| The Destructive Power of Wind: Turbine Disintigrates |
| Written by Hank Green | ||
| Monday, 25 February 2008 | ||
|
Ever been curious exactly what kind of force would be necessary to destroy a wind turbine? Well, luckily for you (and not whoever owns this turbine) now we get to see. During periods of ultra-high winds, turbines have to take measures to protect themselves. They either rotate the angle of the blades so they pick up less of the wind, or they stop themselves completely and turn paralell with the wind. If the brakes fail, as it were, then the results can be quite spectacular. During a storm in Hornslet, Denmark, this turbine's brakes failed to engage and the turbine continued to capture the maximum amount of energy. As the turbine continued to accelerate, the G-forces were apparently too much, one of the blades splintered and the resulting loss of balance completely destroyed all of the other blades AND the tower. If you've ever wondered "how could wind possibly contain enough energy to power our world?" here's you answer for you.
Comments
(7)
...
written by monotonehell , February 25, 2008
Disaster?
written by Kris , February 25, 2008
How can you possibly relate a wind turbine collapsing to a nuclear meltdown? The scales are orders of magnitude apart. Plus, the fix is just a matter of relatively simple engineering (compared to nuclear). I'd hardly call it a disaster... Still, it does look pretty spectacular
 And WHY oh WHY do we still have this anti-nuclear stigma permeating every facet of `eco-friendly' media. I'm sure Hank knows as well as most educated ecogeeks that fission reactors are relatively safe, in and of themselves. Chernobyl was a series of ridiculous human errors, but unfortunately sets the benchmark for almost all anti-nuclear activists around, even today. The real issues against fission tech. should be more along the lines of: storage of waste (which isn't that hard these days, but still an issue), consumption of resources (Uranium sources would only last another 50yrs or so on a 100% fission-based energy economy), clean-up of decommissioned fission sites, etc... It really is a shame that most people don't have an adequate appreciation of the significance nuclear energy has and will have for our energy economy. I'll be interested to see the shift in the anti-nuclear zeitgeist when fusion has its day in the sun (pun intended).
Solar power
written by Enrique , February 26, 2008 There is enough solar energy to power the whole world. Just because the oil and coal companies would ask to believe that it is not possible to protect their own self-interest, It doesn't mean is feasible. We could power the whole nation with solar energy from the Mojave Dessert.
...
written by Dave , February 26, 2008
Great, now we can add "wind turbines will explode and kill people!" to the list of straw men used by "environmentalist" wind critics.
The full exploding turbine story
written by Craig Rubens , February 26, 2008
Hey Hank,
Great post. I just wanted to let you know that I dug around and found the whole story. This is a shameless plug, but I thought you'd find it interesting. Give it a read and keep up the great work. http://earth2tech.wordpress.com/2008/02/26/vestas-wind-turbine-explodes-with-power/ Craig.
Wind Turbine Follies
written by Stephen Pain , February 28, 2008
Bigger turbines is not the route to take. The incident here points to another problem with wind turbine technology - just like aircraft - there are serious structural/material problems (eg. fatigue)connnected with use and the environment (rusting etc) and the need to maintain them. Also not enough research is being conducted in alterantives. For example the energy that come from numerous and cheaper turbines - driven by traffic vortices and metropolitan vortices. Here one can foresee the development of roof tiles that can like tidal mechanisms move up and down with gusts of wind, bricks that do the same. A whole host of new technology awaits. Unfortunately, we have become so focussed on size (big).
Clean Energy Can Include Accidents
written by Theo , March 07, 2008
Hello !
Accidents are present anytime and anywhere . Seems that this wind turbine concept belongs to the past. Is possible that in not wery long time this old concept to be replaced with a new type called ''TORNADO''. This new type belong to the vertical axe wind turbines , and is possible to be developed for the first time in Romania. For security this new type will have two complete new protection sistems who not permit to the active parts to get out of sistem . This new concept permit also to use in addition other forms of clean energy , and for this case the global eficiency can increase teoretical about 6 times . The future belongs to clean energy in my opinion . Theo | ||
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Science, technology gadgets and...baby seals. We're in a bit of an eco-mess, but we've got the brains to lick any problem. And that's why EcoGeek.org publishes up to ten stories daily about innovations that are saving the planet.
And if that sounds interesting to you, then congratulations, you're an EcoGeek.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
LOL! Nice spin on the disaster there Hank. At least it wasn't a nuclear power plant being destroyed... now that would have been a disaster with "fallout".