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A tale of two disasters with energy companies….

There has been a lot of discussion around this image…

The destruction of a wind turbine in a North Ayrshire wind farm.

Wind Turbine Fire Picture

From my “limited” knowledge, I would say that the brake on the Turbine failed in the extreme conditions, resulting in the prop being free to spin.  In the incredibly high winds, the turbine would have got so hot and fast the engine caught fire.

Whilst the blade could handle the speed of the wind, the small fact of physics that heat gets generated as the turbine spins electromagnets means that in extreme winds they always have to shut turbines down.

A major set back for wind energy…..  um no.

Lets compare a wind turbine where “Fire engines attended the blaze which died out after a matter of minutes at the wind farm situated above Ardrossan” and the clean up cost, would be the replacement cost of the Turbine and some grass seed….to say…

this…

Fukushima Nuclear Plant disaster photo

 

the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster where reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced full meltdown. Unlike the Turbine fire “As of August 2011, the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is still leaking low levels of radiation and areas surrounding it could remain uninhabitable for decades due to high radiation”.  The clean up cost could be over 100billion dollars in the next few years.

Yep, lets all get up in arms because one wind turbine had a failure….