Dear Uncle Siemens

canadafreepress.com ^ | 9/16/2014 | Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser

[rktman]

Satire

Dear Uncle Siemens,

I am hearing a lot about you in the news lately. Somehow your offshore wind turbines in the German Bight can’t deliver any power. ABB’s HVDC converter station seems to have a fever and the prognosis is not good. Some unkind folks claim that you could catch a cold because of that. Really? I mean what’s €500 million between friends? Especially if you can charge it to the electricity consumer!

[rktman]

Notice the first word. SATIRE. Well, not so much. Think how much the Germans will be able to learn from our offshore wind fiasco off of Martha's Vineyard.

[dsrtsage]

I like hearing bad stories about Siemens. I have been doing automation for 25 years, and they are a bad word. I cannot describe how much i loathe their PLCs, and the “we are the master race” attitude of their engineers. Yay if this stupud greenie weenie stuff causes them to lose oodles of money

[bigbob]

My experience with Siemens is that if necessary, they would throw tens of millions at one problem - billions at a big enough one, and tap the German treasury later to get it back. With tendrils in *everything* they won’t mind doing whatever it takes to fix this out of their own pocket, since they can always make it up elsewhere.

As much as FR loves to bash wind, at the utility scale (not little turbines on peoples rooftops) it makes sense, as much as hydro (which was also ridiculed by those who preferred political talking points over science and engineering). And offshore wind makes more sense than onshore, since that’s where the population centers are.

[boycott]

We see all the dead bird under the wind farms on land. I wonder how many we don't see here:

[boycott]

Is there any wonder why GE supports liberal causes:

[factoryrat]

Simatic + sinumerik = PITA. And just try to deal with their snobby service reps.

[rktman]

Fish food. I’ll bet, like near the oil rigs in the Gulf, that fishin’ would be awesome near these eye sores. If you can stand the low frequency sounds. On second thought, it’d probably spook the fish too. I don’t know about you but those really low frequency sounds really set me on edge. Like the boomers that pull up next to you at a stop light. I like some bass, but dang.

[boycott]

I don’t know about you but those really low frequency sounds really set me on edge.

---

I know exactly what you mean.

I was at a hotel in Columbus, GA recently and I could hear the high voltage power lines. It really annoyed me. If I didn’t have reservations, I wouldn’t have stayed there.

[bigbob]

By the way I don’t disagree at all with you about the snotty Siemens attitude of superiority. But when they put their resources behind something, it was “katy bar the door”.

[Resolute Conservative]

Feeds the fishes...

[loungitude]

I have little good to say about Siemens, but I sure did like the long-obsolete S7-200 PLC.