A 1.5 megawatt wind turbine fell over the other night in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, south of Pittsburgh. Why it fell over has not yet been determined. During the debate here in North East over proper setbacks and public safety, pointing out events like this never seemed to have any impact on the discussion because government […]
Hot Weather and No Wind Underscore a Basic Flaw in Wind Energy
For the last couple of weeks, a large portion of the US has been experiencing temperatures in the 80s and 90s. If you have air conditioning, you’re using it all day, every day. If you walk outside into the heat, you’ll notice something else, there’s no wind. This common occurrence every summer, high temps and […]
Do Wind Turbine Blades Ever Come Off? – UPDATED
In the same way that you don’t usually think about wind turbine fires, you probably don’t think about wind turbine blades coming loose and flying off, either, but they do. As the recent storms rolled through Oklahoma, the blade shown above came off and hit a daycare center a quarter mile away. Corrected – see […]
If Wind Turbines Were Cars, They Would All Be Recalled – Why Capacity Factor Counts
When you buy a car, you want it to be reliable, to work when you need it and you expect the engine to deliver all of the power the salesman told you it would, but suppose it didn’t do any of that. Would you be upset? Sure, you might even demand your money back, but […]
Modern Wind Energy is Like a Modern Horse and Buggy
Over a hundred years ago, transportation for more than a mile or two meant saddling your horse, if you needed groceries and supplies at the store, you hitched up a wagon to carry the load and longer trips to another town might mean taking the buggy. Horses were fine because there were no alternatives, but […]
Electricity From Wind Turbines is Bad for the Grid
If you’re a technical person, you’ll find this interesting. Wind energy advocates, while admitting wind energy is intermittent with wide and often rapid variations, assumed the presence of many turbines in a large scale wind project would average the ups and downs and transform it into smooth power to the grid, unfortunately, a new study […]