[OT] Exclusion zone set up as wind turbine bursts into flames

[Spike]

A 100-metre-tall wind turbine has dramatically burst into flames, sending black smoke billowing into the sky. An investigation into the fire is now underway.

An exclusion zone had to be set up while firefighters tackled the blaze. Residents living near the scene were also warned to keep their windows closed.

Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue first shared news about the incident at around 5.45pm on Sunday, April 24. The incident took place at French Farm Wind Farm in the village of Thorney near Spalding,

There are a total of 13 turbines at the site. The wind farm has a total capacity of 26MW, having become fully operational in 2016.

Pictures show long trails of black smoke coming from the burning turbine. Lincolnshire firefighters handed the operation over to Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service, which said the cause of the fire was believed to be accidental and related to an equipment failure.

Cambridgeshire firefighters left the scene at 10.40pm. A crew returned to reinspect the site on Monday morning before it was handed over to the company behind French Farm Wind Farm.

A spokesperson for the wind farm said: "On Sunday evening we received a report of a turbine fire at French Farm Wind Farm. Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue attended the wind farm and ensured the site was safe.

"The power to and from the turbines was switched off and a precautionary exclusion zone has been set up. There are no injuries and we would like to thank the fire service for their assistance.

"An investigation is now underway. The affected turbine will be analysed by the manufacturer's experts to determine the cause of the fire."

[The Natural Philosopher]

Imagine if that had been a fire at a nuclear plant. front page news on the beeb not a by-line in the Derby telegraph

[Fredxx]

Quite, that could be because the exclusion zone could be slightly more than a few "residents living near the scheme".

[Tim Streater]

Why, if there are no injuries or deaths? Was Buncefield a disaster? It could have been, but wasn't. I'd say that when more than 200 are killed and 200 more severly burnt when a liquified gas tanker overturned near a Spanish night club, *that* is a disaster. (See

And there are plenty more industrial accidents even in this day and age, if you bother to look into it.

You need to get a sense of proportion.

[Fredxx]

I have and I agree. Except a meltdown isn't just an accident. The reactor and the surrounding area are a disaster.

Chernobyl was a disaster. It wasn't just an accident.

Anyone who thinks these incidents are mere accidents, like a child grazing their knee, needs to reassess their senses of proportion.

[Andy Burns]

I was looking earlier, wikip says 8x RBMK-1000 reactors are still in service, there is some talk about "different models" or "alterations" but I doubt you can change that much about an existing reactor.

[Tim Streater]

Chernobyl happened because the operators, without realising it, worked hard to

*make* it happen. And you'll note it hasn't happened to any of the others of similar build. Not that that is any reason to build more of the same.

[Colin Bignell]

You can add a containment vessel, which is what was done to those without one after Chernobyl.

[Fredxx]

It had a number of design flaws that made it difficult to operate.

They actually fixed the control rod problem. But yes, they were not the greatest reactor design.

[Tim Streater]

They did consider the effect of a tsunami. Just not one of the magnitude that actually happened. Although I don't understand why the generators for emergency power were put in the basement instead of upstairs.

[Steve Walker]

And which meant that it would never have been licensed in the West.

I have a vague recollection that they added more, strategically positioned graphite, but I could be wrong.

[Fredxx]

This article is interesting as it says "The 11 March 2011 tsunami was probably the fourth largest in the past 100 years" and implies the probability was perhaps greater than 1 in 1,000 years

may be better articles.

I understood the generators had been moved to higher ground, but the switchgear was still left in the basement. BICBW

Either way it was a series of errors and the station should have simply been closed down. Hindsight by me, maybe, but others in the know would have been in a better position to understand the consequences.

[Paul]

That's a curious plume of smoke, whatever that is.

There could be a bucket of lube inside the nacelle somewhere. Or an empty bucket, where the lube used to be :-)

A good windmill would have collapsed, and saved people the trouble of climbing the tower.

Paul

[Tim Streater]

It did close down. That is, the reactors were scrammed (control rods inserted all the way) the moment the earthquake happened. Tsunami came later. The issue was then keeping cooling water circulating which required pumps and hence electricity.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, they are not.

Chernobyl was almost a disaster because it had no containment vessel.

No, they are accidents, in that they were neither anticipated nor deliberate.

To the extent that their *possibility* was anticipated with secondary containment, they did not become disasters except possibly Chernobyl. Which was no so equipped.

But on the scale of industrial accidents, its nowhere near the top.

Banqiaou dam is probably the worst energy related disaster and for me Bhopal the worst escape of contaminants.

I don't think it gets much worse than Aberfan, in the UK 144 people dead from just *one* coal tip. More than all of Chernobyl.

[Pancho]

I think you underestimate western potential for stupidity. Challenger O-rings, Grenfell Tower, Windows Vista, Mars Climate Orbiter (metric/imperial), etc.

Chernobyl is about the worst that could happen, excluding terrorist plutonium theft. I don't think we should say it could never happen, instead we should say it is less likely, an acceptable risk.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The russians with their less litigious attitude to safety consider that if managed by trained staff who understand the risks it is acceptable to continue to run them till they are too old to be worth fixing

Reactors were still running at chernobyl *14 years* after the fire. And they must have been staffed. The site is still staffed.

"The three other reactors remained operational after the accident but were eventually shut down by 2000, although the plant remains in the process of decommissioning as of 2021. Nuclear waste clean-up is scheduled for completion in 2065" [Wiki].

Hardly 'death if you go near it' is it?

I believe some modifications have been made.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Being dimwitted to call a a mere accident a disaster shows you're not fit to judge risk.

[The Natural Philosopher]

In all of those cases the issue was political interference.

They normally would not have launched challenger die to the cold. They were under pressure to do so. Grenfell towers was the result of knee jerk green legislation by governments forcing councils to 'do something;' they should and would never have done otherwise. Windows Vista - well I never used it so have no idea what was wrong with it, but all of Microsoft suffers from it being the result of a program to make money, not create proper software. Mars orbiter -0 well no one was hutrt and a prober third party code inspeaction would have picked that one up as would testing te software first. Execrable lack of professionalism. Engineering understands it gets things wrong, and thats why top quality engineering uses a quality approach to managing process, and also has a plan B and a plan C in safety critical situations.

A lot more people have died in air accidents than in nuclear power accidents, and even more on car crashes.

Even if you have half a ton of plutonium, stolen from a post processed Sellafield , its still very hard to make a bomb out of it. And unless you grind it into powder and eat it, its moderately harmless unless you handle it with bare hands.

[Pancho]

Clarification: The allegation was that it went prompt critical. (I don't think we know for certain)