Latest Wind Turbine Blade Throw: Cape Cod Wind Turbine Blows Apart In Yesterday's Storm.

[NNadir]

And a nasty storm it was.

We had a lot of damage around here in New Jersey.

It seems like every day there's another incident of flying metal associated with the weak wind industry:

MARSTONS MILLS - Around 12 p.m. Sunday, two blades of a wind turbine were reportedly blown off during the strong nor’easter ravaging Cape Cod.

According to spectators near the scene, two blades atop the approximately 60 foot wind turbine blew off around noon. There were no reported injuries.

A section of the blades could be seen on the ground approximately 100 feet from the wind turbine.

The wind turbine is located near 3800 Falmouth Road in Marstons Mills, a village in Barnstable, Massachusetts.

http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/

http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2010/03/14/large-tree-down-in-bourne-as-high-winds?blog=53

[NYC_SKP]

1. You call THAT a Turbine? Looks like an antique. I'll show you a Wind Turbine. Not even a big one.

...just a 1.5 MW, IIRC.

At the ranch next door are some 2.0 Vestas.

A couple summers ago, Solano county, CA.

[NNadir]

2. I wouldn't want to be nearby when that SOB blows apart. Vestas has very poor reliability.

They were in deep financial doo-doo a few years back because they had to honor a lot of 5 year warranties.

Their solution was not, um, to raise their reliability. On the contrary, their approach was to reduce the warranty period to two years.

This was discussed in one of their company reports a few years back.

[NYC_SKP]

4. On the plus side, if a Vestas blade hits you...

...there's not much chance of having to face months of rehabilitation.

If ya know what I mean.

:evilgrin:

[NNadir]

5. I hear you. Vestas has experienced a few employee deaths, although I believe they were

falls.

Most of Vestas's quality problems concern their gearboxes and other drive train components, which are generally not fatal, but have been responsible for a few of their fires.

They're pretty crappy things, although every year they announce that they're past their quality problems.

[kristopher]

3. This reflects very pooly on the ability of the nuclear industry to operate safely

I mean face it, if wind technology fails as often as you like to indicate, what does that say about our ability as a technological society to safely design and operate a large number of extremely complex and very very dangerous nuclear facilities?

In fact, wind turbines have extremely good operating records in spite of tossing an occasional piece of fiberglass off in a violent storm.

[NNadir]

6. Um, kiddie, this has NOTHING to do with the nuclear industry. It has to do with a little piddling

shit industry that produces very little energy, involves a lot of big talk and hot air but very little energy.

The figures are here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/renew_energy_consump/table1.html

The entire wind industry could disappear tomorrow - something it occassionally does when the wind doesn't blow - and no one would notice.

Not so the nuclear industry.

Got it?

No?

Why am I not surprised?

[kristopher]

7. People are people are people.

People striving for perfection design and build wind turbines, people striving for perfection design and build nuclear power plants and all of their components and subsystems.

The common thread cannot be erased by your hyperbolic ranting.

[NNadir]

9. People are people? Why is it then that some people here are obsessed

with one energy accident and not another.

In 1975 more than 200,000 people died in a few weeks from Banqiao.

Our anti-nukes couldn't care less.

More than a million people will die from air pollution this year, from the normal operations of the dangerous fossil fuel industry. Our anti-nukes want to talk incessantly about the 25 year old Chernobyl accident in the YUGO of nuclear plants.

Speaking of Yugos, more than 40,000 Americans will die this year in car accidents, but do our anti-nukes whine about how the Yugo proves the car industry is unsafe? No, on the contrary, they tell us about their car fantasies.

To run a nuclear plant, one needs to have significant training in engineering.

To be a lightweight loud mouth, one doesn't.

Nuclear plants work. They are the largest, by far, source of climate change free primary energy in the United States. Our anti-nukes seek to destroy the largest, by far, source of climate change gas free energy out of ignorance of how nuclear power works.

As it has been working more than 40 years in this country, nuclear power is a mature technology with a well developed reliability and cost profile, although there seem to be a lot of lightweight twits who seem to get that wrong.

The wind industry, by contrast, is a tiny industry relying wholly on speculative hype.

There is NOT ONE wind turbine in this country that is operating as long as the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant that the anti-nukes are trying to vandalize and destroy of ignorance. No one's going to have to ask what to do with a 38 year old wind turbine, because they'll all be lumps of junk metal by then.

[kristopher]

10. Nuclear power is a product of a complex system designed and operated by humans

Systems fail. Pointing out the failures in other technologies only highlights the fact that nuclear will fail too. No one involved in any failure such as you point to ever thinks the practice they are engaged in will result in a breakdown. When most such failures occur the price is inconvenience and money. However the potential for massive catastrophe lasting generations is unique to nuclear power, and it is proper to keep it at the fore of the discussion.

[Statistical]

15. Nuclear power can "fail" without it being a catastrophe.

People on DU post everday about "nuclear event" in which some component or transformer or power loss causes reactor to SCRAM safely and automatically.

Average reactor has one "unintended shutdown" every 7000 hours. Those are all "failures" however nobody is hurt by them.

You are trying to raise the bar to perfection. If a reactor doesn't operate perfectly forever then it is Chernobyl. This is a fallacy.

Nuclear reactors routinely have component failures however they simply shut down. Nobody except you is arguing we can build a reactor that never fails. The reality is we don't need to. We simply need to build them such that when they do "fail" the public isn't harmed.

50 million operating hours later that premise is holding true.

[kristopher]

18. That is a straw man fallacy. Here is the logic on including Chernobyl in the discussion.

You claim, "You are trying to raise the bar to perfection. If a reactor doesn't operate perfectly forever then it is Chernobyl. This is a fallacy."

That isn't my point at all. In fact, it is so far from my point that it can only be a deliberate mischaracterization you choose to make because the real point can't be argued against effectively.

It is the claim of the nuclear proponents that failures on the scale of Chernobyl cannot happen because, as you put it, when failures occur, they simply shut down.

They shut down because they are designed to go through a process that detects the failure and triggers a sequence of actions that results in shut down - sometimes well into phases of failure that must rely on containing major damage, since avoiding such damage has failed.

To date there has been no failure outside of Chernobyl that has totally exceeded the parameters of planning. However it is the very nature of failures in complex systems that they result from a series of events that were not planned for.

You think the probability of such a sequence of failures is so low as to be, quite literally, non-existent in the real world. That is simply false, there is a possibility of catastrophic failure and there are three reasons it is a valid part of the debate.

First is that however low the risk is, the scale of the consequences is so large it acts to offset the low probability of occurrence. People don't play the lottery because they expect to win, they play the lottery because IF they win the scale of the win is large enough to offset the low probability of winning. The fact that there there are routinely winners in the lottery confirms that 'low probability - high consequence' risks are not the same as "impossible".

Second is the fact that the data supporting the risk assessment is not trustworthy. The nuclear industry's intimate relationship with government regulators around the globe cannot be ignored. The evolution of the data on Chernobyl highlights how even *extremely* overt negative information is managed, massaged and hidden from public scrutiny. Just like the fallacious pricing data, the risk data is "trimmed" by systemic bias towards protecting the industry. If something like an event that kills hundreds of thousands can be glossed over, what makes you think the statistics on component failure are any more reliable? If you are honest, you cannot vouch for the accuracy of those numbers - GIGO.

Third is that there is no need to take this risk, however low the probability is. There are alternatives that can deliver the same end product more quickly for less money and with fewer external environmental costs. Therefore the low probability high consequence risk is properly compared to perfection - a state we CAN achieve in regard to the risks by NOT investing any further money in the technology.


In summary, the failures that nnads loves to point to are representative of all technologies - including nuclear power. They are designed and built by people seeking to achieve perfection and they ALWAYS fall short of that goal. It is the consequences associated with the inevitability of failure that makes the risk of nuclear relevant. We don't know the actual degree of risk because the nuclear industry and its regulators have demonstrably controlled the data in a manner to reduce public perception of risk. However low the unknown probability of that high consequence risk is, it is rendered unacceptable because there are alternatives that can reduce the risk to ZERO for lower cost.

[kristopher]

22. Looking forward to your reply to post 18...

[Berry Cool]

17. "Why is it then that some people here are obsessed with one energy accident and not another?"

Good question. For example, why are some people so terrified of wind power that they freak out every time they learn about a new turbine accident, yet they don't feel the same way about nuclear power? Go figure!

[yurbud]

11. that's the favorite circular argument against alternative energy: it's not producing much now, so

we shouldn't build more in the future. And then in the future, you can repeat it.

Of course at one time, NONE of our energy was coming from nukes, or oil, or coal for that matter.

Also, if a wind turbine throws a blade, that's a little easier to dispose of than nuclear waste.

[Statistical]

16. Except when it throws a blade (or wind doesn't blow, or blows to hard) the slack is picked up....

by fossil fuels which happily dispose of their waste in the atmosphere. Unlike radioactive waste they have no half-life and once "disposed of" they exists forever in air, water, earth, and food supply.

[yurbud]

23. better to use those fossil fuels to only take up the slack than all the time

[Statistical]

25. I agree.

Believe it or not I support wind, solar, and other renewables.

However to pretend they don't use backup fossil fuel generation is simply being dishonest.

The cost (both in $$$ and in CO2) of backup fossil fuels has to be considered. Remember even nuclear reactors need backup fossil fuels however they have a much higher capacity factor (92% vs 30%) thus fossil fuel plants are used less often.

[yurbud]

26. what do you mean by ''higher capacity"? Is that the amount of time they're online?

[Statistical]

27. Basically.

Not exactly time online but % of energy generated in a given period of time compared to maximum energy possible based on peak power.

Remember power (100 MW, 178 kW) is just peak instantaneous power. Energy is what makes the world go round (power * time).

A plant that is offline 50% of the time would have capacity factor of 50% however a plant which is "online" all the time but output varies and averages 50% would also has a capacity factor of 50%.

Capacity factor allows us to convert between POWER and ENERGY.

Generally POWER is in kilowatts (kW), megawatts (MW), or gigawatts (GW).

ENERGY (which is what we actually use on the grid) is in kilowatthours (kwh), megawatthours (MWh), or Gigawatthours (GWh).

A theoretically perfect 1GW power plant would generate 24 * 365 = 8760 GWh annually (24 hours per day and 365 days per year). 1GW constantly for 8760 hours is 8760GWh. This "perfect" plant would have a capacity factor of 100%.

Capacity factor is the % of that "theoretical energy" based on peak power and maximum time (8760 hours in a year) that is actually delivered.

Capacity factor for nuclear plants in the US is ~92%.
Capacity factor for wind is roughly ~30%.
Capacity factor for Solar is about 15%-20%.

So all watts are not equal.

1 GW wind farm (at 30% capacity factor) will produce 1 GW * 8760 * 0.30 = 2628 GWh
1 GW nuclear plant (at 92% capacity factor) will produce 1 GW * 8760 * 0.92 = 8060 GWh

Roughly speaking to produce the same amount of annual generation or energy (kWh)
1GW nuclear ~= 3GW wind ~= 4 to 5 GW Solar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor

[kristopher]

28. I see you exclude time to completion, number of failed projects and cost

When you add in those factors renewables are far more effective at meeting our energy needs than nuclear.

CBO is forecasting a greater than 50% default rate for new nuclear plants; do you think that will slow down or speed up getting nuclear power on line? While we are waiting, does that count against the capacity factor numbers?

You are taking a very narrow set of characteristics and exaggerating the importance.

[yurbud]

24. I do like your half-life argument! Did you make that up or get it from a pro-nuke source?

If you made it up, you could have a successful career in public relations.

Seriously, I don't like nuclear energy, but that gave me pause. Well done.

[Statistical]

29. I got it from my knowledge of physics.

People are often scared by what they don't know.

People know lead, arsenic, voc, and other crap that is in their drinking water and they drink is down without "fearing the tap". None of that crap has a half life. Once you ingest mercury, or lead 99.9% of it will be with your for rest of your life.

On the other hand tritium which is relatively harmless is scary because it has a "half life". Half life is method to reduce effects over time. Tritium only lasts about 14 days in the body so not only is it less harmful than "infinite-life" toxins it doesn't stick around a lifetime to cause slow damage.

Of the two the prior threat is a magnitude more dangerous but because it is something people can understand they don't fear it. Tritium is unknown. Ask 100 people what tritium is and 99 couldn't tell you.
Do you know how tritium is formed? Did you know tritium forms naturally? You have been drinking tritium your whole life. You are radioactive. Ignorance leads to fear.

[Kalun D]

8. Comparison of Danger

Yeah, when a wind turbine blows a blade the danger is over in seconds.

When a nuclear power plant goes awry the danger lasts for 900 years.

Anybody that doubts this please move to Pripyat, there's plenty of vacancies.

[zbdent]

12. why do people still build houses in the Tornado Belt?

I mean, there have been plenty of people killed in tornadoes ... IN HOUSES!

[Sinistrous]

13. I agree nuclear power production gets a bad rap, but

You picked a poor example to insinuate fragility in wind generation;

As someone pointed out here.

[Statistical]

14. Given the lifespan of wind turbines "unusual events" will happen frequently.

While that storm was above average for the year, turbines are suppose to have a 30 year lifespan. In any 30 year span of time a turbine would need to survive dozens of major storms.

If some portion doesn't/can't then they really don't have a 30 year lifespan do they? Real-world lifespan would need to be reduced depending on severity of predicted weather over next 30 years.

[kristopher]

19. So one failure at 12,000 miles on your car negates the average statistics on performance

for all cars?

No, it doesn't. Go into any mechanics garage and you will seen normal maint & repair underway. A part of the process of and cost of using the technology. Wind turbines are much more like automobiles than large scale thermal generating power plants. And IF your auto were performing to the average level of a wind turbine, you'd be going 200,000 miles between oil changes and half a million miles between routine repairs.

[Statistical]

20. Once again so much bitternes and vile.

I never said anything like that.

Rather premature failure needs to be considered in operational lifetime of turbine. Not all damage can be repaired or more accurately repaired cost effectively. Some damaged turbines will be scrapped.

Eventually I am sure some studies will come out to see how the real world life expectancy compared with 30 year quoted lifespan. It simply will take time. Most large scale wind projects are relatively new. The few large scale projects with >20 years history are not numerous enough to provide statistically valid samples across diverse geographical locations.

In another 5-10 years we will have better idea of the true lifespan of wind.

[kristopher]

21. Wind turbines are rated for 20 years. Most perform to 30.

No one does an economic assessment based on anything beyond 20 years.

There is a lot of data out there right now.