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Huge wind turbines – taller than the Statue of Liberty -- are toppling over in a ‘rash’ of incidents
American Thinker ^ | 01/23/2023 | Thomas Lifson

Posted on 01/23/2023 9:13:26 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Bloomberg Business Week, no foe of green energy, headlines:  Wind Turbines Taller Than the Statue of Liberty Are Falling Over.” The article beneath the headline reports on a variety of alarming disasters involving wind turbines, including collapses of very tall sructures.

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.

The steel tower, which once stood hundreds of feet tall, was buckled in half, and the turbine blades, whose rotation took the machine higher than the Statue of Liberty, were splayed across the wheat field below. The turbine, made by General Electric Co., had been in operation less than a year. “It fell pretty much right on top of itself,” Willey says.

Another GE turbine of the same model collapsed in Colorado a few days later. That wind farm’s owner-operator, NextEra Energy Inc., later attributed it to a blade flaw and said it and GE had taken steps to prevent future mishaps. A spokesperson for GE declined to say what went wrong in both cases in a statement to Bloomberg.

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.

The article blames the “rash” of incidents on the rush to install turbine capacity, but there are also permanent factors that make engineering, building, and maintaining wind farms difficult and risky.


(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Science; Society; Weather
KEYWORDS: electricity; energy; green; greenenergy; turbines; wind; windenergy; windenergyisnotfree; windturbines; windturbinesburnup; windturbinesfallover; windturbineswearout
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To develop meaningful amounts of power, the blades on the turbine have to be big, and when big blades spin in heavy winds, the tips can end up hitting supersonic speeds, putting great stress of the materials used to construct them. Big blades also requite tall towers, which are then subject to stresses as winds blow and can gust during storms to velocities that test the strength of the materials and the design of the towers.


1 posted on 01/23/2023 9:13:27 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

In that picture it appears the foundation rotated out of the ground. That would lead me first to look at foundation design and construction as opposed to turbine construction.


2 posted on 01/23/2023 9:17:45 AM PST by KC Burke
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To: SeekAndFind

3 posted on 01/23/2023 9:17:47 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: SeekAndFind

Look, a dead bird killer!


4 posted on 01/23/2023 9:17:49 AM PST by Highest Authority (DemonRats are pure EVIL)
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To: SeekAndFind

Well not as spectacular but I guess they’re our version of the Hindenburg.


5 posted on 01/23/2023 9:18:18 AM PST by xp38
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To: SeekAndFind

6 posted on 01/23/2023 9:18:38 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: SeekAndFind

Damn things were vaxxinated


7 posted on 01/23/2023 9:18:50 AM PST by Cold Heart
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To: SeekAndFind

Wow, the concrete base pulled out of the ground? That’s a very small concrete base for such a large, highly loaded structure. I can see the Chinese making such weak, undersized concrete bases. I’m shocked to see that in the USA. Unless that’s a Chinese windmill in the photo


8 posted on 01/23/2023 9:18:59 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom (Once you get people to believe that a plural pronoun is singular, they'll believe anything - nicollo)
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To: xp38

9 posted on 01/23/2023 9:19:20 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: SeekAndFind
Need better poles...


10 posted on 01/23/2023 9:20:53 AM PST by Magnum44 (...against all enemies, foreign and domestic... )
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To: SeekAndFind

Calling BS on the tips hitting supersonic speeds, no way are they going that fast and staying together. Continuous sonic boom off the tips? As it approached the speed if it jumped beyond and then below the SOS a few times the resonance of that would tear the Fiberglas apart.


11 posted on 01/23/2023 9:20:53 AM PST by Abathar (Proudly posting without reading the article carefully since 2004)
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To: SeekAndFind

This wasn’t a “buckled in half” thing. The foundation failed. Uprooted like a blown over tree. I have seen one picture where the steel part of the support tower failed, but it wasn’t from the steel tube part. It was from the weld-seam - the metal tubing didn’t ‘buckle.”


12 posted on 01/23/2023 9:23:12 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: SeekAndFind; All

Building these white elephants use more energy and pollute the planet than what they produce. Half of em stop spinning after a few years. Wind is a gimmick to keep the global warming Moonbats at bay.


13 posted on 01/23/2023 9:23:43 AM PST by Cobra64 (Common sense isn’t common anymore.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Blade detachement in Wisc.:

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4125310/posts


14 posted on 01/23/2023 9:23:48 AM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this? 😕)
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To: SeekAndFind

gravity. damn.


15 posted on 01/23/2023 9:24:12 AM PST by teeman8r (Armageddon won't be pretty, but it's not like it's the end of the world or something )
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To: SeekAndFind

Foundation work by illegals, LLC.


16 posted on 01/23/2023 9:24:59 AM PST by George from New England
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To: SeekAndFind

Another large wind turbine failure in Wisconsin this week. Luckily, no one was killed.


17 posted on 01/23/2023 9:25:41 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have, 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set. )
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To: SeekAndFind
Top 10 Wind Turbines Topple, Crash & Burn video
18 posted on 01/23/2023 9:26:08 AM PST by GaltAdonis
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To: teeman8r

Darn Chinese pot metal nuts and bolts


19 posted on 01/23/2023 9:26:46 AM PST by redcatcherb412
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To: SeekAndFind

Thought it was interesting when Warren Buffett said they were not a good investment.


20 posted on 01/23/2023 9:27:10 AM PST by Churchillspirit (Pray for President Trump)
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