Chris White Tech Reporter
December 30, 2019 5:43 PM ET
Blades from a massive wind turbine crumpled to the ground Monday, smashing a car flat and damaging another piece of infrastructure, authorities said.
“This shouldn’t have been put up so hastily. A wind turbine should not be able to be taken down by the wind,” state Sen. Jamaal Bailey said during a press conference discussing the incident, which happened in the Bronx.
A car was smashed and a billboard was knocked down but nobody was injured, according to fire and police officials. (RELATED: Trump Mocks ‘Big Windmills’ In Pennsylvania While Cheering On His Pro-Coal Policies)
During the press conference, Bailey and Assemblyman Mike Benedetto called on the city Department of Buildings (DOB) to make “sure something like this doesn’t happen again.” Both men spoke at the site of the collapse and were struggling to project their voices over the sound of roaring wind.
DOB did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
BREAKING: New York State Assemblyman @mikebenedetto82 and state Sen. @jamaaltbailey address the media at the site of the 500 Baychester Ave. wind turbine and sign collapse.
Bailey: “A wind turbine should not be able to be taken down by the wind.” pic.twitter.com/5ZCeea2l9a
— Co-op City Times (@coopcitytimes) December 30, 2019
New York has worked to transition the state away from fossil fuels and toward other forms of energy, namely solar power and wind turbines. The New York State Thruway Authority built five wind turbines in 2015 along the thruway in the western corner of the state to help in the transition.
The project was expensive, with the five windmills costing $4.8 million and another $500,000 for design expenditures. The authority believed the turbines would pay for themselves, saving as much as $420,000 annually on energy bills. Such forms of energy also have detractors.
President Donald Trump, for instance, often mocks turbines for not being as reliable as natural gas or crude oil.
“When the wind stops blowing, it doesn’t make any difference, does it? Unlike those big windmills that destroy everybody’s property values, kill all the birds,” Trump told a crowd who gathered to hear him speak at a chemical plant in August.
Trump added: “One day the environmentalists are going to tell us what’s going on with that. And then all of a sudden it stops.”
HT/Yooper
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One of the links stated that the monster had been in operation for only two weeks.
re: “One of the links stated that the monster had been in operation for only two weeks.”
The Google Street View did not show a turbine from – a year or so back either, so there is that too.
Half the of the Big Tower was obvious and visible, but nothing atop it.
Yeah, one article I read said it started operation on Dec 17th.
The design of the wind turbine reminded of a smaller one located outside the former offices of Quantum Energy Storage in Poway, Ca. They put up the turbine to draw the eye of passers by to their business sign. I think it might have actually generated some power, once upon a time. Quantum Energy Storage went out of business about a year after they had an ‘accident’ with one of their energy storage systems. Seems an 11 ton flywheel, spinning at 6,000 rpm got loose of it’s mounting and, well, it’s a minor miracle there were no deaths.
And, yes, when they went out of business the wind turbine was abandoned and is still there. I drive past it almost every day.
Cheers
Max
Another shoot, ready, aim from the SJW and Enviro freaks. Thankfully no one was injured. This time.
Surely this can be linked to gun rights and gun laws
It’s all Trumps Fault. Shifty Shiff says he has proof that Trump colluded with Russians to make the turbine collapse.
The gangs of NY and wind turbine construction is a scary thought.
Sited improperly–missed City Hall.
+50
Hardly massive. The truly “masive” wind turbines have blades over 100 feet long and put out 5 plus megawatts of power. This was barely a “mid sized” turbine. Kills me how this is being made into a big story about the failure of alternative energy. The design of this turbine is the culprit here. There are thousands of turbines in operation in far more volatile regions that are doing just fine thank you and are not monuments to liberal ideals they are effective and cost efficient sources of energy and have proven their economic payback in reasonable time frames. Wind power isn’t going away and can only improve over time. The incessant whining about it from some in the name of pitting right against left is growing tiresome and is frankly immature, short sighted and saddening.
Simple arithmetic demonstrates windmills are a loser.
5 mW wind turbine, avg output 1/3 nameplate, 20 yr life, electricity @ur momisugly wholesale 3 cents per kwh https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34552 produces $8.8E6.
Installed cost @ur momisugly $1.61E6/mW = $8.05E6. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/08/f54/2017_wind_technologies_market_report_8.15.18.v2.pdf
Operation & maintenance @ur momisugly $210,000/yr = $4.2E6 http://www.newenergyupdate.com/wind-energy-update/us-wind-om-costs-estimated-48000mw-falling-costs-create-new-industrial-uses-iea
Total cost = $12.2E6
Add the cost of energy storage facility and energy availability loss during storage/retrieval, or initial and maintenance cost of standby CCGT for low wind periods.
Solar voltaic and solar thermal are even worse with special concern for disposal and/or recycling at end-of-life (about 15 yr for PV).
Combined cycle gas turbine $614/kw ($0.6E6/mW) installed cost. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=31912
The dollar relation is a proxy for energy relation (the earth does not charge). Bottom line, the energy consumed to design, manufacture, install, maintain and administer renewables exceeds the energy they produce in their lifetime.
Without the energy provided by other sources renewables could not exist.
It really doesn’t matter what the nameplate output is because a wind turbine can only ever convert ~59% of the kinetic energy in the source wind to useful power output from the turbine, and that is in ideal conditions too. Betz law I think it is.
Has anyone blamed climate change for these obviously unprecedented wind speeds yet?
They will have to now remove the others as well. The NY city attorneys and state official wll now realize there is too much of a liability to let them remain, waiting to fall and kill someone the next time.
Any “savings” the city and developers thought they might have gotten from a few megawatt-hours of electricity is now a huge financial loss for all involved.
Investment losses in renewable energy schemes are a civic “good”, as it will help end the scam on electricity rate payers and taxpayers providing tax credits for rich people.
They will have to now remove the others as well.
What others?
While this was a lone (unauthorized?) wind turbine on private property, just the other year New York City council was considering a bill to standardize roof-top wind turbine installation in the city.
https://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20180420/POLITICS/180429982/new-york-city-council-bill-would-put-more-wind-turbines-on-nyc-rooftops
Don’t know if the bill passed or not, but it does rather suggest that there are other wind turbine projects within the city (either already existing or being planned).
I like all these people
– crying and shouting about a wind turbine crashing and damaging a few things around it,
but
– keeping so terribly silent about 160,000 Japanese people who had to leave their homes in 2011 in the near of Fukushima Daiichi because of the nuclear contamination of the land around it.
Great!
And no, no: don’t tell me it was due to the tsunami, that is too simple.
If the nuclear industry would be made responsible for all direct and indirect damages it causes, there wouldn’t be even one nuclear plant in activity.
Rgds
J.-P. D.
Nuclear is the alltime safest way to generate electricity:
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh) CORRECTED
Coal (elect, heat,cook –world avg) 100 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal electricity – world avg 60 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal (elect,heat,cook)– China 170
Coal electricity- China 90
Coal – USA 15
Oil 36 (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass 12
Peat 12
Solar (rooftop) 0.44 (0.2% of world energy for all solar)
Wind 0.15 (1.6% of world energy)
Hydro 0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro – world including Banqiao) 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy)
Communism killed over 100 million people in the C20th, yet here you are, pretending you care about the Japanese.
As I had anticipated: two completely useless, redundant answers.
re: “As I had anticipated: two completely useless, redundant answers.”
What was the overall cost/benefit over time? The amount of energy produced over the time in service versus all cost for each respective case?
_Jim
Incredible but true: not only one more completely useless, redundant answer.
In addition, the expression of brute force cynism.
Do you know what you and all other commenters thinking / writing like you should experience?
To be sent in that region for five years as a social worker, paid say maximally about 1,000 US$ a month, and whose job would be to help in the decontamination of the region, at your own risk and peril of course!
‘Cheers.’
J.-P. D.
re:
Non-responsive to my inquiry; we apparently can’t have an adult conversation, so, to that end, have a good day.
Make useless posts get “useless” replies. No reply would be “good enough” for you because you are trolling with an “equivalency fallacy”. And everyone here sees right though it, so the only one you are “fooling” is yourself.
This turbine collapsed under *normal* operating conditions (it had only been in operation for a matter of days). The problem was with the turbine itself and it’s purely down to luck that no one was injured or killed by either the falling turbine or by the billboard it knocked down.
Fukishima’s failure was a result of failure to properly plan for an known extreme condition (A tsunami generating a wave higher than the sea wall was designed to handle combined with improper placement of the emergency backup generator) and thus the problem wasn’t with the nuclear generator itself (which had reliably been in operation for *decades* not *days*). Had the owners of Fukishima heeded the reports that the sea wall needed to be higher, and/or had they placed the backup generator on higher ground or otherwise flood proofed the backup generator – then there would have been no problem).
And despite the very rare accident like Fukishima, the safety record of nuclear still remains the best of all forms of energy generation the world over bar none. And certainly the best for providing reliable energy that does not produce CO2 emissions (for those who claim to be concerned about CO2 emissions).
More recently highschool students in the Fukushima Prefecture started a worldwide radiation dosimetry test with other highschool students. They used dosimeters like the ones used in industry.
The results “High school students in Fukushima [Prefecture] do not suffer from significantly higher levels of radiation”
It’s uncommon knowledge, but EVERYONE is exposed to daily background radiation. In some places in the Caucusus(Georgia, Armenia, etc. east of the Black Sea.) and limited other areas people have been living for many centuries with background radiation up to 10X average and similar to the radiation after the atom bombs fell on Japan. They generally live long, busy lives with no unusual radiation caused diseases.
The only wide spread nasty effects of radiation come from radon gas leaking into homes and buildings due to underground rock formations or poorly formulated concrete. It can increase the incidence of radiation caused cancers, but can easily be mitigate with a cheap under the foundation ventilation system.
RADIATION is a bogeyman that is thrown around for emotional effect, not to communicate effective scientific knowledge.
re: “RADIATION is a bogeyman that is thrown around for emotional effect”
One wonders if Bindidon has ever seen a (Wilson) cloud chamber in operation? A nearly constant display of GCRs are seen at sea level, and even MORE at flight levels of 30k feet.
The final cause of the failure at Fukushima was placing the emergency backup generators at too low an elevation, or alternatively not making the backup generator flood proof.
So what happens next. The failed turbine has demonstrated a highly probable potential for a similar event at the other four turbines. Should the failed turbine be replaced? If so, what design changes should be made? Should these design changes be incorporated into the other turbines? My position is all windmills are worth less than nothing junk and should all be taken down and landfilled. Wouldn’t that be the best course for at least these egg beaters? The only thing we know for sure is we’ll never hear about this again. Doesn’t fit the save the planet agenda so ignore it.
It gets more interesting when I was holidaying for a couple of days at Edithburgh in South Australia and you can’t help noticing the 55 wind turbines of the Wattle Point wind farm and they’re all turning on the 29th Dec and seemingly so on the next morning of the 30th-
https://www.agl.com.au/about-agl/how-we-source-energy/wattle-point-wind-farm
Now grab these BoM weather readings for the 30th Dec at Edithburgh-
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDS60801/IDS60801.94809.shtml
and you can see the percentage of installed capacity of Wattle Point wind farm here if you quickly deselect all States bar SA and then uncheck the remaining wind farms except WPWF –
https://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2019/december/30
(do check out MTMILLAR in SA too for a head scratch although Starfish Hill STARHLWF on the opposite side of the Gulf has some correlation with Wattle Point)
Yes that’s what I noticed travelling back from Troubridge Point past the wind farm between 11.30AM and noon as all the turbines shut down with my car’s outside temp reading showing between 40-41 deg Centigrade.
Seems you can buy wind turbines that run OK up to 40C but the monitoring software for the bearings and gearboxes will throttle them to protect them presumably when the wind is up around 47km/hr and they’re turning at their max output and the ambient temp is at or near 40C which it was because there was a really hot dust storm blowing at the time-
“One of the tests SCADA Miner runs looks for constraints in wind turbine output occurring due to high temperature components. When purchasing a wind turbine, the power curve is guaranteed up to a certain ambient temperature (often 40°C). Beyond this temperature, the operating temperature of some components monitored by the wind turbine’s control system may exceed safe levels and initiate a temperature-induced constraint on the wind turbine.”
http://www.scadaminer.com/wind-turbine-temperature-performance/
Presumably that’s a hard question our energy regulator is asking of these unreliables after the Victorian hot spell-
http://www.wattclarity.com.au/articles/2019/12/aemo-pleads-with-wind-and-solar-farms/
It is madness to specify wind turbine generators with a low max temperature for operation in a hot country!
Thank goodness they spend other peoples money on these things.
Oops!
According to this news report:
https://gothamist.com/news/controversial-wind-turbine-collapses-knocks-down-billboard-bronx
the owner may have not had proper permits for the wind turbine.
The wind turbine had been a controversial feature in the neighborhood. The community was already reportedly up in arms about the illuminated billboard, and some believe, according to the Bronx Times, that after the “property’s owner was denied a NYC Department of Buildings permit for a third billboard, he decided to install a wind turbine instead.” (The third LED billboard would have been visible to Co-op City residents.)
Critics said the turbine was installed too quickly, and community board members and elected officials had been looking into whether there was proper permitting involved. News 12 reported earlier this month, “It is believed that because a theme park called Freedomland used to operate on the property years ago, the zoning laws were never changed.” (Freedomland was built in 1960 and went bankrupt in 1964.)