Bird Mincers fall over

Ever wonder about which bits of a wind turbine fails the most? Well here you are.

What surprised me was that as these are onshore, why should the towers fail? I would have put bearings, gearboxes, and blades first. How can a tower built on land fail? It’s not as we have massive earthquakes every year. I expect it of offshore turbines due to poor grouting and scour of the sea bed around the towers, but not onshore. I wouldn’t want one of those on my doorstep.

And we’re paying a green Tariff for these poorly constructed blots on the landscape. Sheesh.

The graph comes from a source that is from a wind turbine company which I’d rather not mention here. If so my source of information may dry up.

Oh dear. Not more problems with Wind Turbines?

It seems that another little problem has cropped up with those pesky offshore Bird mincers, apart from already discovered:

Wind energy is taking an increasing battering, with vulnerability to storm damage, under-performance and increasing social and environmental impacts giving cause for concern.

The latest problem is “Scour”.

It also appears offshore turbine towers are more susceptible to scour than predicted, according to the latest issue (164 MA4) of the ICE’s Maritime Engineering journal.

A team of research engineers from the Technical University of Denmark report that stone armour around the 4.2 m diameter monopile foundations of the vast Horns Rev offshore wind farm in the North Sea was found to have unexpectedly sunk by up to 1.5 m.

Oh dear. This is caused by the vortex caused by the currents flowing around the base of a wind turbine.

A team of research engineers from the Technical University of Denmark report that stone armour around the 4.2 m diameter monopile foundations of the vast Horns Rev offshore wind farm in the North Sea was found to have unexpectedly sunk by up to 1.5 m.

Oops. I’ve a sneaky feeling that they might not last their projected 20 year life span.

Bye the way when are the plod going to make up their mind whether to prosecute the Huhnatic for his alleged speeding offense. if I’d been caught I’m sure I would have been prosecuted by now.