Posted on 01/16/2024 6:48:54 AM PST by george76
A wind turbine at a northern Colorado wind farm folded in half and caught fire Thursday morning, startling neighbors who heard banging noises prior to the collapse.
The incident was reported at 8 a.m. No injuries were reported. Oil and grease from the generator caught fire after the tower's collapse.
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Personnel from the Peetz and Crook all-volunteer fire departments responded. Employees from Invenergy - a Chicago-based company which first owned the wind turbine field and now operates it for the current owner, ClearWay Energy - were already at the site when firefighters arrived, according to Peetz Fire Protction District Chief Steven Schumacher.
"This is the first downed tower we've had," Schumacher said. A tower in Fleming, about a dozen miles southwest of Peetz, collapsed in 2022. The fallen turbine is one of 19 units in the Spring Canyon II project that came online in 2014.
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Schumacher confirmed the Invenergy employees ensured the fire department did not spray water on the fire until the generator had been grounded or the turbine disconnected from 480,000-volt power grid. His volunteer firefighters know not to do that, thanks in part to annual training sessions with Invenergy workers. But he appreciated the concern for his crew and the continued "good working relationship" with the turbine company.
"Their company does not allow us to go up towers with them," Schumacher explained. "The insurance liability has changed recently, is what we've been told. They are trained in up-tower self rescue. We're there for ground support, as we call it."
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The turbine is located about a quarter mile north of Logan County Roads 78 and 65. Logan County Emergency Manager Jerry Casebolt called it "a couple football fields away" from the Colorado-Nebraska state line, and joked the unit could have landed in Nebraska if it had fallen in a northerly direction.
Had that improbable scenario actually happened, the burning unit would have come to rest on Jean Meyer's property.
"When it finally came down, the neighbor closer to it than us, they felt the ground shake," Meyer told CBS News Colorado.
Meyer said her family members heard a banging sound prior to the crash of the tower. They ignored the noise, believing it was possibly construction work. But looking back now, they believe "things were letting loose."
"My son got up and went out to the door and said, 'Will you look at that...' My husband got out from underneath the planter and said, 'Holy crap.'"
They speculate a blade malfunctioned and struck the tower, causing the collapse much like the side of a soda can being poked while a person stands on it.
It was foggy and snowing at the time, Meyer said, but not windy.
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Meyer ... has seen turbine nacelles, blades and generators regularly replaced, and not recycled.
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the life expectancy of the towers themselves is 25 years.
Looks like a couple of joints gone bad.
It’s OK. The turbine owners got their money for it a long time ago.
“...Oil and grease from the generator...”
But, but....it’s supposed to be “clean energy” independent of those horrible, polluting fossil fuels and oils.. But...But....say this cannot be, Joe!!!! /s
BTW, FJB and his merry band of queer flying monkeys....
Those are some BIG names in power, right up there with Edison, Tesla and Insul.
* Invenergy
* ClearWay Energy
Thanks for posting.
Drove by a large wind farm yesterday outside of Mojave ca. couple hundred windmills. None turning. No wind. In one of the windiest places in ca. great solution. people are so stupid.
Thanks
I’ve driven by the huge wind farms in the Columbia River Valley (OR), Altamont Pass (Northern CA), and Palm Springs many times. It is extremely rare to see many of them turning. Frequently in the Columbia River area I’ll see four or five turning and thousands dead in their tracks.
Guess what is used to back up all those dead windmills? Fossil fuels.
You need to build TWO plants where ONE used to do - the windmills AND a backup plant. Guess what that does to costs!?
Warren Buffett :: wind & solar energy is a bad investment.. They do not make sense without tax credits, subsidies ... That is the only reason to build them.
"Reliable"..."You keep using that word." "I don't think it means what you think it means."
Shocked that no one has posted this yet, so I will:
That’ll buff right out.
Bill Clinton…
I’ve seen this for decades. All of these save-the-world wind turbines standing stock still like a field of malign flowers.
That was the conclusion of my college paper in 1981; a feasibility study of wind turbines in the Texas High Plains and Rolling Plains.
Always wondered how many times my paper was checked out of the college library at Texas Tech U.
Ehat you saw were “Windless Turbines”- they don’t turn- they just sit there spoiling the view for everyone. A liberal isn’t happy unless hey spoil something for others- tH3y certainly have achieved their goal with those asinine “Wind” turbines!
In the snow one of the blades can becomes unbalanced making it shake and causing it to strike the platform.
They weren’t turning because the electricity to anti ice the blades would cost too much both to install and to run.
WWG1WGA!
That, and it's also renewable energy.
By renewable they mean that they have to renew the whole thing after each catastrophic failure. And while they're doing that, they can also shovel up the dead birds that pile up underneath it.
EIA data shows intermittent, not reliable : wind & solar met 3% of U.S. energy after $50 billion in subsidizes..
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