another turbine bites the dust.

[The Natural Philosopher]

's the champagne?

[Ericp]

I knew today had good news somewhere.

Locals are celebrating by all accounts.

[Graham.]

& hiding the big spanner.

[Arty Effem]

"I told you not to buy the bolts on EBay!"

[Dave Liquorice]

That's the Bradworthy one, first of the two links I posted earlier. I chose my link 'cause it had the spec of the turbine at the end. It's supposed to survive 116 mph winds... Though I bet they argue that that spec is for the turbine only not the stalk it's stuck on and the turbine did survive (until it hit the deck). Still it's within the 5 year parts and labour warranty. B-)

Also bear in mind that this is a tiny turbine, only 50kW. The blades are

9m long and that monopole either 24 or 36.5 m high. A decent size turbine is 2 MW and has blades 40m long and sit on stalks 100m high. Jumbo jet on a stick...

[Frank Erskine]

I don't know why these are referred to as "turbines" when they're just windmills.

Possibly "turbine" sounds more macho...

[charles]

what do they "mill"?

[Tim Streater]

Taxpayers' pounds. Exceedingly fine, too.

[Davey]

" A spokesman for Wales-based firm Dulas said the generator had a five-year warranty, adding: =E2=80=9CWe can reassure the local community th= at due to the isolated location of the turbine, no one was put at risk and we are currently working hard to establish the precise cause of the incident.

=E2=80=9COur technical team is one of the most experienced in the UK. They = are working alongside the turbine manufacturer to conduct a full root-cause analysis investigation. We will continue to keep communication open and provide updates as and when we have further information.=E2=80=9D=20

Ah, corporate-speak at its best. Translation: "We have no idea why the f..k it collapsed, but we'll keep feeding sound-bites for as long as it takes".

Big Turbines: 0, People: 1.

--=20 Davey.

[Gib Bogle]

>>> where's the champagne?

That's not a big turbine.

[Andrew May]

>

Since it would appear to have completely collapsed will a new planning application be required to rebuild it?

I am sure I have come across stories of planners who while happy for a house consisting of a single wall to be rebuilt considered that if that wall fell down then it came under the definition of 'new build'

[The Natural Philosopher]

>>>

it still has the foundation....:-(

[Brian Gaff]

Whatever happened to that vertical turbine design that was wheeled out some years ago. It was said that removing the need for pivoting head end and auto feathering vertical blades was more robust and efficient, yet I've seen no more of it. I suspect there was some drawback the designers failed to mention!

Brian

[John Williamson]

I've seen quite a few about, the ones that I've noticed particularly are on office block near Byfleet next to the M25.

The design doesn't look to be scalable to really large sizes, but that could just be my prejudices.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You cant circumvent physics and the Betz limit, no matter what you do.

A big three blader gets as close as is realistically possible.

But its still utter crap.

[polygonum]

If you are talking about the ones I think you are, they never turn. At least, never when I go by! (Admittedly not that often.)

[The Natural Philosopher]

I've never figured it out, but I believe that they are granted cash on the basis of an estimated capacity factor, not on what they actually produce.

They don't need to turn.

[John Williamson]

I've seen them turning whenever it's been windy, and very decorative they look, too, gently twinkling in the sunshine.

I'm *assuming* they're generating a kilowatt or two, but they could just be decoration.

[whisky-dave]

Are they denying the wind had anything to do with the collapse ? Be great if the conclusion was there was too much wind.

[Steve Firth]

Robust, possibly, efficient no.

There was someone on Grand Designs who installed one at great cost. The gearbox broke and even before that the design was not producing anything like its claimed design capacity.