UPDATE 03/03/2016:  WordPress issues now seem to be resolved. 🙂
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The online SVZ here reported yesterday on a wind-turbine construction accident occurring in Southern Germany. Workers of the Hamburg-based Nordex company were operating a large hoisting crane by remote control as it lifted the 60-tonne wind turbine rotor assembly for mounting onto the 200-meter tall tower. At 60 meters height the entire assembly came crashing down onto the earth below.
See photo here.
According to an eyewitness, a gust of wind may have caused the rotor to strike the tower before falling. The SVZ reports that the impact likely caused irreparable damage to the structure’s foundation, and so the entire turbine unit will have to be rebuilt complete from scratch. Damage is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands of euros. No one was injured.
The accident is now under investigation and a construction strop has been ordered until the cause of the accident is determined. The SVZ writes that the estimated cost of a new wind turbine is near 5 million euros.
Hurry you’re back on-line! Welcome back.
Is there anywhere that collates all the maintenance costs for this hazardous technology?
And there was much rejoicing.
The reporting on such accidents has become fairly mundane since a comparable crash happened in March 2010, in Hennickendorf in Brandenburg.
More: http://www.vertikal.net/en/news/story/9696/
More “progress” here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-35726492
h/t NotALotOfPeopleKnowThat
The windturbine is quiter on land than on the torture tower.
60 TONNES
That’s the equivalent of 1/3 of a blue whale, or 6 elephants.
Indonesian seismologists were relieved to discover that what they thought was a 7.8 magnitude earthquake was in fact the dropping of a 60 ton windmill blade, halfway around the world. Reacting cautiously, they initially issued a tsunami alert, “just to be sure.” – they told Onion reporters.
This disaster proved again that the current wind turbine technology is still primitive and wasteful like a 19th century machinery. The next generation will be sophisticated like a Toyota Prius. It will recover the kinetic energy of each crash and turn it back into electricity like the car’s regenerative brakes. That way, the self-sustaining cycle will start already during construction, with the recovered energy driving the cranes’ motors and lifting the damned thing back up. That will be really neat.
Oh, PLEASE, don’t give them any ideas! =)