One for "Dynamo Dave"

[Steve Firth]

Safe? Not Noisy?

[ARWadworth]

[Andy Burns]

It would usually be shutdown in such high winds ...

[ARWadworth]

A deliberate ploy for the camera then?

[Andy Hall]

[Andy Hall]

So at the point when more energy can be extracted from the elements, the thing can't perform?

In too little wind, as in on people's houses, they are inadequate, and in higher winds they have to be shut down in case they break?

Sounds like alternative energy's answer to Chernobyl.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Until the feathering mechanism goes wrong.

Fortinately nuclear power stations are built to much higher standards of safety.;-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

A bloody expensive and dangerous one if it was.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Exactly.

They only produce their rated output in a 'stiff breeze' IIRC.

The average power output for te reasins given is one sixth of that.

Very wasteful of copper and constructional materials, and the energy used to make them.

[Steve Firth]

I think the explosion may have contributed to that.

[geoff]

Maybe the webbed footed one might check out the editorial from last months NS - expediency over safety

unless of course he thinks it's left wing propaganda

ah what's this ?

same story ...

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember [e-mail] (Steve Firth) saying something like:

Stop motion revealed a blade split first, very rapidly followed by disintegration of the whole assembly. I suppose the rate it was whirling around meant the slightest failure leading to unbalance would pitch everything else over the failure limit.

[The Natural Philosopher]

That's standard on prop failure. Normally failure near the hub, followed by blade loss, then complete disintegration as the whole thing shakes itself to pieces.

By their very nature, windmills are fragile things. Its a bit better in an aircraft. Smaller and hihger revving, so less effect of unbalance, and someone in the cockpit who can shut down very fast.

Still In WW2 not a few bombers returned minus a complete engine..

I wouldn't want to live near a wind turbine, tho.

[geoff]

Basically, the head of the Cabadian Nuclear Safety commission, Linda Keen, closed down a plant where two safety critical back up cooling pumps were missing in a "clear breach of safety".

Instead of prioritising installing these pumps, the reactor was reopened regardless and fired Keen

Higher standards of safety ?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yup. At least there WAS a clear directive to have a backup system in place, and somebody policing it. Something that seems entirely absent from windmills.

Of course you wont ever get a clear unbiased story from the New Scientist/guardian type rags...

The fact remains, the windmill blew up, the nuclear power station did not.

Why? because nuclear power stations these days have to be built to standards that no other industry has to. If stringent safety systems were applied to windmills, they would be *totally* uneconomic, instead of merely 6-10 times as expensive as a nuclear power stations, and no one could claim their greeny points (like brownie points, but more vomit colored) for being involved with them..

[ARWadworth]

I saw this video before you posted the link. Just odd that it was being filmed as it collapsed (not many do) and even odder that you can hear the windmill after it collapses.

How do you shut a windturbine down after the winds are too strong?

Adam

[Andy Burns]

Presumably somebody realised it was going too fast and filmed it

*because* of that, rather than just by chance (perhaps one of the engineers who was sent to try to shut it down, or someone whose attention was attracted by the presence of such engineers, who knows?)

Probably a fair bit of momentum in the gearbox/alternator.

Actually just watched it again, I see what you mean, but that just seems like dodgy editing (due to the slow-mo?) where the video and sound are way out of sync.

It's a bit too big to shove a stick in the spokes, innit?

[Andy Burns]

[geoff]

It was not built to the standard required by it's operating licence

Such a fault is potentially far more serious than a windmill falling down

Much more disturbing is the Canadian government's riding roughshod over this and, instead of prioritising the work needed, fired the commissioner and reopened the plant

and, especially for you I included one of several more references to this story

[The Natural Philosopher]

'Feather' it and point it into wind mainly. .