Posted on 07/01/2025 1:05:11 AM PDT by Libloather
One person is reported injured after a wind turbine blade broke loose from a truck and crashed into traffic on Interstate 70 in Maryland.
It happened early Monday morning in Washington County, the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) confirmed to Fox News Digital.
"At approximately 5:30 a.m., a tractor trailer traveling westbound on I-70 was pulling a wind turbine blade that struck the guardrail causing the blade to go partially into the eastbound lanes," a statement said. "The blade was then clipped by a tractor trailer traveling eastbound."
The crash resulted in the closure of all westbound lanes of I-70 at I-81 and two lanes in the eastbound direction, the Maryland SHA said on X.
All lanes were reopened by 8:28 a.m., a subsequent post said.
The scene, captured by a Maryland Department of Transportation camera, showed the blade in the middle of the interstate while impacting traffic on both sides.
"Heavy tow crews were able to back the truck up after the guardrail was cut out and get the trailer back onto the westbound lanes. The entire unit was then driven up to I-70 west of Md. Rt. 63 and parked on the wide shoulder," SHA's statement said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Those wacko Merrylanders. ROTFL!
Watched a bit of this yesterday. I would like to see the crash footage. Big blade coming right at you on the interstate, fun times.
Wind turbines are a scam. They still want a “farm” of those windmills off the coast of Virginia Beach.
They should take those blades set them up-right in a row on the border,nice and tight, and fill them with concrete.
I am frequently in Morehead City, NC and they bring them in by ship and move each one out to their final destination by truck. Got caught behind them wheeling out of the port on a few occasions. Didn’t bother me as much as they get a police escort out of town and I was fascinated and interested to see how they handle various traffic situations.
OH.. That’ll just Buff out!
Large scale wind power has the benefit of the economy of scale but nevertheless requires subsidies to be competitive. Small scale distributed wind power lacks the economy of scale and is even worse.
Thanks for the reminder that alternative energy has a place for remote off-grid situations.
Doesn’t having “subsidies” undermine the part about being “competitive”??? Where do the subsidies come from...out of thin air? No...from you and me. What a scam on people.
I have 64 solar panels (total 20kW) and 90kWh of battery storage (not rich enough for Tesla LOL). This is for an all-electric house and charging our EV for 1,500 miles per month (home charged miles alone). My solar is like a "whole house" generator in that I usually don't pull power from the grid. The few times the grid is down, I still have power to the house. But I still need the grid for about 20% of my power throughout the year (most of my grid pull is during 4 winter months). The end result is that my past 12 power bills averaged $71/month. I'm happy with that for not having a natural gas bill nor much in gasoline costs (what little we drive the gas pickup).
Alabama has not been a "net metering" state in forever. I knew that before getting solar. So my math on whether or not to get solar didn't include making money selling power to the grid. All residences are charged $15.60 for being hooked up ($14.50 basic fee + 50¢ natural disaster fee + 4% state tax). If you decide to sell power to the grid there are extra fees, and the costs of those depend on which power sell agreement you choose. For me it's an extra $2-ish in a license fee and power purchase fee combined, plus a demand charge of $1.50 X highest power pull during that month. The end result: I make about $100 more than the extra fees throughout the year. The highest demand fee was in January at 23 X $1.50 = $34.50 (at one point our electric furnace was running while we're charging the EV while we're in the hot tub at night after it rained all day and our batteries weren't charged so all of that was coming from the grid). So for that and other reasons my January power bill was $277. But from March to October my power bills range from -$3.73 to $20.53.
I'm not mad about the stay hooked up fees. Even I need the grid every now and then, so I ought to pay my share of the upkeep. $71/month power bill + the payment on the loan I took out to pay for it all is cheaper than what I was paying in power + natural gas + gasoline (again driving 1,500 miles per month). And because most of my energy consumption is homemade energy, my budget is not hit hard every time the left changes their energy regulations and distorts the market. Decentralized solar combined with an EV has made our home and local driving fairly autonomous as far as our budget is concerned. So it's easier to plan my future retirement expenses, at least the energy cost portion.
For our power outage needs we have a whole house propane fired generator that automatically engages when commercial power goes offline. There is just one small battery for the generator, aside from that there is no maintenance other than occasional oil change. Another advantage is it’s considerably less expensive than all solar and does not have batteries that are of the type that self combust.
If people like you were in charge of some of these programs - some of them might actually work. Thanks for the information... interesting and hopeful.
Yikes - so it really can be much worse? Landfill worse? Not surprising knowing liberals are pushing this crap with magical thinking and limited thought put into it.
:)
“The reason people aren’t using wind power in some version or other is because it costs MORE to produce the energy than to buy it. You have to be a brain dead liberal to buy into the idea.”
Easy trigger at least know your facts from hear say. Wind turbines in Texas produce grid wholesale prices at $15 to $20 on the regular. Right now power in ERCOT is $80 per megawatt hour, last night when the wind was blowing hard it was $11 as there was more wind power than needed , and ERCOT was exporting power. Wind is low right now so gas turbines are burning $4 MMBTU fuel which has a break even price of $50 per MWh. You obviously are not a power industry professional if you were you would know this and have access to real time wholesale market data. Texas is not only the USA leader wind we are the world leader. We have so much wind at times it’s NEGATIVE per MWh ERCOT pays people to take it no thermal power source EVER will have negative rates since the fuel costs alone male that impossible. Wind once it’s capital costs are amortized can go negative and does fairly regularly. Wind pays it’s EROI off in under a year in class 4+ wind fields and has a overall EROI in the 40s for every BTU used to make the steel,concrete and polymers in them. Plenty of peer review sources for those answers.
This makes wind a net energy producer as it makes many times the energy invested in making it over it’s lifespan. Humans need net energy production in the long term as a species. Nuclear is the best , fossil fuels are an energy sink they can never be positive it’s physics. You will always burn more energy harvesting fossil fuels than what you net at the end. Gasoline is 1.4 to one it takes the energy equivalent of 1.5 gallons to put one gallon in your tank when you account for the energy used to drill, transport, refine, transport and distribution all fueled with the hydrocarbon itself it cannot be positive by definition. It only works because you are burning millions of years of fissile sunshine accumulation all at knce. One gallon of gasoline was over 10 tonnes of micro algae when it was deposited millions of years ago. The few percentages of carbon that made the trip from source rock to trap to well to refinery to pump was losses the whole way. If the oil industry was not subsidized prices would we drastically higher as well. No skin off my back it make me a wealthy man in my 40s who can never work again if I chose not too having passive income for life. At least know the facts.The level of scientific ignorance in the general population is staggering.
Wind also works gangbusters on the small scale I have a 50kw turbine on my homestead it made last month in two weeks of frontal storms and clouds 1900+ kWh well more than any of the structures could’ve used even at 67F in the bedrooms. I sold the excess along with the excess solar power from the panels. That turbine will pay for itself in under a year at this rate could be happier with it.
Oh and birds are killed by buildings,cars,and feral cats way more than turbines BY FAR. Facts not hear say.
Numbers ,data, peer review that’s how things are done.
Eliminate all subsidies including oil industry ones uncle sugar has no charter to give money to lobbyist cronies period and I am all for eliminating all subsidies.
Look at West Texas and the Panhandle. Texas has more energy dropped on it than what would be needed to power not only the USA but all of North American power just in those two area’s. It’s a storage and distribution issue not an energy resource issue. Again physics not feelings.
https://x.com/JessePeltan/status/1780619689799860676
https://x.com/bpiatt/status/1882928783742931412
This is on gigawatt hours not gigawatts Texas leads by a huge margin. This is why data centers, AI, and Crypto are flocking to Texas we will dominate those markets in North America if not the world. It’s a myth our grid is bad, we have the GOP and ERCOT taking huge cronies profits from it. When you have wholesale prices in the $10 to $20 regularly and the REPs the fourth middle man sell it retail for $120 yeah thanks GOP for “deregulation” remember Texas has been 100% GOP on both houses and the governorship for 20+ years it is all on them. Corporate rates are $50 or less per MWh as gas turbines can hit that on-site with wholesale gas rates it sets a floor on commercial rates. Joe six pack will never ever see those rates to much cronies profits to be had.
No skin off my back my panels and turbine run a dedicated 480V meter backwards and out cash money in my pocket every month including winter I giggle all the way to the bank to cash mail box money’s. My panels make 3/10 of a cent per kWh power nothing anywhere can touch that not even wholesale gas into a micro turbine. I sell that power for upwards of $5 per kWh during peaks which correspond nicely with peak sun in Texas can’t wait for August there is bank to be made. My homes plural will be at 67F the whole time. It is ludicrous to me that so called conservatives are not all over individual solar it is the only way to be energy independent as a prepper that’s what started me on this path then the bloody obvious math and money took over, the turbine went up this year thinking about another one further back and another 30kw of panels too. Both are crazy cheap now wholesale.
“A single hour of sunlight in Texas contains more energy than the entire world uses in a day.”
Absolute truth, the math is solid on this.
Texas is kicking butts and taking makes in solar too only China competes and they are also striving for dominance in AI, data centers and Crypto.
https://x.com/JessePeltan/status/1839733905013821723
We will have 40,000 megawatts of energy storage by 2029 we have 13,000 today that’s 13 nukes worth today and 40 by 2029 there are times right now when the sun comes up and demand is low that 6000 megawatts worth of power are flowing into energy storage all at once for $8 per MWh that’s 8/10s of a cent. That power will be sold at 8pm peak for $80 or more per MWh it’s easy to see why Texas is dominating this market. Those packs store of minimum of 4 hours to be registered with ERCOT most are 8s and 12s again this is why AI and Crypto is flocking here. Texas economy is driven not by coal which is only 9,000 MW ish it’s all solar, wind , power storage growth gas turbines are the back up and twice to five times as expensive $50 per MWh is break even for $4 MMBTU gas prices to the turbines. Solar and wind set the floors prices not gas, gas sets the peak rates and we have no mandatory spinning reserves so they hold off at peak times till ERCOT issues a cattle call in the $100+ range then they flood the market with power.
https://x.com/JessePeltan/status/1939403479170031856
When individule citizens use a product (without 'incentives') we know it's a winner. Thanks for sharing.
That works for me...
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