Essay by Eric Worrall
Except when struck by hail, hurricanes, floods or ordinary wear and tear.
Apr 24, 2025
At energy security talks, US pushes gas and derides renewables
The US envoy to the IEA’s energy security summit criticised renewables, arguing that they cause power cuts and increase reliance on China
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While the leaders of the UK, European Union (EU) and ministers from Barbados and Colombia argued that clean energy provides energy security, ministers and officials from oil and gas producers like the US, Iraq and Egypt said that fossil fuels should remain part of the energy system.
But while his Iraqi counterpart boasted of using more renewables alongside oil and gas, the US Department of Energy’s Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of International Affairs Tommy Joyce criticised renewables too, arguing that they cause power cuts and increase reliance on China.
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Von der Leyen argued that “clean homegrown renewables” strengthen the bloc’s resilience, while at the same time spurring new jobs and innovation. “As our energy dependency goes down, our energy security goes up. That is a lesson we have learnt in Europe,” she added.
Ministers from Barbados, Colombia, France and Spain echoed these messages. Colombia’s mines and energy minister Edwin Palma Egea saidclean energy would be cheaper in his country, where many people “have to choose between paying for energy or to eat – that is a dilemma for them”.
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Speaking to journalists in a briefing before the summit, energy experts said that relying on other countries for equipment like solar panels and wind turbines is preferable to relying on them for fuel. Ember’s Europe programme director Sarah Brown said importing fossil fuels involves “constant risk, constant cost” whereas importing machinery like solar panels is a one-off on both fronts.
Read more: https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/04/24/at-energy-security-talks-us-pushes-gas-and-derides-renewables/
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Obviously there were no engineers in the room, or if there were they weren’t talking. Renewables are anything but one off investments. Alumina Aluminum components corrode, especially in salty environments, glass panels are blasted by sand and other abrasives, or ripped apart by storms, and plastics, like electrical wire insulation, crumble into dust, especially under the intense ultraviolet of tropical climates.
Barbados might think they are purchasing a one off investment – but they’ll learn otherwise the first time a tropical cyclone rips through their new renewable showcase.
Not that Europe has to worry too much about tornadoes and ultraviolet corrosion of plastic – the challenge in Europe is getting enough sunlight to produce energy, especially in winter.
What about wind power?
The dirty secret of wind is in some ways it is even worse than solar, when it comes to maintenance difficulties.
Just in case you think that problem has been solved, here is another article from 2023;
Bearing and gearbox failures: Challenge to wind turbines
By Andrea Aikin
June 15, 2023The review of current trends in wind-turbine bearings is important, not only for reducing the cost of energy, but also for ensuring the future of sustainable and zero-emission energy sources.
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Bearing failures in wind turbines are a major cause of downtime in energy production for unplanned maintenance, repairs, and replacements. This failure type is a primary cost and results in higher operations and maintenance (O&M) costs for the energy operator and in higher utility bills for the customer. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) Gearbox Reliability Database (GRD) shows that 76 percent of gearboxes failed due to bearings, while 17 percent failed due to gear failures. [11] This shows the importance of reliable bearings and gearboxes for wind-turbine operations to the economy and society.
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Sheng noted axial cracks or WECs have attracted research attention, but “there is still no consensus on the root causes and solutions to completely get rid of this failure mode, although case-carburized bearing steel with increased retained austenite and diamond-like carbon coating appear helpful with its mitigation.” While axial cracking occurs on the surface, WECs, typically thought of as precursors to axial cracking, occur in the subsurface.
…Bearings in wind-turbine applications are known to show premature damage, typically as cracks in the bearing steel, with the crack faces often showing evidence of white etching matter. Based on their appearance, these are called WECs, and they are known to cause premature damage to the bearings. [9] WECs also are called white structure flaking (WSF), irregular white etching cracking (Ir-WEC), and brittle flaking. The cracks are thought to form first from the intensity of local shear stress, then the white etching matter is thought to form later from the rubbing of the crack faces against each other. [9,10]
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Read more: https://www.windsystemsmag.com/bearing-and-gearbox-failures-challenge-to-wind-turbines/
If I was to hazard a guess why offshore wind has not taken off in a big way, despite billions of dollars of subsidies, that guess would be that nobody has figured out how to economically replace the broken bearings. And if you think maintaining an onshore turbine is difficult, imagine attempting a delicate engineering repair in 30ft seas while suspended from a swaying ship mounted crane hundreds of feet in the air, along with the multi-ton bearing you are trying to install.
And of course, there is the cost of maintaining all the extra power lines these uneconomical abominations seem to require.
Is the false belief that renewables are a one off investment driving renewable enthusiasm? It seems possible – after all, if renewables truly were a one off investment, it would be like magic – put a little aside every year and within half a century or so, your “one off” renewable investments would be making substantial inroads into the cost of energy.
But if the last few decades have proven anything, that is that adding renewables to a grid makes electricity very expensive indeed. There is obviously a silent cost which is driving up prices, aside from the obvious cost of keeping dispatchable generators on standby. My guess is, that silent cost is the expense of maintaining renewable energy systems.
Correction (EW): h/t Scissor fixed a typo – Aluminum, not Alumina.
I’m not a huge fan of wind turbines except where they make most sense.
But…
..is just a dumb argument. Imagine not scheduling the repair for good weather.
Way overly optimistic-when things-esp. big things -break, repairs are a right now thing or everything just plain goes to Hell, right now, not later.
I see I’m in the dumb argument zone. As if a wind turbine needing repairs becomes a “now or never” issue. Typically there are many in a farm and their bearing state is well measured and understood.
OK, then-simplify: Think flat tire on the interstate-nobody available for at least 50 mi. any direction, with no spare tire. So, drive or not drive. If not drive, then wait maybe for a long time-if Winter, maybe die. If drive, then ruin tire, rim, transaxle, sparks, fire maybe…whatever. Point is, for lack of a shoe-the horse was lost, and so on. Money, money money, cascade effects-who knows? Shit happens, and it’s never good.
As a person who just had a flat tire, at a very inconvenient time, and without proper tools to fix it (here I blame hubby–his car), I can assure you you don’t schedule those either. Thank God for a couple good Samaritans and friends. I am with you. When stuff breaks, consequences and repairs range from a bad situation to a worse situation.
LOL. So one you claims that one wind turbine breaking down, in a field of a hundred or more, is the same as one flat tire on a car, which obviously can’t go anywhere without all tires inflated… Then you repeat this laughable allegory and make out that it proves your point!
Wind power is rubbish because it’s ridiculously expensive, and intermittent, that’s all you need to say…
Yes you are.
Maintenance means inspection and correction (repair) before failure to avoid wider, costly damage to the machine.
Maintenance and repairs (for off-shore) require availability of ships, crews, engineers and parts. These resources are provided by specialists not the wind turbine operators, so they are not just sitting around on eternal standby waiting for a “scheduled” break in the weather.
A wind turbines is only earning a return on investment if it is turning and supplying power to the grid.
I agree with everything but your last statement. With subsidies, wind turbines earn a ROI even when they are not spinning. Otherwise, there would be none of them.
Unfortunately your last sentence is not true.
The Seagreen offshore wind farm in the North Sea, for example, was paid £65m in 2024 to switch off.
So far in total during it’s short life it has been paid £104m to provide electricity and £262m to curtail and switch off.
You have a Nick Stokes engineering naivety … you don’t get to schedule a main bearing or gearbox repair the most common failure. The blades want to rotate but rotating involves extra heat and pressure on the now broken part have a guess what happens next. Tell you what try it go out to your car and drop all the radiator water and take it for a drive.
Perhaps try a simple google search on something like
“Wind turbine main bearing or gearbox failure and urgency to repair”
You absolutely do. If catastrophic failure occurs then the repair is totally non trivial and is likely to take months at least before implementation. For inspections they’re definitely scheduled and won’t happen in risky conditions because that’s the way large corporations work.
And because of subsidies we are still paying them even when they don’t work. Coupled with the extra expense of reliable backups (natural gas, coal and nuclear) online is why renewables are driving the cost of electricity up.
You apparently believe that corporations can schedule when the weather is going to be good.
You misunderstood the comment.
You do not have those major repairs on a maintenance schedule.
There are two types of activities. Inspections. Those are scheduled around weather. And major repairs. Those are scheduled around weather.
I just don’t understand comments from people who believe anything is scheduled for good weather as opposed to a scheduled window to allow for weather.
They’re truly dumb comments.
You don’t have repair barges just sitting around for whenever the weather just happens to be good.
You schedule them months in advance and if the weather isn’t good when they are available, you either reschedule it for 6 months in advance again hoping that this time the weather will be good (along with the fine for missing your appointment), or you just go ahead and do the repair, regardless of what the weather is.
A relation was in the oil industry all his career. He finished up as a “boss boss driller”. Paid very well to sit most of the time but when things broke to fix it – like yesterday preferably
And a comment of his – “The North Sea is bloody dangerous – and so is Bass Strait”
Yes, drilling for oil is much worse. The potential for environmental damage and subsequent costs and bad publicity makes for a harsher more immediate working environment.
I think in this case it’s both Hell and high water.
I seriously doubt that good weather can be scheduled. A bearing change is a rather large endeavor to be reliably completed within a total calm period and even the normal 5 to 10 foot waves makes the job so much more difficult.
Do you think they do the repairs from a dinghy?
Have you seen what bad weather can do to a ship? 5 to 10 Foot waves are a calm day … when the weather gets bad 50-foot waves are not uncommon. Oil rig workers can attest to that.
Have you seen how they do the repairs?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VvBrxMwhtu0?t=11&feature=share
Do you think 5-10 foot waves make the slightest difference there?
Tim, you seem to have an aggressive disposition today. I said 5 – 10 foot waves are a calm day in the North Sea … in fact, many ‘seas’, to which as a yachtsman who has navigated a good open ocean blow I can personally attest to. However, 50′ waves in bad weather, especially the shallow banks of the North Sea are not uncommon and even oil tankers have been snapped there.
Heck, sometimes the front falls off…
https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM
You’re probably right and Eric didn’t deserve it. But having said that, I never pull my punches on anyone who makes a silly argument and for example, I’ve butted heads with Willis many times over the years even though I generally respect his point of view on most things.
Mr. ToolMan: After reading the back-and-forth, IMO you need to learn when not to punch. Your point comes off as nitpicking; there are rough seas where they put windmills, are there not? Those seas are not as predictable as you suggest. I don’t need to see a video of how repairs are done to know that such weather makes repair more dangerous at sea. I normally agree with you, but here, I don’t.
I would think, not being a mariner or anything, that since wind causes waves, these windmills get put in places where there are waves too, because by definition that is where the wind is. Maybe I am missing something.
Yes but they absolutely won’t perform risky dangerous repair work in 30ft seas. Why would they risk much greater damage? Eric’s claim was bogus and deserved criticism.
I quess the weather would never change once you have started repairs.🤦♂️🙄
A storm can and will show up at any time, usually when it is worst possible time.
Anything is possible but that’s why they work within weather forecasts. And if the weather unforseeably turns bad then they’ll certainly defer repairs until the risk is again acceptable.
You appear to assume that the wind turbines have some sort of health-monitoring system included to report the status of the turbine to some management organization that can then determine the rate of degradation of individual components, and allow scheduling of maintenance.
Great idea. Did the turbine manufacturers include such a system? It costs money to emplace the sensors and radio systems (capital) and it costs money to receive and analyze the data, and then schedule the maintenance (operating costs). Note that the sensors and radios also need to be maintained.
And even if the turbine manufacturers did all that , things do just break. And in some cases, continued operation of the turbine after some failures will lead to structural failures and destruction of the turbine before anyone can even get to the turbine to repair it. Sort of like a failed blade washing up on shore on Martha’s Vineyard. (Or was it Nantucket?)
What happens with such a major failure that is not immediately repaired? How much more of the mechanism is damaged destroyed? What happens to the blades? Lots of unknowns which is why when it is first detected, repair becomes a high priority.
And if seas are rough and wind is blowing strong, you must delay and the propagation of failures becomes a higher probability.
A typical turbine costs millions of dollars. Sometimes tens of millions. Its already tethered via its power cable. Do you seriously think they’re not monitored?
You’re the one who brought up weather. Eric said “30-foot seas”, but you seem to have interpreted that as 30-foot swells or waves, which is not at all the same thing. He certainly didn’t say anything about pouring rain, high winds, lightning, etc. If he had, then maybe your objection would have some merit
I know what it means. If you’re unsure then perhaps you can find an example of 30ft seas that would be OK for repairs.
Tim, you are right, they don’t use a ship, but that jackup won’t work with a floating windmill in deep water, you have to tow it away to a sheltered place to repair it, or use a semisubmersable crane barge.
Do you think 5 to 10 foot waves have no impact on large vessels?
Also, the workers are on top of 100 foot towers, so that even small movements of the ship itself get magnified many times over.
Watch the video I posted Mark.
..then try to imagine lining up the necessary ship, crew, crane operator and bearing replacement crew on the ‘good weather’ day. Then multiply that imagination by the number of turbines/ good weather days as they’ll all likely conk out at the same time as they were all commissioned at the same time.
They’ll only very rarely “conk out”. Their bearings will be monitored, modelled and understood, statistically if nothing else. Most breakages will be forecastable and manageable.
Yep, forecastable and manageable…. 😉
I said rarely. And if that was offshore, they certainly wouldn’t be sending the repair ship out in the middle of the hurricane.
There are hundreds of pics on the web of defunct and self-destroying wind turbines. !
And those are onshore. The wear and tear on offshore units is many times worse.
YEP We had one burn up like that locally.
They just left the stump in the ground and never repaired it.
Sorry who told you that bullshit even the wind industry group will tell you that.
There is unknown cause for most early failures and an average offshore wind turbine experiences 8-9 failures a year. Yes that isn’t a typo 8-9 per year versus around 2.5 for land based.
again google
“Average offshore Wind turbine failure per year”
You mean the gearbox failures? Lots of failures are reasonably well known but understand this. I’m not sticking up for wind turbines. I’m not a fan of them in general. I’m only pointing out that Eric’s claim that repairs in 30ft seas were difficult were ridiculous because they simply wouldn’t happen.
Blatantly false assumption.
Is this the same argument that means you’ll never use a lithium ion battery?
Depends on the energy density and size of the battery.
They’ll only very rarely “conk out”. Their bearings will be monitored, modelled and understood, statistically if nothing else. Most breakages will be forecastable and manageable.
Blatantly false assumptions.
And now you deflect. Lithium Ion batteries.
You are correct. I will not ever use a lithium ion battery if there is an alternative option. For the record, there are cell phones and laptops that only work with Li ion batteries and I have not choice but to accept the risk.
However, I have refused to be part of a launch crew when the rocket payload contained those devices.
Lithium primary. Ok. Even so, I have dealt with 2 events involving failures and have scars on my leg from one of them.
The comparison is real. Lithium ion batteries can combust but there are billions of them so the odds are very low and can be considered rare. There are tens of thousands of wind turbines now. The odds of one conking out is also rare. Maintenance will catch a great many potential failures before they happen.
“They’ll only very rarely ‘conk out'”
You haven’t been paying attention.
You have unsubstantiated assumptions. It would be proper engineering if they were monitored, modelled, and MTBF applied. Breakages can never be forecasted, and circumstances have to be sufficiently safe for the repairs to be manageable.
And your assumption is that the multi million dollar turbines aren’t monitored and that the organisation just deals with failure when it happens instead of monitoring and maintaining them to minimise cost of very expensive repair.
Imagine waiting for a calm weather day on the North Sea, or other windy oceans which are the choice locations for building a generator which is meant to harness the wind.
Imagine not. Instead, you think they’ll perform risky repairs.
Bizarrely many on this forum think that drilling for oil in those conditions is somehow easier and that happens 24×7.
What is the energy output of a single offshore gas or oil rig vs a single wind turbine? Because each offshore wind turbine has to be treated as a separate installation in terms of mooring to it for maintenance.
That’s really the point isn’t it? Loss of a single turbine from a farm for even a few weeks while waiting for suitable weather is inconvenient at most. Scheduled maintenance is absolutely going to take the weather into account.
Probably not worth maintaining it at all, once the upfront subsidies have been milked.
And yet they’re being maintained. As I originally said, I’m not a fan except where they makes sense and I find it difficult to believe that offshore turbines make a lot of long term sense.
But that’s a different argument to one of the weather being a factor in maintaining them.
And yet they are being massively subsidized….
…with actual subsidies, mandated use and carbon credits etc etc etc.
Drilling is easier and less risky than trying to repair a wind turbine 100-plus feet in the air hoisted from a rolling ship with a massive item to be removed and replaced.
The repair crew on a floating oil rig, some of which are as tall, reside on the platform as part of the oil crew. Spare parts are inventoried on the platform.
If something goes wrong, they can wait the hours/days to climb up to repair, but most of the repair work is at platform level (not all) and the rocking is much less dangerous.
Simple trig. How far does the top of the mast sway if the platform rolls 1 degree?
Now a floating wind platform uncoupled with a floating repair ship. They will mostly rock in tandem, but not always. Which does the wind affect more?
Lots of differences repairing on an oil rig than repairing a floating wind mill.
No. Drilling and extraction is 24×7 with a thin pipe to the sea floor that mustn’t break. Wind turbine repair can wait until the weather is suitable.
I have an acquaintance in the UK who does maintenance on offshore windmills. He works two-week shifts, and they live on a boat that is part cruise liner with all the mod cons. He also makes oodles of money.
Nice gig if you can get it.
“except where they make most sense.”
Which is basically NOWHERE !
Apart from the fact that you need a couple of hundred windmills to generate as much power as one gas plant, compare the cost of maintaining a thermal power plant with a wind farm. A thermal plant takes up just a few acres of land, and engineers, tools and spare parts are all on site. A gantry for lifting and moving heavy equipment is part of the structure of the plant. Routine servicing can easily be scheduled, and component failures dealt with immediately. Apart from the initial costs of building windmills, a wind farm takes up hundreds of acres. Tools, spare parts and personnel need to be transported to the site, so now you need to add vehicles. Cranes need to be hired. If it’s offshore, you’re going to need at least one boat and if it’s a blade you’re replacing it will need to be a big one. Routine servicing becomes dependant on weather conditions, as does component failure. How does any of that ‘make sense’?
Some sites are consistently windy and relatively close to where the energy is needed. They make sense. But generally anything that is profitable makes sense.
It makes sense to me to smoothly transition away from fossil fuels because they cant and wont last forever and it takes time to achieve that.
If you believe we’ll never run out of gas, it doesn’t make sense. Or if you believe the market can transition to renewable energy smoothly as fossil fuels peak and decline then it doesn’t make sense either. I dont believe that.
I also dont believe renewables are needed to address “climate change”.
The only way wind is ever profitable is with ludicrous subsidies, feed-in payments, non-feed-in payments, mandates and being fed by carbon taxes from dispatchables.
Nuclear.
Is a valid but expensive and unpopular option. It’s not even an option in Australia where it’s banned.
Nuclear power need not be as expensive as it is. Regulatory reform, and some sort of clamp on lawfare, would help a great deal. And nuclear is an unpopular option (except, apparently, in France) owing to a lot of misconceptions foisted upon the general public.
Smoothly transition. Yes. But with appropriate and proven technology, not some flash in the pan concept.
Technology never starts out as “proven”. All technologies are optimised over time and only after being actually used so the practical lessons can be learned.
Yes, but in some fields, we don’t deploy a new technology until it has been demonstrated to work in a representative environment, while operated by representative operators. (This is known as Technology Readiness Level 6 or 7
This applies to wind turbines. They’re definitely proven although as their size has increased the torque has become near impossible to manage with current materials technology. But at least it’s improving.
You do not implement massive grid scale transitions without first having a demonstrator to identify the flaws.
Spain, Portugal, and France are learning that lesson in real time.
Cascading failures on power grids have happened since grids existed. There will be lessons learned from Spain’s failure and changes to reduce the cause in the future. That’s the way it works.
“… anything that is profitable makes sense.” And therein lies the rub.
The land does not roll in 5 to 10 foot waves.
When all else fails, check the facts. You’ve contributed a long and sometimes vituperative defence of wind turbine maintainability and neither you nor your opponents have bothered to do the instant research which is readily available. How long does it take, how often do you have to do it, and is weather a factor?
Here is the answer. The conclusion is that weather is a big deal. As anyone who has spent any time in the North Sea, either on the coast or off shore, knows full well. And failure is not exactly frequent but it is often enough to be a real challenge if you have a few thousand of these things out there.
https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMg%3D%3D_39d806b0-b3c9-4d5d-a76e-5ddbb4345ff3
Exactly the point. They’re not going to do it when bad weather is happening or expected. They schedule it around the weather as an important factor.
They certainly wont be doing it in a 30ft seas and in general they wont do it if there is any risk because getting it wrong would be much too expensive.
Mr. ToolMan: Thank you for letting me know that we do not agree. You think there are locations on earth where “wind power” tied to a grid is appropriate. There are none. Your bias shows when you defend wind power by pulling a minor point from the article and calling it “silly”, but you look silly when you think weather conditions at sea are so predictable. Wind mills at sea tied to a grid cannot be defended, you should stop trying. Futile.
You’re wrong. Wind power in my home State of Tasmania in Australia is very effective and appropriate and compliments our Hydro energy nicely.
That’s a joke Tim. Data from the islands in Bass Strait clearly show that they have to keep running their diesels to cover the many dunkelflautes.
You’re moving the goalposts to a couple of small independent islands that aren’t connected to the Tasmanian grid. Of course they need dispatchable energy. I’m not claiming that wind is always suitable either.
You didn’t read the link.
Go through it all and you will see that its not just a case of scheduling around bad weather. The jobs take too long, and the lifespan too short, and you will run out of slots of long enough calms, and also of ships and men.
Read the link. You can do it with a small number of turbines. But no way will it scale.
There are too many, and too long calms for wind to be workable as a main generating technology because there is no solution to intermittency.
But there are too frequent breakdowns, too long repair times, and too few long enough calms to allow their use at scale as a workable technology either.
You don’t agree, engage with the numbers. This is like Nick waving his arms and saying that the wind is free. Its not policy planning or analysis. Its literary criticism in an area that needs engineering.
And you think I’m defending wind turbines. I’m not. I’m criticising Eric for his claim of repairs in 30ft seas.
The ships have to be scheduled months in advance. If the weather isn’t good when your time slot arrives, you either reschedule for months in the future again, or you go ahead and make the repair.
You didn’t read the link.
Go through it all and you will see that its not just a case of scheduling around bad weather. The jobs take too long, and the lifespan too short, and you will run out of slots of long enough calms, and also of ships and men.
Read the link. You can do it with a small number of turbines. But no way will it scale.
There are too many, and too long calms for wind to be workable as a main generating technology because there is no solution to intermittency.
But there are too frequent breakdowns, too long repair times, and too few long enough calms to allow their use at scale as a workable technology either.
You don’t agree, engage with the numbers. This is like Nick waving his arms and saying that the wind is free. Its not policy planning or analysis. Its literary criticism in an area that needs engineering.
Weather also arrives more or less randomly, while repair ships have to be schedule months in advance.
I occasionally drive through a humongous wind farm in northern Indiana, with maybe 1,000 windmills, and entertain myself estimating how many are out of service. Three weeks ago it may have been more than ten percent.
Offshore is a harsher environment, the number needing repairs will probably be higher.
how many are out of service
I haven’t lived in CA for many years, but I remember the wind farm in the desert between San Bernardino and Palm Springs. I also remember that every time I drove past, it looked like most of them were not turning.
That doesn’t necessarily make them out of service. They’re stopped if they’re not needed or wanted on the grid at the time.
If they are not turning they are out of service either because they must be or they are not needed. Period.
The amount of energy needed on the grid varies over the day. There is a peak typically in the early evening when everyone is cooking for example and a lull overnight. Supplying the right amount of energy on the grid is a very involved process.
Yes, I know. I used to work in the utility industry. We kept the necessary rolling reserve for just those times when the demand would peak–late afternoon in the summer in the deep South. If the wind stops, you have to scramble to have enough dispatchable power to cover the shortfall. Instantaneously.
Scheduling repair for good weather…
Scheduling good weather for the repairs would be just as easy.
So just to be clear, you think they undertake repairs in 30ft seas?
If they are going to repair at all, they have to.
No they don’t. And they won’t have to reschedule months away either. Why do you think that?
But CO2 is the control knob. Turn off CO2 and get all the good weather you need!
/sarc /humor
Imagine having to wait months for good weather. Imagine not having a repair barge available when there is good weather because you weren’t able to guess when the weather would be good 6 months ahead of time.
Your counter argument shows a lack of understanding regarding the situation involved. In other words, it was dumb.
So convincing. I bow to your superior understanding.
Tim,
There are limited resources for repair. Weather timing makes it worse.
Imagine if all doctor visits could only be made during good weather … no rain, no wind, no cold. Your scheduling for an appointment would essentially be random, out another 6 months, and would cost three times as much.
Yes. But it doesn’t alter the fact…
It should be obvious that turbines will have bearing problems — the shaft is essentially supported on only one end, with a large mass suspended off the other end (the blade assembly).
Add to that, the fact that windspeed varies with height. Winds aloft are almost always faster.
Because of this, there is asymmetric stress on the blades. The blades aloft will be pushed on harder than the blades down low.
The wind axial bearing cracking problem is inherent, and there is no known solution. Wind speeds are higher aloft than near the ground. As a result, the blades are unevenly loaded as they rotate. As a result, the assembly ‘wobbles’ in the bearing race. This wobble eventually causes the cracking. Bigger bearings just means this happens more slowly. Improved steel alloys and ‘diamond like’ carbon bearing coatings have not solved the inherent problem. And the bigger the blade diameter, the bigger the problem becomes.
Do Vertical Axis Turbines suffer the same inherent problem? If not are they scalable to multi MW capacity?
Vertical axis turbines are a non starter, because the energy produced is dependent on the sweep area of the blades. Vertical turbines have a far smaller sweep area compared to the sweep area you can cover using the equivalent construction material to create a horizontal turbine.
Different inherent problems, mechanically and dynamically. And there is the sweep area disadvantage as Eric W points out.
Video of Bronx vertical axis wind turbine failure here.
Rud, strangely enough, the same thing occurred to me some time ago. Some wind turbines have tip to-tip diameters of over 100m, so the wobbling force at the hub is considerable, due to the considerable variation in wind speed within the boundary layer, due to fluid mechanics. The blade is also flexible, so the axial tip displacement varies with altitude, giving rise to severe flexing at the tips – which are the thinnest and most flexible portions.
So the tips will eventually shred, probably requiring replacement of the whole blade. Not only will the bearings be ruined by the wobble, but the bearing mount will fail in time as it is also being bent back and forth top to bottom (and side to side due to turbulent flow) as the blade rotates.
I see that blades are now being made with a length of 131 m or so, giving a resultant mounted diameter of over 250 m. No problem – just use unobtainium for the blades, bearings, mounts and tower.
Easy peasy.
I have noticed over the years, that every single engineering project is much easier when using unobtainium!
The U.S. should certainly try to become the world leader in the production of unobtainium.
Unobtainium and the rest of the material of the blades, can’t be recycled. Dump fees anyone?
I think these monstrous bird and scenery killers are awful. In Victorian times people thought the sight of smoke-belching factories was a great thing. It meant good wages, schools for the kids, better housing, public transport, all the blessings of the coal age with innovations of all kinds. Wages and wealth shot up very quickly, which, accidentally, headed off communism.
Wind farms aren’t in this league. They are a regressive technology because there are much better ways of generating electricity. We have cured the smoke belching. But we can’t stop win turbines ruining vistas and killing flying animals..
They have a short life, too..
I have a game when passing a wind farm. I count the number of stopped turbines. .My best is 25%. Anyone beat that?
Which brings me to a longstanding concern of mine. Has anyone seen an accurate and complete balance sheet for wind generation minus subsidies or other incentives?
I’ve seen 100% not moving before. Of course, the wind either wasn’t blowing hard enough, or it was blowing too hard, which might not count for your survey.
Anyone beat that?
As I mentioned elsewhere, the wind farm between San Bernardino and Palm Springs – I never saw more than half turning.
And naturally all the blades need to be removed before starting the bearing job.
As such, one can only estimate the percentage of blades damaged during removal and installation. It will be non-zero.
Rud, do you know about the bearing issue Norton had with their higher output Commando motorcycles? Inherently weak crankshaft being increasingly stressed as horsepower was increased. Instead of doing what Honda/Yamaha/Kawasaki/Suzuki would do, design a new engine, Norton did a very English thing – use special barrel shaped bearings that accommodated the crankshaft flex.
China’s Goldwind 22MW offshore wind turbines have a rotor diameter of 300 metres.
In October 2024 the Dongfang Electric Corporation began producing a nacelle for a 26MW offshore wind turbine with a rotor diameter of 310 metres.
It will be interesting to see how they fare over time.
Solar is easily damaged by inclement weather like Hail and Winds. Large swaths of Subsidy Farms can be struck by damaging Wind and Hail requiring replacement of 80-90% of all panels every year. Possibly more than once a year as, like Tornadoes, Thunder Storms tend to have Seasons and sufficiently sized Hail could fall weekly.
Strangely the alarmist future superstorm scenarios don’t seem to feature when calculating the maintenance costs of new solar and wind plants.
Very True!
In the enviro-wacko mindset, getting rid of cars and power plants will return us to an idyllic time when there was no bad weather.
Here is my personal experience with my “masterminded” PV-system:
It works magnificently until it stops working. 8 years of service and the first of three inverters blew up, but hey who needs a three phase system, single phase works just fine so 2 more inverters to blow up lol.
No power at night? No problem, I’m running on batteries (classic lead acid, I have no desire in blowing myself up with lithium crap)
Batteries run dry due to insufficient charge? No problem, there’s a genset as backup.
Combine PV and a little Savonius windmill to master cloudy days? Brilliant, sadly wind blows hardly at night so back to the genset lol.
Ah ya people? 8 years ago they mostly laughed at me, let’s say they didn’t see the point in investing in “renewables”. Today I laugh at the same people investing in this crap only because the government “told you so” and lures with subsidies.
Subsidies: bribe money you pay yourself, well of course minus the “generous” cut a “middlemen” took beforehand and taxes you afterwards haha kinda stupid from my point of view.
Well I laugh always at myself for having been a tech nerd and fulfilled my dream of energy independene. Doing the math before and after I must say that the ROI of my investment is 0 at best. Other “PV enthusiasts” claim that they reduced their energy bill by 40%…asking them if with that they achieve a positive ROI the answer is “ehm ROI what?”
Well it’s a true challenge to engineer something, but doing simple math seems even more.
Well once my neighbour’s systems fail (along with mine) they will be stuck with the bill of getting rid of their garbage panels why I still will enjoy the shade my PV panels cast over my porch.
That’s how I achieve my ROI of “0” – see that’s how “smart” people engineer a PV system. Hardly suitable for the rest of the world and it’s eco loons.
Latest at the end of the PV module’s lifespan it will be back to the good old grid (for all of us).
Was it generally worth the try and effort? Besides having had some fun in planning and building it my answer is short: no.
Whatever you do on your own time and dime is just fine. Anything else is virtue signalling with stolen money.
Great story of your experience. I equate folks (not you) that install solar panels and talk about all the money they save are the same people that say they “won” 2 grand at Las Vegas but neglect to say they spent 4 grand doing so.
“Alumina components corrode, especially in salty environments…”
That’s a typo. should be “Aluminum” although alumina does not corrode.
Thanks, meant the metal.
Von der Leyen argued that “clean homegrown renewables” strengthen the bloc’s resilience, while at the same time spurring new jobs and innovation. “As our energy dependency goes down, our energy security goes up. That is a lesson we have learnt in Europe,” she added.
Ursula got this completely about face, dunkelflauten and the Ukraine/Russia war has exposed their reliance on “fossil” fuels and Norway is batting back EU hydroelectric demands from its country as it is pushing up Norwegian electricity costs.
How do they lie with such a straight face?
I don’t think they believe they are telling lies, I suspect they actually believe a bit more development will sort it out, once they push the whiny engineers to do their jobs. Don’t underestimate the power of ignorance combined with bureaucratic group think.
Practice….
Of which they get plenty.
I’ve never understood why doctors, dentists, lawyers, etc. have practices.
If they are still practicing, why do we have to pay them so much?
She fails to see that energy dependence on the weather is as bad or worse than some other sort of energy dependence.
With the massive lengths wind turbine blades have reached, the wind speed across the swept area can vary quite a bit. That causes uneven loading. Uneven loading produces vibrations. Vibrations in ball and roller bearings tends to cause a patterned damage called false brinelling. In a stationary bearing, false brinelling is typically not an issue. Vibration in storage can cause the oil or grease to squeeze out and create slightly polished spots at the roller or ball and race contacts. When the bearing is turned, the lubricant flows back in and keeps the metal parts from touching.
False brinelling can happen in a rotating bearing if the rotation speed and vibration frequencies align to cause the balls or rollers to press harder at the same points on the race as they go around. Eventually that can lead to dents or cracks.
What might be a preventive measure is putting sleeves on the blade mounting flanges with the blades inserted into them using a layer of cast in place urethane rubber. The thickness and durometer of the rubber would need to be just right to damp vibrations from the blades. To prevent the turbine yeeting blades across the landscape in the unlikely event the rubber totally failed, the inside of the sleeve and the hub end of the blade could have interlocking ridges and grooves, with the sleeve made in two pieces, welded or bolted together before the gap is filled.
Urethane resins and rubbers have decades of innovation and development, with many companies making a wide range of formulations that can withstand pretty much any environmental conditions. There are bonding agents that make the urethane materials adhere so well to metal and other surfaces the only ways to get the urethane off is burn it or cut it away, removing some of the substrate material with it.
But even if this could solve the vibration induced bearing failures, massive wind turbines are still an expensive thing that will eventually cost far too much to get rid of once they’re worn out.
I suspect they’ve thrown a lot of money at damping and have still come up short.
The engineer I spoke to many years ago said they’re caught between friction and bearing strength, they can’t make the bearings strong enough or friction kills the output. He claimed they needed a 10 fold increase in bearing toughness.
Sounds like trading one problem for another. Bearings last longer but replacing blades becomes a nightmare.
Meanwhile my home solar with battery which cost me 4500Eur, is 3 years old produced 11.5MWh worth 1840Eur. Currently you can build such system for 2000Eur. Hybrid, no grid feed, home battery.
Yes and it is with poor Europe solar winter.
Mr. K: Meanwhile, you ignore varg’s request for an ROI.
Paul, if you read his post carefully, you’ll note “no grid feed’ and in 3 years it has produced 1840 Eur yearly for a total as of now 5520 Eur for a cost of 4500 Eur, you figure out the ROI to date.
Highly subsidized installation, replacing highly taxed electricity.
Government distortions can make even stupid things look good.
Absolutely no subsidy on installation and subsidized grid electricity, currently for 0.16Eur/kWh. Worst case scenario.
Yabut, think of all the “Green jobs” being created by these unaffordable, unreliable monstrosities. Way better jobs than breaking windows I might add.
One of the most telling phrases used by politicians as a positive is the industry will provide an increasing number of well paying jobs.
That phrase is the most disingenuous possible, yet gets rolled out regularly and in this article my Ursula VDL (President of the EU) as a justification for the ongoing renewables program in the EU.
The economic truth however is this.
If an industry or innovation invokes lots of high paying jobs then it will naturally fail once a rival option produces the same output with less well paid jobs.
That is the key feature about renewables which politicians refuse to acknowledge.
The most efficient energy production option, generating the least pollution, sitting on the smallest area/energy output is nuclear.
It employs the least number of people/energy produced, has the smallest footprint and under modern fuel design will last for fifty years.
The renewables would have to rebuild the worn out offshore wind arrays three times over, and occupy hundreds of square miles of ocean to get close to the same constant reliable least cost output, nuclear already provides.
Despite this truth. Politicians still grant support wind arrays, still claim lots of well paid jobs will be available, while conveniently ignoring the hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost due to expensive unreliable renewable energy expansion. Those lost jobs all going to low cost reliable energy countries like India and China using coal.
The next time a politician says they are introducing technology that will provide lots of well paid jobs, remember they are snake oil sales operators at best and charlatans most likely, because economics does not work that way.
Energy jobs are different to most other jobs. The reliable energy industry creates jobs across the board. If they can reduce the number of people that they employ per unit of energy produced, thus reducing the cost of the energy, there will typically be a net increase in employment. Unreliable energy cannot compete with reliable energy, and in an open market would basically not exist. Forcing unreliable energy into a controlled ‘market’ destroys jobs, and the more jobs that are created in unreliable energy, the more jobs in total that will be destroyed.
With Biden it was well paying UNION jobs. Talk about a political campaign slogan.
The reason wind turbines fail, especially the gear boxes and bearings is that it is impossible to design this type of structure to withstand the forces underneath thunderstorms. You cannot feather the blades in such weather because the wind comes from all directions and under a thunderstorm cell the downdraught winds can exceed over 200 k.p.hr forcing the blades down. When thunderstorms are associated with fronts the wind veers 180 degrees instantaneously the other way when the front passes and no structure like a wind turbine can withstand this sudden change.
It is IMPOSSIBE to design against such vertical down forces and once storms reach above 40,000′ and possibly include tornadoes, destruction is guaranteed. As a former airline captain flying in Australia I have encountered lines of storms with tops above 70,000′ in summer many years ago and you can be certain no wind turbine or solar panel will escape damage under those sorts of storms. It is not until you have encountered these types of severe weather that you can understand the forces involved.
Add to it, feathered blades will be subjected to edge impact winds and 131m blades will find a resonant frequency and self destruct. Not always, but enough. Think of the bridges that hit a resonance due to wind and self destructed. Civil engineers have been aware of this for decades.
My father, an infantry officer, told me that units do not march in cadence over a bridge because they might march at the unknown resonant frequency, and have the bridge collapse. I understand this was known by the Romans.
Both true. Breaking stride I believe it was called.
The British Government (such as it is) is splurging £40 million on an experiment by “scientists” to dim the Sun to combat global warming. What price then solar panels?
Odd really. “Scientists” have been adamant the Sun plays no part in global warming and it’s all C02’s fault.
Solar and wind are NOT one off investment systems. Anyone saying they are is a blatant liar.
Amazing how enviros hate golf courses but love solar “farms”.
“imagine attempting a delicate engineering repair in 30ft seas while suspended from a swaying ship mounted crane hundreds of feet in the air” … well if you are stupid enough to try it in heavy weather of course its going to be difficult … pretty sure the repairs are done in calm seas … but offshore wind is just green virtue signaling anyway …
It’s a numbers problem. How do you scope it?
How many good weather days are there? Predict the future if you can.
How many hours/days does a repair/maintenance require?
How many hundreds/thousands of towers need repair and maintenance?
The greater the number of towers, the greater the number of repairs and maintenance.
How many ships does that require?
How many able bodied repairment?
What is the cost of holding all those spare parts in inventory? Remember not all parts are needed for any specific repair, but each tower crew will need to shop up with a full kit of spares.
So all of this is on standby, with full pay, so they can rush out and do all the towers at once because the weather is cooperating.
Windturbine lies from the manufacturer.
While wind turbines ARE a gigantic, unreliable con, solar panels work perfectly well on houses and business roofs, and pay back within ten years, then it’s free electricity for at least twenty to thirty more years.
“
AluminaAluminum components corrode, especially in salty environments, glass panels are blasted by sand and other abrasives, or ripped apart by storms, and plastics, like electrical wire insulation, crumble into dust, especially under the intense ultraviolet of tropical climates.”Aluminium doesn’t corrode, that’s why it’s used. When are solar panels “blasted by sand”? Oh, the humanity! How will my solar panels cope with all that non-existent sand “blasting” them. “Ripped apart by storms”. My solar panels have been through 100mph storms and haven’t moved a millimetre. Solar panel cables are all, strangely enough, UNDERNEATH the panels, and therefore out of the sun, and the wires don’t “crumble into dust”, or haven’t you noticed all the various electricial wires running from telegraph poles and electricity poles all around the U.K., which haven’t yet “crumbled into dust”?
You aren’t helping your cause by making laughable, easily disproved statements about solar power…