Another Wind Turbine Fail Story

Got a chance to see those in Iowa several years ago. They’re massive. Saw some of the blade being transported down the interstate. I think there were three trailers used for each one. They also had one blade on display at a rest stop.
 
BigWaylon said:
Got a chance to see those in Iowa several years ago. They’re massive. Saw some of the blade being transported down the interstate. I think there were three trailers used for each one. They also had one blade on display at a rest stop.
Click to expand...


They are massive. The rotor blades you saw were most likely somewhat small compared to the biggest turbine blades out there. When these turbines malfunction and the rotor starts spinning out of control, they simply explode. I'm not sure what the cause of the failure was in my above posted story. It kind of sounds like a manufacturing defect such as a hidden defect somewhere in the material causing a runaway crack to form thus causing a catastrophic failure of the turbine blade.

This energy solution isn't the best out there in my opinion. It seems that the failure rate of these turbines is excessive compared to other energy options.
 
For the past several years smaller freight ships have docked in Morehead city with their top decks full of turbine blades. I think they are made in Spain and shipped over. Sometimes they are unloaded, but most of the time I think they remain on decks. I'd say 60% of the time I'm down in MHC there is a boat with blades on deck in port.
 
Qball said:
They are massive. The rotor blades you saw were most likely somewhat small compared to the biggest turbine blades out there. When these turbines malfunction and the rotor starts spinning out of control, they simply explode. I'm not sure what the cause of the failure was in my above posted story. It kind of sounds like a manufacturing defect such as a hidden defect somewhere in the material causing a runaway crack to form thus causing a catastrophic failure of the turbine blade.

This energy solution isn't the best out there in my opinion. It seems that the failure rate of these turbines is excessive compared to other energy options.
Click to expand...
The ones I saw were in the “upwards of 175 feet” mentioned in the article. Guess there may be larger ones elsewhere. Crazy stuff.
 
West Texas has a lot of wind mills. A couple of months ago the train came through town and there were several blades being transported. Yes, they are massive. I have also seen the blades being trucked on I-10. They take a special trailer like they use to move huge I beams, with lead and chase vehicles.
 
Never read anything good about these things. Most reports claim that the energy used to construct, maintain and upgrade them exceeds the expected lifetime output.
Plus, the fact that when they catch fire, no telling what is in the smoke but I do not want to be anywhere near one.
First one I saw was the one in Boone, NC. It was not allowed to run due to noise.
 
BigWaylon said:
The ones I saw were in the “upwards of 175 feet” mentioned in the article. Guess there may be larger ones elsewhere. Crazy stuff.
Click to expand...

The bigger turbine blades today are about twice as long as the turbine blades in the story I posted.

100+ meters
 
In west Texas part of the payback on the wind turbines is based on reduced maintenance of the transport network. It’s very helpful to keep the lines energized even when there is insufficient demand to warrant doing so.

At least that’s what I’ve been told by the folks at ERCOT (the energy reliability council of Texas).
 
We saw them in Indiana, Colorado, Texas last year, maybe Michigan. I heard they work out pretty well in Texas. Eerie sight, especially at night lit up red. Makes more sense than solar at least. But they're flaring off natural gas because it's too cheap to sell and too expensive to store. No room anyway. Alternative = Cosmetic Redemption for sin of pollution.
 
Chihuahua Floyd said:
Never read anything good about these things. Most reports claim that the energy used to construct, maintain and upgrade them exceeds the expected lifetime output.
Plus, the fact that when they catch fire, no telling what is in the smoke but I do not want to be anywhere near one.
First one I saw was the one in Boone, NC. It was not allowed to run due to noise.
Click to expand...
I'm a skeptic of green energy too, but that's just a myth.

That idea comes from a 2009 book, that misquoted the author, and didn't quote the part where he said in the same book that some will recoup their investment in as little as three years.

https://planetsave.com/2018/06/03/w...rgy-than-they-produce-the-myth-that-wont-die/


It assumes that no innovation ever happens in either the production of windmills, or their design and output, and are poorly planned in bad locations.

Windmills can produce much more energy than was used to create them. If they didn't people wouldn't invest in them. It's like the 'women get paid 77 cents on the dollar' myth. If that really was true, we'd only hire women, it's a gross mischaracterization. That said, is it anywhere as efficient as a nuclear power plant, or as clean? Heck no. Ditch the wind, go nuclear. But lets not peddle unintentioned falsehoods.
 
Last edited:
Aardvark said:
Whether they ever get the mechanical problems whipped won't really matter. Wind energy is, relatively speaking, a very low density energy and therefore economically unviable. It can't even come close to paying for its own infrastructure.
Click to expand...
but muh subsidies!
 
Those windmill turbine blades aren't recyclable, either, which ought to create screaming fits in the eco-terrorists who push "green" and "renewable" energy sources. But it doesn't.

Those blades get dumped into landfills.
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
Those windmill turbine blades aren't recyclable, either, which ought to create screaming fits in the eco-terrorists who push "green" and "renewable" energy sources. But it doesn't.

Those blades get dumped into landfills.
Click to expand...
I assume you mean that it’s not economical to recycle them. They are large but fairly light, not enough scrap value to make transporting them to a processing facility worthwhile. Wonder if there is a business opportunity here, get the company to pay for disposal, develop a way to crush them on site, sell to scrap yard.
 
The blades, upwards of 175 feet long, broke somewhere along their length and not at the base, the company said.
Click to expand...
I would imagine that the force of angular acceleration on the things is immense. Like watching a tall brick chimney fall. It will break because the angular acceleration exceeds the gravitational forces, or so we learned in physics class. The article also said that the ones that failed had been struck by lightning.
 
When those blades break off, just how far do they fly before hitting the ground?
 
Me. said:
If they’d turn off all those giant fans, maybe it wouldn’t be so breezy.



01surprisingcountries.jpg
Click to expand...
That's one way to deal with seagulls...
 
JimB said:
I assume you mean that it’s not economical to recycle them. They are large but fairly light, not enough scrap value to make transporting them to a processing facility worthwhile. Wonder if there is a business opportunity here, get the company to pay for disposal, develop a way to crush them on site, sell to scrap yard.
Click to expand...
I guess technically you're correct. Pretty much everything is recyclable at some level, but not necessarily at the level people might think.

The issue with windmill blades is that they're largely composed of composite materials.

Thermoplastic materials can be ground down to small particles and injected into molding machines with virgin composite materials, but the end result isn't going to be exactly what the original was...it'll be a different composite formulation of necessity.

And even so, you'll still have to dispose of the next blade which "recycled" some of the original composites, and that process itself will be different as well. Because you can't necessarily infinitely recycle any given material because the recycling process itself alters the original material.

An example of different recycling characteristics would be glass and paper.

Glass can essentially be infinitely recycled. Nothing about the process of making glass is really different from one to the next recycling event.

Paper, however, cannot be infinitely recycled. Paper requires certain fiber characteristics and when you recycle paper, those fibers are changed. This is why you don't, for example, see paper products like copy paper saying "100% post consumer content". It's always a fraction of the paper content which is recycled paper, not the whole.

So yes...it's a matter of economics. And by "economics" I don't mean just "money". There's more to economics than money.

Economics is a measure of the relative worth of something based essentially on how much work is required to produce it. Time and effort, if you will. Money is just one symbolic system by which we represent the relative value of services and products.
 
From past work experience I’m very familiar with the practical and economic issues related to using reground thermoplastics, I just thought that the blades had an AL skin over a composite frame and that the AL would be worth recycling.

Honestly it’s hard to care about recycling any plastics, but it would be better to burn them than to put them in a landfill IMHO, but that’s a whole other discussion.
 
They're so big and turn so slowly it's hard to imagine any electrical energy is ever produced. Then how much is lost in transmission? More significantly, How does the capital investment vs. performance advantage pay off with depreciation, maintenance, etc. deducted? Or is this thing symbolic in a BIG way that only makes sense in "credits" and CPA chicanery, and green political currency? Grazing isn't impacted too much. But lost cropland is a deduct too.
 
They look like they are turning slowly, but the velocity of the outside edge is impressive and undoubtedly lethal.

I assume that there are gears inside that get the generator spinning at an optimal rate.
 
I just wish government and the graft and corruption that comes with it were not part of this industry.

Kerosene existed but lack of demand made it economically unviable until whale oil became scarce. Then, viola, as they say. If government had been involved there would be a Bureau of Whale Oil now. Or a Kerosene Department. Market forces were allowed to work their magic and the whales recovered, just doing their funky whale thing.

Or how about the privately operated streetcars in New York City that struggled with few customers until an influenza epidemic killed half the horses in NYC. Bam. Customers without government or a Bureau of Streetcars.

Government can F up a one car parade. That's why I don't trust them to fix anything. Not Healthcare, not retirement, and not energy or "climate ". Thieves and fools fix nothing.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom