Holy flaming pinwheels, Batman!
A towering wind turbine went up in flames Friday at a wind farm located at the edge of a southern Nova Scotia community. […] The tower, which he estimated at over 90 metres tall, was “all aflame.””It was something we’d never seen, for sure. And we couldn’t get near it,” he said.
Firefighters were unable to get close enough to put the fire out directly because of the turbine’s height and movement of the blades — and it couldn’t be turned off with the gearbox on fire.
“It was too dangerous to get close to it,” Amiro said. “Because of the length of the blades and the blades were turning, you didn’t know where they were going to go when they fell.”
h/t Captain Obvious
”It was something we’d never seen, for sure.”
I guess they don’t read SDA much.
Ya think. Lol.
The “greens” will say … oh, no big deal … your OIL REFINERIES catch fire all the time. Kinda like a Tesla Fire … when Elon says … yeahhhhhh but ICE’s BURN at a much higher rate … nothing to see here … move along. And move all your $$$$$ into “renewable” energy
…and researchers noted there were poor statistical records of (turbine fires) making record-keeping difficult. Really? How surprising! Sarc/off
I guess I missed the part where the SJW Volunteer Fire Brigade showed up to help?
Even if it was just to complain about all the male privilege and stuff…
It’s a pity there wasn’t a *video* of the fire. That would have been fun to watch.
Good luck with your fire departments racing the scene, operating electric trucks.
At minus 25 degrees…..
Its okay, Climate Barbie will pull them to site.
So the wind turbine that generates the electricity is pretty much impossible to put out in the event of a fire and the Tesla that uses the electricity is pretty much impossible to put out in the event of a fire. There’s something poetic about this.
If it’s like Ont where 97% of turbines are in rural townships serviced by volunteer firemen, they haven’t the slightest means of coping with a fire in a 90 m tower. All they can do is stand and watch till the fire dies down and hope for the best. Even city professional departments lack equipment to fight blazes in such towers. In Huron Co Ont a few years back 2013, a fire destroyed a tower near Goderich. Again only volunteer firemen available and the tower was in the middle of a wheat field as many are. Luckily it was Apr so no spreading occurred, but in Aug whole fields would have been set ablaze. Ont has no concrete plan to handle such fires when they occur and this turbine was new, any recommendation by the Fire Marshall Office were kept very quiet.
During one of the countless public meetings I attended in Ont., the wind industry was mandated to hold before they would be granted approval, I asked why these nacelles and towers weren’t outfitted with a sprinkler system. I was told it wasn’t required. I pointed out, that workers would be in those areas conducting maintenance on the turbine and asked again if they had any fire suppression installed for their safety. I was met with a blank stare by wind industry reps and mumbled something about costs and how to get water up to the nacelle. I was also curious how the municipal fire departments could green light such a workplace. Again , no answer. https://gineersnow.com/industries/renewables/two-mechanics-died-wind-turbine-fire-helped-wind-industry
There will be hundreds, maybe thousands more of these in the coming years. They are estimated to last 25 years but you know they won’t and then who will take them down or remove them? No one that’s who.
I guess none of the greenies realize that there is actually an expiration date on those monsters.
I suppose theoretically if they were really built to last (you know, renewable energy) they would make sure to service them regularly so the gearboxes won’t just freeze up and burn, or even to make sure they still make the gearboxes to replace them in twenty five years. But as a matter of fact, they don’t. There are plenty of windmills from 25 years ago lying idle because they can’t replace the defunct gearboxes.
Ipso facto, the windmills are no more “renewable” than oil wells that go dry in twenty five years. No actually they are less renewable. Oil wells that went dry and abandoned miraculously can start producing again because oil actually is not “fossil fuel” and oil wells are really renewable. No so much windmills which are not designed to last.
Routine maintenance is soooooo unsexy on economic paperwork (and is the first line item that gets fudged). And the investors/taxpayers get their fudge packed.
It was beautiful picture, I would love to see more.
“It was too dangerous to get close to it,” Amiro said. “Because of the length of the blades and the blades were turning, you didn’t know where they were going to go when they fell.”
Some useless but related (and fun) trivia:
The tip of a wind turbine blade measuring 75 meters (~250’) spinning at 15 to 20 rpm travels at 180 mph. Some wind turbines have even longer blades that measure 107 meters (~350’) & 127 meters (~415’) in length.
An average 1.5-MW turbine produces enough electric energy to power ~330 households for a year. But because wind power is intermittent, wind turbines only produce power at or above the annual average rate ~40% of the time.
In 2011, the three hospitals in Melbourne, Australia consumed 138 GWh (combined). As of 2015, Australia’s total output of renewable energy, including the longstanding hydro, was… (drumroll, please…) 35 GWh. Ta Da!
Alberta’s wind power is currently producing 2% of capacity! It’s nighttime so solar is 0.
Just think what happens if NDP is re-elected and we move to 30% of generating capacity being wind powered. Oh well with dark evenings (due to blackouts) at least we will be able to see the Milky Way. Side benefit is that we won’t be able to see the CBC (no power).
How much CO2 is released by such a fire?
A pretty sight. Sorry I missed it.
any chance the cause of the fire could, oh, be repeated elsewhere?
mebbe the new models will have some sort of built in fire suppressant.
adding to the cost.
any word on who pays to decommission them?
‘insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result’.
and THAT is how we know the world is going nutso at an exponentially accelerating rate.