Wednesday, February 24, 2016

So much for wind power reducing air pollution


Uh-huh . . .





Peter

12 comments:

drjim said...

That's what we called "Rapid Self Dis-assembly" in the rocket launch biz....

Sam vfm #111 said...

Note that the mast couldn't hold it when it got off center. Just what kind of safety requirements are these things designed for?

Forkboy said...

I'm not sure but the mast may have been what was on fire. There's smoke coming off what may be the bottom for the whole video. The it looks like turbine pod doesn't catch until about halfway through.

Bob said...

Well, there goes another few million bucks...

Anonymous said...

If it was still turning with only one blade, is wind the actual source of power? I also thought the fire was from bottom up.

Eric Wilner said...

Forkboy: Looks to me like the smoke at the bottom is coming from the ground below and downwind of the mast. Since the generator is already emitting copious smoke at the beginning of the clip, and sheds large burning fragments just after the clip opens, I'm guessing that it had already dropped burning bits of generator onto the ground before the cameraman noticed and started recording.

bmq215 said...

Anon: As you might imagine there's a tremendous amount of inertia there. The fact that two blades have just gone kaput doesn't make that energy instantly vanish. If you look carefully you can see the remaining blade slowing and finally stopping at the end of the clip (you'll also notice the tower bending every time the blade comes to the 1 o'clock position; there's that inertia again).

Eric: That was my thought too. The ground fire looks adjacent to the mast but not involved with it.

Capt. Craig said...

I was too busy applauding to pay attention to the technical aspects of it's self destruction.

CGR710 said...

Every electrical engineer knows that electric devices work on smoke. As soon as you extract the smoke from the device it stops working! The video just proves my point!
:-)

Timbo said...

Notice how the scenery improves immensely once the thing went down? They really are blights on the landscape.

Anonymous said...

I thought I could barely make someone swing a hammer at the top and then jump down and swing at the bottom.... With a hammer ..... On Mars.... Anyone catch the reference......... Red faction.

RobC said...

The classic Japanese war cry sprang to mind wile viewing the demise of the landscape cancer... BANZAAAAAAAAI!!!!!!!!!!!!

;-)