35 Replies to “We Don’t Need No Stinking Giant Fans”

  1. Latest from Donna Laframboise
    Wind Turbines: Lots of Problems, No Free Energy
    As Pierre Gosselin reports on his NoTricksZone blog, in the dying days of 2016 three serious wind turbine malfunctions occurred in a small corner of Europe, The UK’s Manchester Evening News tells us that, on December 23, all three blades were ripped off a wind turbine during a storm at an installation a 40-minute drive north of Manchester. A man walking his dog in the vicinity was justifiably concerned for his safety.
    On December 26, a Danish wind turbine lost one of its blades. A 38-second video here, from a Danish television station, shows the wreckage on the ground and provides a crucial sense of scale. These structures are monstrous.
    And on December 27, in neighbouring Germany, a third turbine collapsed completely. After one of its blades failed, the nearly 100-meter (330-foot) structure buckled about 15 meters up. At roughly the height of a 30-storey apartment building, it came crashing to the ground with such force that its gear box was embedded nearly 2 meters (6 feet) deep.

  3. I pray to see two things down here in SW Alberta:
    1) one of these bat shredders exploding or blowing over
    2) a bald eagle dead at the base of a turbine.
    Ask me if I’d take a few photos.

  8. I learned everything I needed to know about wind power during Jimmy Carter’s presidency. Jimmy’s Federal subsidies created a massive, shiny, new windmill Farm at (the very windy) Altamont Pass on hwy 580 bordering the SF Bay Area. At first, the propellers spun wildly … a tangible demonstration of “renewable” energy … but soon, the blades stopped spinning … one-by-one. At first, I thought someone just fell behind on their routine maintenance. Then, articles started appearing that explained the reason – simple economics. Once the Federal subsidies stopped, the cost of repairing and maintaining the propellers exceeded the income they produced. So … one by one they stopped spinning till most all were frozen in place … slowly rusting in peace (despite hurricane force winds whistling around them). Wind power is great for remote farms on the windy plains. It works great for pumping water into elevated storage tanks. But it really sucks, big time, for powering an industrialized society. Just an idealized remnant of an agrarian existence romanticized in the minds of 60’s era hippies (who, sadly, are now political leaders).

  9. “… knocked out of commission”. LOL. That turbine isn’t getting recommissioned…
    It was destroyed.

  10. Aside from the unreliable and questionable environmental benefit of wind power, one of their inherent design weaknesses is that due to the blades requiring pivoting into the wind from all directions, no guylines can be used to secure the tower to resist lateral forces from the wind. The blades therefore must feather to neutral prior to wind forces exceeding all structural weak links (blades, bearings, connections, “free-standing” towers, and footings). That can’t happen instantaneously in the case of high wind gusts and rapid changes of wind direction. Something has to give!

  11. “Police have announced that they would like to talk to a Donald Quixote, 56, of Margaree Harbour, as a person of interest.”
    /sarc

  12. According to Big Wind enthusiasts, these turbines have an expected lifespan of over 20 years; believe that and you will expect your cd player to last as long.
    This tower was only 14 years old; how many will fail as they approach 20 years of use? Ont already has towers built so poorly, cheaply that they leaned 7 degrees the first spring.
    A picture not up at MSM showed one of them tethered to a large Cat, presumably temporary. Another new turbine burned out with overheated bearings.
    To all reports of these shoddy construction practices, the Liberals simply say move along folks, nothing to see here. In their haste to get turbines up and running and collecting huge subsidies for Liberal connected firms, Ont has neglected basic safe engineering methods.
    I would expect many more failures as time catches up with these contraptions, and I would expect Ont taxpayers to be on the hook for cleaning up any mess. The wind outfits will be long gone by then, not responsible for damages and immune from liability.

  13. It’s because one isn’t wishing any ill on bald eagles. They are inevitably victims of bird shredders.

  15. Yes, but look at the bright side. Hell of a lot easier to do an oil change today, than yesterday. 🙂

  17. I’m currently in Liverpool working at an automation deployment at the shipping port. I have to drive direct under about 6 of these monster whirling twice a day. This picture gives me pause. If I don’t die driving on the wrong side of the road I hope one of these doesn’t get me.

  18. A Vestas 660kW wind turbine installed in the fall of 2000 at a cost of $2 million. The wind turbine under-went a $180,000-repair in 2004 after its ring gear failed. The bulk of the cost, $100,000, was required to import a large crane 2000 km. Four years old and not covered by warranty. Rime icing on the blades shuts it down frequently in the winter. The wind turbine has never generated enough electricity to pay for it’s installation and maintenance and the utility has abandoned plans for further wind development.

  19. Let’s assume this thing operates at a typical capacity factor of 25% or 2,190 hours a year. Using its rated capacity of 660 kw, that would be 1,445 MW.h per year. Let’s be generous and assume the energy it produces has a value of $60 a MW.h. (For comparison the monthly average price reported by the independent system operator in Ontario for October 2016 was only $11.46 per MW.h.) At $60/MW.h the annual gross value of production from the turbine would be $87,000 per year. Let’s again be generous and assume it serves a full 20 years. At a discount rate of 4% the present value (at time of installation) of gross value of production, before deduction of any ongoing operating and maintenance cost, would be $1.17 million. Installation cost, as you noted, $2 million.
    Only an educated liberal could have made the decision to go ahead with this installation. Or a crony capitalist being who is paid two or three times what the energy is actually worth because the educated liberal was able to convince some similarly educated liberal regulator to force the consumers to pay it.

  20. I knew someone for whom solar power made a lot of sense. 25 years ago he would have had to pay $30,000 for 2 1/2 miles of power line (back in the bush). Instead he bought $10,000 worth of solar equipment. In the worst of the winter he had to fire up a generator once in a while to charge the batteries. It made perfect sense. In any other application wind and solar is stupid.

  21. I expect he is implying that “if” he sees a dead Eagle near the base of one of these bird choppers, he will photograph the dead bird & go public with the evidence.

  22. In reality it’s worse. Capacity factor is only 15%, wind produces at a cost of $36 per MW.h., LNG powered generators at $18 per MW.h. and hydro produces at $11 per MW.h. The only good news is that bird deaths are nil; one grouse flew into a chain link fence at the site.

  23. And if you think THAT green-equation was a leap of either faith or ignorance … try the green-math being used to justify California’s “high speed” Train to nowhere. I believe they are still using one-way fares from SF to LA of about $60.00 to pay-for a project with a ballooning cost of at least $ 70 Billion dollars (before any trains are actually purchased).
    The greens have learned their primary audience (and voters) all have math IQ’s hovering around the 60 mark.

  24. Forgot to mention. I live in NL. Literally 1.5 km from the biggest sea bird sanctuary in NA.
    Near these blenders on the coast of the Mersey I’ve counted 10 dead sea gulls in 3 days.
    If I shot at one pitched on my peak at home I’d have hell rein down upon by NL fishery and conservation officers. Mean while 30 km away 9 of the monstrosities whirl away in Fermuse supplying energy into the most unpredictable grid on the continent. At the same time the tax payers fund the biggest boondoggle in Canadian hydro history.
    It is to laugh if it wasn’t for the future rate payer crying.
    Or something.

  29. There already is a large project near Neidpath. From where I’m sitting right now, it’s about 45 miles from here. I’ve visited the site, very impressive. However a friend of mine who works for Sask Power describes the project as a huge money loser.
    No wind, no power. No rocket science needed to know that. Tonight is one of those cold calm nights where the vapor from the chimney rises straight up to the stars. At zero wind, the turbines ate stopped. Yet the temp. is -25°C thus the power consumption is high. . Thanks to the coal powered Poplar River Power Station at Coronach, Sk., the lights are shining brightly, and my office that is heated by a 1500 watt baseboard heater is toasty warm. God bless lignite coal and steam turbines.

  30. In a related story, birds are finally returning to the area, now that it’s safe for them to fly.

  31. “these turbines have an expected lifespan of over 20 years”
    I have no doubt that the same subset of people who expected Hillary to win expect these turbines to flawlessly produce for over 20 years.
    Heck, you could go back +/-95 years and find a similar subset of people who “expected” the Titanic to dock in NYC.

  32. “Heck, you could go back +/-95 years and find a similar subset of people who “expected” the Titanic to dock in NYC.”
    Well it would have if it hadn’t been for that controlled coal room fire in the Titanic that really caused it to sink!

  33. I read an article some time ago that said there are over 14 thousand dead wind turbines littering the U.S. and no one will absorb the cost of fixing them or tearing them down. Coming to a Canadian province near you.

  34. Ever notice how international trade is so common in the windmill business?
    It must make tracking the graft and arresting the perps a lot more difficult?

  35. Perhaps they’ll have to put them on casters and roll them into hangars when the wind gets too strong.

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