Fatality Narrowly Avoided In German Wind Turbine Accident. 1,200 Ton Turbine Destroyed.

[NNadir]

That would be before it produced a single kwh of energy.

A serious crane accident in Northern Germany involving the dropping of a large turbine rotor has been reported.

The accident involved a 1,200 tonne Liebherr LTM11200-9.1 erecting a large wind turbine in Hennickendorf in Brandenburg at the end of last week.

Reports are sketchy and the photos we have received do not show a great deal of detail. However local news stations say that a violent and unexpected gust of wind caused the rotor to take- off pulling the crane's boom and Jib with it, causing it to collapse. The boom, jib and rotor with its blades came crashing to the ground....

...The men working on the ground were able to scramble to safety and were unhurt, however there are reports that the crane operator may have been injured while jumping from his cab, and photographs suggest that part of the crane's boom fell onto the cab almost destroying it.

http://www.vertikal.net/en/news/story/9696/">Wind turbine accident in Germany



According to the http://www.wind-energie.de/en/news/article/more-wind-power-capacity-installed-last-year-in-the-eu-than-any-other-power-technology/166/">German Wind Energy Association in 2009 the EU produced 163 TWh (0.59 exajoules) of electricity in 2009 from 74,767 Mega"watts" of capacity, not that there is a single wind plant on earth that actually reaches peak capacity for more than 10 minutes in a given year.

From this it is possible to calculate directly - assuming that one hasn't joined Greenpeace and thus has a fifth grade mathematical level, and can calculate how many seconds are in a year, and are familiar with what the meaning of the unit "watt" actually is - that the capacity utilization of wind power in the EU is 24.9%.

For comparison purposes, the three nuclear units at Palo Verde in Arizona, all of which can be contained in a single photograph, produce 0.105 exajoules of energy, or about 18% of the energy that the entire EU is able to produce across an entire continent from wind.



In real terms, using 2005 figures from the EU Energy Agency the EU consumed http://www.energy.eu/publications/KSGB07001ENC_002.pdf">3,310 GWh of electricity, or about 12 exajoules of pure electricity.

It is useful to note that this is the consumption of electricity and not thermal energy.

I have experienced here that many posters, usually the ones with the biggest "renewables will save us" rhetoric are entirely unfamiliar with the second law of thermodynamics, which is why it is necessary to make the last point.

[FBaggins]

1. "all of which can be contained in a single photograph"

That's rhetorically cleaver... but why would that matter?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uM2WW69lff0/SdQZPZ64agI/AAAAAAAABRc/fu2Lkymy48U/s400/China+from+space.jpg

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. Containment is the issue

Freudian slip. Nuclear power is only as good as the containment of the biocidal source material.

[drm604]

3. Oh my God, industrial accidents are possible!

Not only that but, unlike nuclear plants, wind turbine accidents can't be contained in one photograph! I guess this means the death of wind power, since industrial accidents can never ever occur at nuclear plants.

There might still be hope for wind power though, if we can just pack more pixels into our cameras and get some super wide angle lenses.

And just for the hell of it, I'll mention that if you look at the right side of that photograph, you might notice that the three plants aren't completely contained in it, at least not if you count cooling towers as part of the plant. (Which is completely irrelevant to the argument but... well, hopefully some people will get my point.)

If you want to discuss whether or not it's possible for wind power to actually meet our needs, that's all well and good. I'd be interested in seeing a sober and accurate analysis of that, but the stuff about crane accidents and photographs doesn't really lend anything to your argument.

Now you'll probably respond and tell me that I'm anti-science and refer to my post as a "mystic rote".

[Fledermaus]

4. The Impossible Happens

http://users.owt.com/smsrpm/Chernobyl/glbrad.html