of failures of various types. Any idea as to how big this one was?
Too cold for wind generation. Transmission box problems and other problems stop the novelty. Of course the Hazmat problem now comes with the oil being spilled and soil contaminated.
That bust windmill looks a bit like an upside down hockey stick.
Just the one?
Gee, that’s too bad! A travesty to be sure!
What a waste of perfectly good resources…
Building industrial wind turbines I mean!
Sean.
But at least the windmill is statistically robust!
Just plug in my electric heater and …….. wait for the coal fired plant to be built. Maybe ask the Chinese if we could use one of their thorium plants. Go Obama and AGW!
remember how Boone Pickens built all those wonderful windmills in Texas? This morning, across the state, we are being forced to sit through rolling blackouts (15 minutes at a time) because nobody predicted that the temp would drop so low this year, and that we would want to use so much power to stay warm when it did!
Looking at the pictures my metallurgical engineering mind tells me that the cause of failure is not brittleness but buckling due to too week shell to withstand the bending forces caused by the heavy wind.
To those who believe in wind power – please sell everything you own (house, car, etc.) and invest the proceeds in a wind farm. Safe, reliable, cheap…should recoup your investment in no time. Right?
For the rest of us in the real world, we need to decide if we’re serious about nuclear power, since that will be one of our only alternatives for abundant, reliable power in the future.
By the way, how do you recharge your electric vehicle when the power goes out…
Nearly 1000 accidents.
73 fatalities.
These on ONE group of windfarms, as per Keith’s link above.
I wonder how this compares with, say, the same amount of generating capacity from fossil-fuels, over the same period..??
I think its time we found this out, don’t you..?
There are many grades of structural steel that have ductile-brittle transition temperatures below -54F. The photos indicate a possible weld failure. There are a number of heat affect zone problems that could have caused the failure. The low temperatures and high winds were only likely contributing factors.
MostlyHarmless says:
February 2, 2011 at 1:53 am
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.
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I’m curious to know why you think that red kites manage to avoid all the buildings but somehow have a blind spot for wind turbines? I’d have thought that more Red kites are stuck by lorries on the M40 than wind turbine blades.
I’d also hardly say the Didcot power station has improved the landscape around here, I’d perfer a wind farm to the sight of the giant cooling towers and the billowing steam cloulds any day of the week!
omegaman66 says:
February 2, 2011 at 12:23 am
So build it stronger don’t see this as a big issue. There are much bigger.
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Sure, double or triple the over engineering for safety. What’s wasting a few more dollars on a known boondoggle?
Brian Johnson uk says:
February 2, 2011 at 1:23 am
> Wind chill is really only relevant to living things that expire water through their skin, …
“only” is wrong. Wind chill is a measurement of how quickly heat is lost through skin, and there isn’t much sweat to evaporate at cold temperatures. The test done to develop the current equation was done with heated surfaces, not moist surfaces. The windchill effect applies to anything that is heated. In this case, the tower wasn’t heated and the only significant temperature is the ambient air temp. Wind only contributed as a lateral force.
…but but who dunnit? – was it windmade™?
—————————————————————————————-
Groups launch wind power product label- “WindMade”
“Electricity generated from renewable sources is often more EXPENSIVE ……..WE hope that this will create a strong element of CONSUMER PULL……said Ditlev Engel, VESTAS chief executive”
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http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFLDE70G1IU20110117
Windmade is a non-profit organisation….
V Martin says: February 2, 2011 at 5:20 am
“All part of the mix of reasons as to why these things are such a disaster and not a serious contributor to public electrical supply. There have actually been a significant number of failures of various types. “
Unfortunately, I used to be a bit of an expert in wind energy and to say “there have been a significant number of failures” is a complete understatement. In fact the main route of technology development in wind energy has been the need to overcome failure mechanisms particularly the gear box, but other things like the brakes are critical components.
To try and put the problem in perspective, the average windmill blade travels approximately 1million miles/year – and it has to do so with minimal servicing! Compare that to the 5000 miles for a car, and you may begin to appreciate the problem. Surprisingly (for me) the key was the mass of oil in the gearbox and allowing sufficient time for the oil to loose entrapped air. Apparently when the stresses and strains of gusts and high speeds combine, the entrapped air can’t escape leaving dry spots which then lead to abrasion and thence quickly lead to destruction of the bearings (or that’s what I thought they said – my Danish wasn’t good enough for a technical conversation.) I still have one of these failed bearings as a paper weight to remind me!
Originally the windmills used simple gearboxes (second hand lorry gearboxes), over the years these have become very complex and the expertise in this area was one of the key reasons the Danes were early leaders in this field.
But catastrophic failures are not only nothing new, understanding them is the key to success in the wind industry (that and slick PR to con people over global warming … aka spin!)
I used to have a windmill on our house for experimental purposes with control equipment, until I personally experienced the headache of a windmill “exploding”. These windmills were on a hill, and after one stormy night I went up the hill to find both windmills had shed their blades and even those these were toy ones (1m across), some blades had travelled over 50m. This together with the fact I was worried the vibration was going to cause structural damage to our house is why I took down the turbine from the roof and have advised against anyone fitting one to their own roof.
I’d just like to say thanks for the laughs this morning. Had to get out of my all wheel drive twice this m
R de Haan (above) wonders about how wind farms in Queensland are going to stand up to the cuurent cyclone. With the help of his link, I identified this one, which I think is interesting:
Windy Hill Wind Farm (wouldn’tcha know it..??)
Location: Ravenshoe (that’s only about 10 miles from the coast – just south of Cairns)
Cost: Get this – AUS$20M
Capacity: 12MW (that’s theoretical capacity of course – equates to AUS$1.67M/MW..!!)
Range: 13-25 metres/second – which seems extraordinarily narrow to me..!
Well – let’s see how it gets on…
Good thing coal, gas & nuke plants don’t get flattened by the wind….
Ed Zuiderwijk says:
February 2, 2011 at 1:17 am
That was cold. 🙂
Subsidized wind turbines must be cheaply built to justify their use as power generators. And therein lies the problem. Let us hope that the powers that be did not actually consider this as an asset and even engineer for its existence, so that a high repair rate would help build the green economy.
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Impotent impudence.
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“brad says:
February 2, 2011 at 3:31 am”
Maybe you should have a chat to the French about nuclear power generation. They seem to have no issues what so ever with their nuclear plants. They even sell their surplus power to other EU countries.
With your gun and car analogies, you forget the human stupidity factor. Should we ban human stupidity too?
FYI, rolling blackouts in Texas this morning. Apparently the wind isn’t blowing on the W TX windmills…
Can we imagine what a “solar farm” would look like after a damaging windstorm? Better put spoilers on the edges of the panels.