113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009

113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009 (1345781)	Home · Maps · About

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113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009
Posted by Olog-hai on Fri Feb 12 12:57:52 2016 fiogf49gjkf0d Syracuse Post-Standard 113-foot blade falls off windmill that previously toppled in Madison County By Elizabeth Doran on February 11, 2016 at 1:29 PM, updated February 11, 2016 at 2:36 PM A 113-foot blade fell off a wind turbine at the Fenner wind farm off Bellinger Road in the town of Fenner in Madison County, according to Fenner town officials. The blade appears to have fallen off at about 9:30 a.m. today, and town officials think it may have been caused by a bolt failure, said Paula Douglas, Fenner town clerk. Town officials didn't think the wind had anything to do with the incident. Fenner town officials said it's the same 187-ton windmill — No. 18 of 20 — that collapsed in December 2009. It was replaced with a new wind turbine, Douglas said. Enel Green Power-North America officials said they are working with the turbine supplier to investigate what happened, but said it's too early to determine the cause. EGP-NA also said there is no threat to the community, and asked that residents keep a safe distance away from the site to allow workers to conduct their assessments. The 200-foot-plus structure is one of 20 windmills that generate electricity at the Fenner Wind Farm operated by EGP-NA. The windmills were erected in 2001 atop a hill at a cost of $34 million. At the time, it was the largest wind-energy facility in the Eastern United States, but that's no longer the case. The wind farm, a landmark and tourist attraction to some, provide enough electricity for 10,000 homes.
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Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009
Posted by bingbong on Fri Feb 12 13:54:44 2016, in response to 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009, posted by Olog-hai on Fri Feb 12 12:57:52 2016. fiogf49gjkf0d Three Mile Island melted down. Ended up being far more costly to fix than that windmill's going to be. Windmills don't cause acid rain miles away either.
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Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009
Posted by Spider-Pig on Fri Feb 12 14:00:02 2016, in response to Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009, posted by bingbong on Fri Feb 12 13:54:44 2016. fiogf49gjkf0d TMI was also capable of producing much more electricity than that windmill.
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Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009
Posted by bingbong on Fri Feb 12 14:29:25 2016, in response to Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009, posted by Spider-Pig on Fri Feb 12 14:00:02 2016. fiogf49gjkf0d I'm not talking about what it produces. This is about risk. TMI did a lot more damage. Acid rain does a lot more damage. This windmill can be fixed, and likely its metal recycled for another use. Took the Adriondacks years to recover. The wrecked kettle at TMI is still radiating in a cave somewhere, and will be for a very very long time.
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Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009
Posted by Spider-Pig on Fri Feb 12 14:32:30 2016, in response to Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009, posted by bingbong on Fri Feb 12 14:29:25 2016. fiogf49gjkf0d But my point is that greater risk gives greater reward. Further, the effects of the TMI meltdown are overrated. It really shows how safe nuclear power really is.
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Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009
Posted by Spider-Pig on Fri Feb 12 14:33:34 2016, in response to Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009, posted by Spider-Pig on Fri Feb 12 14:32:30 2016. fiogf49gjkf0d I want to add that nuclear and wind serve different niches and are not really substitutes. Nuclear is a good substitute for coal plants. Wind power has its own benefits and should be expanded as well.
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Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009
Posted by bingbong on Fri Feb 12 14:40:57 2016, in response to Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009, posted by Spider-Pig on Fri Feb 12 14:33:34 2016. fiogf49gjkf0d Other larger scale power production carries far greater risk. Downscaled, local focus production s far safer overall, including small nuclear plants like those utilized in other parts of the world.
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Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009
Posted by SelkirkTMO on Fri Feb 12 18:36:00 2016, in response to 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009, posted by Olog-hai on Fri Feb 12 12:57:52 2016. fiogf49gjkf0d Probably was a bad bolt that sheared, but I'm a bit surprised that "town officials" hadn't been outside yesterday when the wind was howling past 60 MPH. That certainly wasn't helping. And for what it's worth, the windmills there do generate reliable power.
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Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009
Posted by WillD on Sat Feb 13 09:32:50 2016, in response to Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009, posted by bingbong on Fri Feb 12 14:40:57 2016. fiogf49gjkf0d I'm not sure quite why you'd set out to make a smaller reactor based on existing designs. Given the high fixed costs for nuclear, going with a smaller plant is not going to save much and your revenue would be greatly reduced. Much of the idea with the push toward small modular reactors is to reduce those costs by introducing assembly line production to the process. New reactor designs promise lower cost and foolproof safety systems. But a 250 to 500 megawatt light water reactor is no safer and not much cheaper than a 1000MW reactor of the same design. And just taking a quick look at the list of reactors on Wikipedia, the average reactor reactor capacity around the world appears to be around 1000MWe. The Soviets exported a number of 250 to 350MW VVERs to various client states, we exported a number of 500MW PWRs, and a few counties with indigenous nuclear programs have a few 500MW plants. But for the most part worldwide reactors are in the gigawatt range. And again that's mostly due to the economics of reactor construction.
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Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009
Posted by bingbong on Sat Feb 13 10:20:33 2016, in response to Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009, posted by WillD on Sat Feb 13 09:32:50 2016. fiogf49gjkf0d There are other, safer, modern designs for small reactors. They aren't light water designs. Nor do they use uranium. Those are what I'm talking about.
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Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009
Posted by Elkeeper on Sun Feb 14 14:29:16 2016, in response to Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009, posted by SelkirkTMO on Fri Feb 12 18:36:00 2016. fiogf49gjkf0d Were the bolts Chinese made?
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Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009
Posted by SelkirkTMO on Sun Feb 14 19:23:25 2016, in response to Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009, posted by Elkeeper on Sun Feb 14 14:29:16 2016. fiogf49gjkf0d The turbines were made by GE in Massachussetts, looks like the hardware for the blades came from a supplier in Germany.
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Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009
Posted by WillD on Sun Feb 14 20:21:05 2016, in response to Re: 113-ft blade falls off windmill in Fenner Wind Farm (upstate NY); same windmill fell over in 2009, posted by bingbong on Sat Feb 13 10:20:33 2016. fiogf49gjkf0d But you said "including small nuclear plants like those utilized in other parts of the world". There are some alternative designs out there such as the UK's advanced gas reactor, the fast breeder reactors in France and Japan, and Canada's CANDU, but none of those can be described as small and all of them have some major shortcomings. The overwhelming majority of reactors around the world are essentially unchanged from the light water reactor designed for the USS Nautilus. Yes, there are designs for various liquid metal, molten salt, supercritical water, gas fast, and other reactors some of which hold great promise, but none of them have been put into practice as yet. So you can't exactly say "utilized" for any of them. And all reactors will use uranium or transuranic elements. Thorium is merely a fertile input which is converted into uranium before fissioning. Only a fast reactor avoids uranium, and it does so by consuming plutonium, hardly an element that inspires much confidence. Finally the small modular reactor push has little or nothing to do with "local" focus. It's more about using economies of scale present in building the reactors on an assembly line to build the reactor itself from smaller units. Chances are the plants would still end up with a 1 to 2 GW net output, but it'd be composed of four to eight modules of somewhere between 250 and 500MW.
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