Wind Turbines Survive Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan!!!

[kpete]

According to Kelly Rigg at the Huffington Post, the Country's Wind Turbine farms survived consecutive natural disasters so well that the Japanese Government is asking that the operators of the facilities step up production to make up for the lost power supply left by nuclear plant failures around the Japan's North Island.

Yes, you read that right.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/19/958072/-Wind-Turbines-Survive-Earthquake-and-Tsunami-in-Japan

Mr. Ueda confirms that most Japanese wind turbines are fully operational. Indeed, he says that electric companies have asked wind farm owners to step up operations as much as possible in order to make up for shortages in the eastern part of the country:

Eurus Energy Japan says that 174.9MW with eight wind farms (64% of their total capacity with 11 wind farms in eastern part of Japan) are in operation now. The residual three wind farms (Kamaishi 42.9MW, Takinekoshirai 46MW, Satomi 10.02MW) are stopped due to the grid failure caused by the earthquake and Tsunami. Satomi is to re-start operations in a few days. Kamaishi is notorious for tsunami disaster, but this wind farm is safe because it is locate in the mountains about 900m high from sea level.

Battle-proof Wind Farms Survive Japan's Trial by Fire

the rest: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-rigg/battleproof-wind-farms-su_b_837172.html

[Lucinda]

1. :)

Go wind!

[meow mix]

2. k&r

good to see the growing enthusiasm for alternatives

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

3. I was wondering if they used wind turbines.

[grahamhgreen]

4. Wind blows nukes away!

[WillyT]

5. K & R !!!

:kick:

[City Lights]

6. K&R

:thumbsup:

[LiberalEsto]

7. AND they didn't spill toxic waste, did they? nt

[ZombieHorde]

8. If you make them the boring way they don't spill toxic waste. nt

[RC]

9. Rotor, blades topple from ND wind tower

http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/article_a1abae7a-51dd-11e0-a84d-001cc4c002e0.html

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - The turbine box and three huge blades from a wind tower in north-central North Dakota crashed to the ground.

The tower is part of a 149-megawatt wind farm owned by Iberdrola Renewables. It includes 71 steel towers.

Iberdrola spokeswoman Jan Johnson said Friday the company and turbine manufacturer Suzlon Wind Energy Corp. are checking the other towers because of the accident.

Suzlon is a unit of Suzlon Energy Ltd. of India.

Johnson says the affected tower was about nine miles north of Rugby. She says the weather was snowy and foggy but the wind was light when the accident happened.

The rotor and blades were attached to a large box called a nacelle. It fell off the tower.

The incident happened at about noon Monday. No one was hurt.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This proves wind power is too dangerous to continue to use. How long till the rest of them fall off. 8-)

[aquart]

10. Heh. Heh. Heh.

[Ringo-san]

11. They could have used those to power the pumps to cool the reactors. nt

[daleo]

12. If 1000 square km get quarantined because of the meltdown

They could turn it into a vast wind and solar farm. At least those areas that are not so hot that they can't be entered for short periods.

The land wouldn't be good for much else.

[Petrushka]

13. K & R --- Great comments at that link. Thanks!

:kick:

[suffragette]

14. Double interesting given the efforts to suppress wind power there

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/175295

1. (C) Summary: Lower House Diet Member Taro Kono voiced his strong opposition to the nuclear industry in Japan, especially nuclear reprocessing, based on issues of cost, safety, and security during a dinner with a visiting staffdel, Energy Attache and Economic Officer October 21. Kono also criticized the Japanese bureaucracy and power companies for continuing an outdated nuclear energy strategy, suppressing development of alternative energy, and keeping information from Diet members and the public. He also expressed dissatisfaction with the current election campaign law. End Summary.

~~~

5. (C) In a similar way, he alleged, METI was committed to advocating for nuclear energy development, despite the problems he attributed to it. Kono noted that while METI claimed to support alternative energy, it in actuality provides little support. He claimed that METI in the past had orchestrated the defeat of legislation that supported alternatives energy development, and instead secured the passage of the Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) act. This act simply requires power companies to purchase a very small amount of their electricity from alternative sources. Kono also criticized the government's handling of subsidies to alternative energy projects, noting that the subsidies were of such short duration that the projects have difficulty finding investors because of the risk and uncertainty involved. As a more specific example of Japan neglecting alternative energy sources, Kono noted there was abundant wind power available in Hokkaido that went undeveloped because the electricity company claimed it did not have sufficient grid capacity. Kono noted there was in fact an unused connection between the Hokkaido grid and the Honshu grid that the companies keep in reserve for unspecified emergencies. He wanted to know why they could not just link the grids and thus gain the ability to add in more wind power.

[Liberty Belle]

15. They were nowhere close to the epicenter. This is industry hype; don't fall for it.

The wind farm is over 300 km away, much farther than the nuclear plant. I am anti-nuke, but also have grave concerns about wind turbine seismic safety and have written on this issue. In fact the large wind turbines have never undergone any seismic testing at all. One 80-foot turbine was recently put on a shake-table test in San Diego viewed only by industry insiders, and results were never released. If it had passed with flying colors you can bet they would've put out a press release. Now they are building farms with 500-foot-high wind turbines right next to homes and freeways -- only a few miles from a major earthquake fault in CA with potential for over a 7 point quake. That is completely insane. The wind farm in Campo, San Diego's East County, was knocked completely off-line for 3 months during a mere wind storm, nothing hurricane force. There was a blinding flash, then all went dark and every single blade had to be replaced. In a quake these things could fall and kill people. But the biggest danger here may be wildfires--google wind turbine fires and you will find many, many cases where the turbines caught fire. We are in a wildfire prone area and don't need this. The newer big turbine designs are also slaughtering many bird species especially big hawks and eagles to the point of near extinction in Europe. How is that "green"?

Solar is by far the safer option and while the desert solar plants have issues too in terms of scraping bare the desert floor environment, i've never heard of a safety issue related to them.

However the best solution of all is many small-scale, locally generated power systems starting with roof-top solar everywhere and in areas with enough wind, small-scale personal helix wind turbines that don't slaughter the birds. Many local faciliites in San Diego are powered entirely or almost entirely by solar. Even in cloudy Seattle, you can power a house 100% with solar, it's been shown. So it costs a bit more, but avoiding the nightmare scenario of nuclear, a Gulf oil disaster, or the prospect of a wildfire spawned by wind turbine fires in areas of dry brush + high winds is certainly worth that investment!

So please don't forward this wind industry propaganda piece on HuffPo without including the other side of this story. It's simply bogus to conclude that these things are now seismically safe based on the situation in Japan, where tall buildings held up well too 300 km away from the epicenter.

[malaise]

16. I'm trying not to laugh

This is wonderful