h/t jeffy; If it wasn’t so serious it would be funny.
Wind Turbines Taller Than the Statue of Liberty Are Falling Over
Jan. 23, 2023, 7:00 PM
On a calm, sunny day last June, Mike Willey was feeding his cattle when he got a call from the local sheriff’s dispatcher. A motorist had reported that one of the huge turbines at a nearby wind farm had collapsed in dramatic fashion. Willey, chief of the volunteer fire department in Ames, 90 miles northwest of Oklahoma City, set out to survey the scene.
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The instances are part of a rash of recent wind turbine malfunctions across the US and Europe, ranging from failures of key components to full collapses. Some industry veterans say they’re happening more often, even if the events are occurring at only a small fraction of installed machines. The problems have added hundreds of millions of dollars in costs for the three largest Western turbine makers, GE, Vestas Wind Systems and Siemens Energy’s Siemens Gamesa unit; and they could result in more expensive insurance policies—a potential setback for the push to abandon fossil fuels and fight climate change.
The race to add production lines for ever-bigger turbines is cited as a major culprit by people in the industry. “We’re seeing these failures happening in a shorter time frame on the newer turbines, and that’s quite concerning,” says Fraser McLachlan, chief executive officer of London-based GCube Underwriting Ltd., which insures about $3.5 billion in wind assets in 38 countries. If the failure rate keeps climbing, he says, insurance premiums could increase or new coverage limits could be imposed.
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Read more: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/esg/wind-turbines-taller-than-the-statue-of-liberty-are-falling-over
The following is a video of some impressive turbine fails;
What can I say?
Clearly the hundreds of carbon intensive tons of concrete and steel and petroleum plastic used to build each wind turbine are not enough.
What we need for truly safe wind turbines is even more coal smelted steel and concrete, even more plastic and factory produced fibreglass or carbon fibre, to reinforce the structures and ensure turbines are strong enough to provide clean energy. /sarc
Wind generators of the current poor design are an energy sink. They would need to operate over 180 years to return the energy invested in them and the system that enables them to add energy to the network. Fatigue cycle on support structure requires the very best design and expensive castings. Welded construction just has limited durability under the load cycles. Offshore turbines have corrosion issues as well. The offshore wind farmers have rising maintenance burdens that will make insurance prohiyedly expensive. The current offshore wind farms are the reefs of the future. That is more beneficial than their imposition on dispatchable generators.
Only a few regions can operate as parasites on the neighbouring regions regions before the Ponzi collapses. South Australia and Germany are both using neighbouring regions to impose their value eroding intermittency
Great comment, Rick Will..
Based on my expectations that everything leftists claim is exaggerated or just a lie, I never assumed bird and bat shredders would last an average of 15 years, especially those in salt water. Leftists make biased lifespan claims with no data to support them.
I was not assuming windmill fires, windmills collapsing and higher insurance costs. I just believed anyone who wanted windmills connected to electric grids had no engineering sense and could not be trusted. I was only assuming windmills would wear out, especially the huge windmills, or become obsolete because of new more efficient designs, Leftist claims about electric vehicles are similarly biased.
This is the first energy article I read this morning and the first article on my daily recommended reading list:
Honest Climate Science and Energy
Unfortunately for both Wind and Solar the weather doesn’t always provide optimal fuel supplies
I believe windmills provide little or no power about 60% of the time and rarely reach maximum power output during the other 40%. With higher wind speeds, I believe they’d wear out even faster! The first windmill attached to an electric grid is “overbuilding”.(aka, a waste of money) since it requires 100% natural gas backup, which is never included in the Liar’s Cost of Energy (LCOE) number.
This one fell in NY some years ago.
This was a vertical “Darrieus wind turbine”
See the Wikipedia entry as to why these are problems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrieus_wind_turbine
Here is a report:
https://abc7ny.com/billboard-falls-collapse-bronx/5799270/
There was a post or two at the time, here {2019/12/31} and elsewhere.
Oh I thought the pic was a failed windmill on the roof of
a proto-type on-board car unit.
‘They would need to operate over 180 years to return the energy invested in them and the system that enables them to add energy to the network.’
Rick,
Is there support for this claim? The wind shills have studies that claim wind energy payback in less than a year:
https://www.inderscienceonline.com/doi/abs/10.1504/IJSM.2014.062496
Not trying to be difficult here, as I believe wind (and solar) are useless on the bases of economics and intermittency. But we clearly need facts to counter alarmists’ / crony capitalists’ claims, not unsupported statements or silly ‘mathematical proofs’.
RickWill is talking about the time to pay back the energy used to make them, not the cost. When you’re looking only at cost you need to adjust for both overt subsidies and covert subsidies. Overt subsidies include money paid by government for them to be built. Covert subsidies include money paid by customers (almost always without their knowledge) to subsidize operations. They’re both so very high that I wouldn’t be surprised if the investors got their money back after a year. But not the taxpayers and customers.
The claim is that a wind turbine can’t produce the energy required to fabricate, transport, construct , operate and maintain it over some period of time. Again, I don’t believe renewables get built absent political coercion and subsidies, but to say they’re a net energy sink without having data in hand plays into the hands of their supporters.
“They would need to operate over 180 years to return the energy invested in them and the system that enables them to add energy to the network.”
I misread that number.
%$#@% speed reading!
“180 years” does not make sense.’
I thought I had read 180 months, not 180 years!
Rick, I guess they don’t want to be asked about what incendiary failures of $12 million Lithium battery grid storage units would add to the insurance payouts. The first two sent to South Australia self-ignited and burned right up.
Insurance premiums “could” be raised? (trying to be funny:) Where you born in a cave? — Yesterday? They will raise premiums on any pretense “As the night follow the day”. They only paid Silverstein because they got to raise everyone else’s premiums when they knew it would never, that it was impossible for it to happen again – all those increased premiums are pure profit.
We’ve had wind droughts and little Sun. Gas prices literally went through the roof. So, some of us went back to old methods of heating
“”And yet enforcement and control remains ineffective. Dr James Heydon, of the University of Nottingham, has been researching the way in which the legal controls on home fires have failed to address this problem.””
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/27/worst-london-air-pollution-in-six-years-as-home-fires-burn
You can see where this is going. The air in London today is the cleanest its been as anyone who can remember the 50s and 60s can tell you
There’s no wind today…
What is really, really crazy is that now in the UK they are at the same time paying operators not to generate (constraint payments) and paying consumers not to turn on appliances and use electricity, because there is a shortage of power because not enough wind.
Well, its not really at the very same time, that’s not accurate. Not at the same hour or minute. But in the same month, probably in the same week, and quite possibly sometimes on the same day. This is the cost of intermittency. You go from flood to drought in a matter of hours.
“Oh what twisted webs we weave when first we practice to deceive”
They know how to print money…
Mechanical engineers are being displaced by financial engineers.
And creative accounting has found its niche.
I think we actually reached the point where it was at the same time, caused by transmission constraints from the North to feed London and the French interconnectors while the more local wind farms (Rampion, London Array, etc.) were becalmed.
Yes the increasing failures are being noticed in Oz-
June last year-
https://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-turbine-collapses-in-serious-event-at-wa-wind-farm/
and the latest in January-
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-05/fire-crews-tackle-wind-turbine-fire/101828414
Pushing the limits of engineering-
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a42622565/wind-turbines-falling-over/
and obviously the wind industry can’t foist that on insurers for very long as it’s a numbers game for them too.
Insurers don’t like to pay money out. Pretty soon they’re going to say it happened because of improper design and construction. No money for you fools.
The “GE CEO” stating that “Rapid innovation strains manufacturing and the broader supply chain.” is complete nonsense. Manufacturers either have functioning quality systems, or they do not.
I suspect the constant pressure for ever-greater profits from the government-funded Pinwheel Ponzi has brought a lot of 3rd World steel into the supply chain. That can be deadly.
More like the pressures for manufacturers simply to remain afloat-
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/wind-turbine-makers-struggle-find-pricing-power-2022-05-05/
Particularly feeling the squeeze from coal fired China plus the Commies are prepared to ignore return on capital in order to play the long game.
Sheesh. For some of the wind turbine failures in the video, it appears that someone hath lobbed the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch at them.
Regards,
Bob
They’re also mostly over 10 years ago. A deliberate news blackout?
Must be windmill sabotage by reckless climate deniers?
I bet politicians and activists will very soon blame wind turbine failures on the climate crisis.
I think you’re right. It’s those weather-weirding winds that the designers had no way to anticipate! \sarc
A new weather phenomena
Brits hit with snow and 3,000-mile circle of winds due to ‘frozen donut at top of world’Warnings have been put in place as a ‘frozen donut’ will spark another cold snap across the country as boffins warn of more chills and snow with no sign of the frosty weather stopping soon
UK Daily Star
Shouldn’t that be doughnut?
English vs American spelling
The language I speak is English, the news outlet mentioned is called the UK Daily Star….
Maybe “doughnutte” then?
We’re familiar with the problem. Nations divided by a common language.
or Trump
Here is another one, from the Bronx, NYC. A vertical axis turbine failed and luckily did not hurt anyone. VERY foolish to have installed it in the first place.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/30/us/wind-turbine-collapse-new-york-trnd/index.html
See my comment above to Mark W.
Two possibilities:
1 – The windmill collapsed on a calm day. That’s really really bad. Whoever designed and built the windmill should lose their engineering licenses.
2 – The windmill collapsed in a wind storm and its collapse wasn’t noticed ’til later. In that case, the operator should have known about it instantly. You’d think the very expensive windmills would be thoroughly monitored.
Since they are usually far from human habitation, these giant windmills aren’t much of a hazard, but they also aren’t completely safe. house struck Maybe the setback for a giant windmill should be the distance it could toss a chunk of blade. Given that the velocity of the tip of the blade could be around the speed of sound, I’m guessing it could travel a couple of miles (ignoring air resistance).
I’ve seen vids of them throwing ice quite a distance. 😲
I think rotor tip speeds are limited to around 200mph.
Well that what they SHOULD be limited to. But when the brakes fail in a high wind…
Mosdt efficient working is at tip speeds well below the speed of sound. About 200-300mph usually. A turbine that is out of control however…
…perhaps we should invoke the ‘precautionary principle’ and ban wind turbines altogether/
This! Like they said about banning gas stoves, if they can’t make them safe, they need to be banned!
The progressive standard for regulating things of which they do not approve is, “If it would save just one life…”
Taken to its logical conclusion, that standard leads to the elimination of every human invention ever devised because someone somewhere once passed away in an unfortunate accident involving a paper straw and two sheets of toilet paper.
The fallen windmill is in danger of becoming a symbol of impotence.
Mr. Layman here.
Why do wind turbines need to be so high with turning vertical blades?
Why not one closer to ground using a horizontal centrifugal fan to catch the wind?
(Of course both would be a waste of resources.)
They do exist just not in the large capacity as the windmills we see.
Perhaps because wind speeds increase with height?
Because wind speeds are higher and more consistent/less turbulent.
http://www.xn--drmstrre-64ad.dk/wp-content/wind/miller/windpower%20web/en/tour/wres/shear.htm
The output of a wind turbine is proportional to the blade swept area and I think the cube of wind velocity. Going higher allows a bigger blade, and gets you clear of ground level ‘boundary effects’, and so nets a higher power per unit ground area. I .e. if you double the height, you have half the number of turbines on a given patch but 2 times the power output. (4 times per wind turbine, half number of turbines).
When the wind speed is too low, as it is 60% of the time, you get little or no electricity no matter how large the windmill is.
See my comment above, reply to Mark W. , and follow the link to the Wikipedia page of “Darrieus wind turbine”
I was thinking of a “fan” setup more along the lines of the blower fan in a central air system.
Along the lines of this one. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Centrifugal-Blower-Fan-Impeller-Manufacturers-OEM_1600593593038.html?s=p
Thank you all for taking the time try and answer “a dumb question”.
(I come here to learn and, maybe too often, make wisecracks. Occasionally I think I actually contribute something useful!)
One thing is quite clear, these turbine failures are a consequence of climate change, at least as perceived by our politicians.
If our politicians didn’t use “climate change” for gain, we would have any of them anyway.
(Or at least not paid for on taxpayers’ dime.)
I’d rather live next to a nuclear power station.
They will just be placed further away from land. Or in the case below, they’ll be floating so they fall to the bottom of the ocean:
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/semi-submersible-floating-offshore-wind-farm
Perhaps the egg beater shape will win out:
https://electrek.co/2023/01/27/norway-vertical-axis-floating-wind-turbine/
One advantage, especially to whales and other sea life, is that type of rotation should not produce the extremely powerful pulses of very low frequency sound that is inherently part of the propeller type’s operation. Whale communication, as one example, is at very low frequencies, so the vertical axis turbines might be less destructive.
The article mentions Siemens Gamesa as one of the three largest western manufacturers. It, like all of the 5 European turbine manufacturers, has been operating at a loss for well over a year. They have been beseeching the European Commission to declare wind power a strategic industry and provide more subsidies (although they don’t put it as baldly as that).
In September 2022 Siemens Gamesa issued a press release entitled ‘Europe’s energy independence impossible unless wind power considered a strategic industry’ (26th Sept)
“The sectors ability to produce profitably is currently threatened by auctions solely driven by price, slow permitting and,ultimately, soaring prices for energy, commodities and transport …….. As a result wind turbine manufacturers are operating at massive losses and cannot invest to satisfy the growing demand for wind energy”
Right now, wind in the UK is providing about 50% of demand. I’m sure the thermageddonists will be shouting from the rooftops about it. However, they need to be reminded that last night wind was supplying…..
…. 7%
The thermageddonists never seem to get their head round the fact that this intermittency is the problem.
Blade length in 2040 – maybe
https://www.tno.nl/en/newsroom/insights/2022/04/wind-turbine-145-metre-blades-reduced/
This makes the tip to tip distance about 260 m.
Wind blows irregularly – meaning there are pressure differences from side to side. Twisting, vibration, and wear are inevitable.
OT: I suddenly stopped getting email updates on articles over the weekend. I’ve checked my settings and I’m still set to follow by email. Anyone else have the same issue?
“What we need for truly safe wind turbines is” to make them 2″ tall. That way they won’t injure anyone, unless you stepped on one, and they’ll be equally effective as the full-sized version.
Slightly OT: would we not expect the operators to provide bonds to finance the removal of these installations after their effective life ends. That would be costly on land and very very costly offshore.
Oil and gas have to do it and nuclear has to as well. Why not windmill owners.
The good book does not mention such nonsense. Thus the priests will not bless any such requirements.
Wind and solar are not a substitute for fossil fuel and nuclear.
Here is an article from American Thinker which included a photo of a turbine that seems to have pulled it’s platform from the ground. Certainly the ‘engineering’ lacks in a variety of aspects. Funny that NextEra says it is extremely rare for a wind turbine to fall over.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/huge_wind_turbines__taller_than_the_statue_of_liberty__are_toppling_over_in_a_rash_of_incidents.html
https://www.journal-advocate.com/2022/06/23/niyol-wind-turbine-comes-crashing-down-nextera-is-investigating/
1000 feet from the road so it’s safe?
It’s crystal clear that these people don’t understand how much energy is involved when those monster blades are spinning out of control.