Posted on 02/25/2008 6:12:29 AM PST by Uncledave
Follow link to see old NEG-Micon machine going kablooie.
When winds get too strong, modern machines' blades pitch out of the wind, and the rotor is braked. (The old one in the video should have been braked as well - unclear why that failed).
I respect that many here oppose wind energy, but safety concerns isn't a strong argument for that case. Let's all please recognize that accidents can and do happen in any area of the energy industry.

Please Freep Mail me if you'd like on/off
bflv
Well here in California the environmentalist are against them because they kill birds. There is no solution that will ever please the leftist. They are all about problems not solutions.
No one here “opposes” wind energy. You’re thinking of Eddie Kennedy.
I support wind energy, but I oppose government distortions of the market that encourage its use. I am under no illusions that it could possibly replace fossil fuels or nuclear power as a viable way to run an industrialized economy. However, it has its uses in remote locations where power transmission is impractical, and as a backup power source when the grid fails.
That left a mark.....
Pretty dramatic but as these things are not usually in any populated area I don’t see it a particularly dangerous either.
I saw on a Discovery channel program about a month ago that they are developing ones that look like a DNA string that is supposed to be able to handle any wind.
Well designed wind turbines are supposed to lock off at anything above 35 knots - this one obviously did not!
What an asinine statement. I don't know of anyone here who "opposes wind energy".
Lots of us oppose the completely artificial support it gets or wants to get from the taxpayer.
Lots of us think it's not capable of producing mainstream quantities of juice.
Does that make us "opponents" ??
More birds are born than there is food for. If a bird runs into an object and dies (like the two who smashed into the side of my little house last year) than other birds will live because the competition for food was eliminated. Leftists amazingly see Darwinism in everything, without understanding the facts of nature his theory sites.
Put me on your list, please sir.
With anything humans make there will be mechanical failures.
Thanks Uncledave. I posted this thread and the link on the Michigan (FR) board today after hearing our governor Jenny Grandtheft talk up wind turbines this morning on WJR with Paul W. Smith (the guy who occasionally fill in for Rush). Per usual he was going right along with her. I figure next she’ll be calling for a new department in the state, a Department of Candles. /sarcasm
Dangerously Incompetent BUMP!
Check this out!
Didn’t a recent episode of “House, MD” start this way?
We had a entire industry that ran on free, no polluting, wind power. Sailing ships. The got replaced because an entire look at the efficiencies and costs proved they were more expensive and less efficient. Same with power generation.

I meant “oppose wind energy in its current support regime”.
better?
Ping for later...
ping
Brake in high speed wind? I thought you said it was supposed to break in a high speed wind. < /confused engineer mode>
Maybe that’s because they haven’t come up with a solution, that doesn’t have more cons than pros yet.
Great pix. That and the ice cap GROWING, I am just sort of getting a great laugh from.
According to the article, Denmark gets about 20% of its energy from these windmills. I think that’s pretty good! We just got a windmill plant here in central Arkansas and I am pleased about its future impact on our state’s “backwards” economy.
Looks pretty dangerous to be around all the flying debris. They need to put these things in places like Cape Cod Bay to keep them from possibly harming children.
Oh, but Uncle Dave, those dangerous windmills will chop up the dolphins swimming in the beautiful sea!! Alack, the horror!
I understand they can replicate themselves as well.
Thanks!
.
You're exaggerating - there's a solution that will please Leftists! It's called extinction. Get rid of man, no more harm for Earth! If we just all die, then things will be OK...
What an asinine statement.
Calm down Francis. People can be wrong without being 'asinine'.
ping
Wind power is so stupid and wasteful. Nuclear, dammit.
You mean for 1.8 million dollars apiece they don’t last forever? /s
The system appeared to work as designed!
I believe we had a windmill issue in Pennsylvania last year. Blades flew off. The German compnay that made the thing was looking at the problem
A free market only respects the benefits and costs of a particular approach.
The left loves to scold the rest of us that the US consumer is not paying the “full, true, price” of oil. By this, they imply that the retail price of oil-based products must carry an open tax burden associated with the cost of the US military used to protect oil supplies.
At the very same time, the left urges all sorts of tax advantaged treatments for other forms of energy. Tax credits for solar and wind. A law for nuclear power that picks up the cost of any large-scale disaster. We even allow our own farm policy to be subverted by the whopping 51 cents per gallon subsidy for ethanol, not to mention the grants, yes, the millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions in “grants”, each of which distorts economic decisions.
For example:
“...On January 29, Department of Energy officials announced up to $30 million in supplemental funding for the planned facility. The project includes participation from academic institutions, government and other technology providers.
The Energy Department will invest up to $114 million over four years in the biorefinery projects with the goal of making cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive in five years. Other funding recipients include Lignol Innovations, Inc.; Pacific Ethanol, Inc.; and Stora Enso, North America.
Announcing the funding, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said, “Advanced biofuels offer tremendous promise for helping our nation to bring about a new, cleaner, more secure and affordable energy future.”
from:
www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2008/2008-02-19-096.asp
So, we pay for energy twice: with the economic distortions that only increase inefficiency and the tax subsidies that are paid for in only one of three ways: taxing, inflating or borrowing.
While this is going on, government further distorts the cost and availability of fuels by making vast areas of energy supplies off limits, such as offshore drilling and ANWAR.
Let us not complete the insult by saying that since some market distortions are taking place, that excuses even more distortions.
I guess we don’t need to use the oil that’s right in front of us and refine it better and burn it clean in our cars with better mileage because we can all put windmills in our cars.
That thinking has worked so well for years now. /sarc
I wish I could see a hi-res video of this. Just before the rotor blows, a cloud of dust or smoke appears right at the front of the truck at the base. Either a piece the rotor shot out or, get ready conspiracy folks... the truck shot something up and hit the rotor.
I’m not an engineer. That said, wouldn’t curved blades in a tube (such as a jet engine) work at high speeds?
I would love to see each of our homes run independently of market prices for energy. To me, even urban buildings should be self sufficient.
We are required to spend too much money, on a monthly basis, to maintain our homes. Everyone wants in our pockets.
Why would anyone oppose wind energy? Were you being sarcastic?
Well she said that we would be “blown away” after she became Governor......
Bush de schuld!
“I respect that many here oppose wind energy”
I will come to Uncledave’s defense on this one. There have been plenty of posts on Free Republic expressing opposition to alternate energy for no better reason than that some liberals like it. Uncledave and I part company when he respects those opinions. I do not.
Guess your going to say it it saving money cause when the power is out, the meter does not turn.
He might think I oppose wind projects because of my study that indicated 10 or 12 % of the units on many projects observed were inoperable.
Wind energy is a fact. It is not an economically viable source in the USA. It costs more than it is worth
Nuclear is the way
Is the juice worth the squeeze? Really?
Honestly, now.....
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