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Strong Wind Topples a Wind Turbine in Japan (digitaltrends.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Strong gusts brought by Typhoon Cimaron on Friday, August 24, toppled a massive wind turbine in western Japan, local media reported. The 60-meter-tall turbine was located in a park on Awaji Island, 275 miles west of Tokyo, but was wrenched from its base in the early hours of Friday morning as the typhoon pummeled a large part of the Japanese archipelago. Fortunately no one was under the wind turbine when it came down, or indeed on it. Built in 2002, the turbine had been out of commission since May last year after being struck by lightning, according to the Japan Times. News footage showed how the turbine had been torn from its base by the strong winds, with its 20-meter-long blades badly damaged by the impact with the ground. It's not yet clear if the base had been weakened in some way prior to the typhoon.
See, these things are dangerous! I've been saying it for years. We'll all be much safer with coal.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
... at least it didn't contaminate the ground for 20+ years, tragedy aside.
Does anyone know how much power it provided while it was in service?
How of much of Japan is getting their power from wind?
Climate change versus renewable energy, fight!
Climate change wins. Fatality!
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Looking at the video, I donâ(TM)t think âoeit got ripped off its base,â instead, the base got ripped out of the ground. Thereâ(TM)s a clear, smooth piece of concrete sticking at the bottom of the turbine.
Sizewise that matches the foundation Iâ(TM)ve seen in other âoehow wind turbines are builtâ type videos and I was always in shock over how tiny these bases were, and amazed that they were sufficient. Apparently they are not.
Best case scenario is hundreds of km^2 are uninhabitable for tens of thousands of years? Pretty sure stuff lives around Chernobyl and Fukushima at the moment. So not sure where you are seeing you 'best case' situation...
Transgenerational accumulation of radiation damage in small mammals chronically exposed to Chernobyl fallout. The genetic damage is permanent and hereditary, and is expressed even in animals raised in labratory but that whose parents were exposed. Through 10+ generations.
It reasons that to harvest the wind, you want to get hit by a lot of it intentionally, then translate the force.
If the force goes untranslated, then that intentionally-large input is hard-soaked. Like a large building face. Without a large building foundation for anchor.
So let's assume the blades turn, even if the turbine is offline. The alternative sounds like a bad dumb. On the flip side, newer models seem capable of actively evading extreme wind: >When wind speeds reach a critical level for a turbine, its blades can be twisted, or “feathered,” to reduce the chances of them being caught by the wind.
But that may only apply to active units.
I hope they perform a thorough metallurgical, materials, and design analysis of this failure.
You can see from the video the base of the tower is held onto the foundation with a ring of tension rods or rebar. This is where the failure occurred
Corrosion? Unexpected fatigue loads? Design error (including counting on active blade feathering in a storm for protection, not present since shut down) ? problems with the steel? (alloy composition, heat treatment process, hydrogen embrittlement)
Well let's see, it's a wind turbine. As such, it is tall, and therefore a lightening magnet. Also as such, it was placed in an area with unusually high wind potential. Not really all that unlucky.
er no, a normal reactor would just melt inside containment and not kill anyone. you have a greatly exaggerate idea of what a failing reactor could do.
you seem to underestimate the stupidity of the design of Fukushima and Chernobyl reactors. It's not normal, most reactors *couldn't* do that.
Wait, what?
They did what?
They covered large portions of Japan with radioactivity that will remain there for hundreds of thousands of years?
Hmm.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It'll take centuries to clean it all up!
First it was struck by lightning.
Second it was blown over by strong winds.
So they'll but a new one up.
That one will be knocked over by an earthquake.
... and sink into a swamp. Just like the castle I built. And the two castles before it. But the fourth one stood up!
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Alright, why don't you move there, with your family, then ?
And sell my house downwind from Three Mile Island? NEVER!
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
As proof, look at how the winning countries (Germany, Japan) have imposed the stupid metric system upon the USA!
The poster is not a retard. He is a fucktard.
I mean really, strong winds is a HORRIBLE cover story. It's a wind turbine, of course it can handle strong winds.
Must have been Godzilla and the Japanese are covering it up.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Godzilla has dibs on the 4th one.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
... and sink into a swamp. Just like the castle I built. And the two castles before it. But the fourth one stood up!
You must have huge...tracts of land
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I am amazed by how shallow the hole that ~60m turbine was fixed upon. Looking by the video that is not even 5m deep
Look at the photo. Did they even have it anchored in the ground? Looks like a couple feet of concrete was all. I was expecting to see steel rods or something.
60m is not "huge". In fact 60m-class was introduced around 1990. Modern turbines have 160m and more, with around 4 MW power. In southern germany the wind parks are built where the wind speed in 100m above ground is high enough (it gets better with more height).
So 60m is more like a toy :-)
it probably looked something like this - a video of a windmill shattering in North Europe after its break fail
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
You mean Permanent as unlimited by Verizon.
From the paper, you cited:
They also suggest that the level of the accumulated transmissible damage in the investigated populations will decrease in future due to the further recession of the chronic exposure and as a consequence of selection processes.
PS: Biologist here.
No mention in the story or the visible comments, but the story was covered on the news a couple of days ago. The construction standards were improved a few years after this turbine was built. Can't say it will never happen again, but the newer turbines are stronger.
The same typhoon also destroyed a lighthouse. Looked like a pretty tough one, and not that tall, either. This was basically a nasty typhoon.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
The genetic damage is permanent and hereditary, and is expressed even in animals raised in labratory but that whose parents were exposed. Through 10+ generations.
First, a combination of radioactive decay and natural selection will eventually resolve the issue. It's called radioactive decay because it goes away at some point. Any genetic "damage" that is permanent is not detrimental. You exist today because of a long series of events causing permanent genetic "damage".
Second, Chernobyl did not even meet the safety standards of the day and no one would even consider building another reactor like it today. Using this as an example of safety problems of nuclear power is like saying we should not fly because of structural problems of the de Havilland Comet, or drive a car because of the Ford Pinto fuel tank fires.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
That's why wind is better than nuclear. Because although it is possible to develop nuclear in a safe way, it will never happen, because humans. The same also applies to wind power.
However, if a wind turbine fails catastrophically, the worst case scenario is that a few cows get beheadded. Maybe.
If a nuclear reactor fails catastrophically, the best case scenario is that hundreds of people die within a few hours, hundreds more die within a few days, weeks or months, thousands of people and families are uprooted, chased from their homes and lose everything, and hundreds if not thousands of square kilometers become inhabitable for tens of thousands of years.
The worst case scenario of a wind turbine failure is not a few cows getting beheaded, it's high winds hitting a windmill, the windmill having a mechanical or electrical failure (from being hit by lightning perhaps), the turbine begins spinning wildly in the wind, the brakes fail and over heat or there's an over voltage on the wiring, there's a spark then a fire, the fire hits the dry vegetation below, the fire spreads, dozens of people are killed fighting the fire, hundreds of people evacuated, homes are destroyed, and large areas rendered desolate for years.
But you say that this doesn't happen often, and I would agree. Just like nuclear meltdowns as you describe don't happen often. Here's the thing though, one nuclear power reactor produces as much energy as 1000 or 1500 windmills. As it is now windmills produce very little of our power and we've already seen incidents like I've described. The power we get from wind now was a rounding error compared to what we got from nuclear power until very recently. How much carnage can we expect from wind power in the future? I doubt it will be only a handful of beheaded bovines.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Best case scenario is hundreds of km^2 are uninhabitable for tens of thousands of years? Pretty sure stuff lives around Chernobyl and Fukushima at the moment. So not sure where you are seeing you 'best case' situation...
After Chernobyl a 30 km zone was evacuated which is about 2800 km^2. Again after Fukushima a 30 km area was evacuated but given half of it is at sea that's only roughly 1400 km^2. So the assertion that hundreds of km^2 are uninhabitable is quite valid. Sure some wildlife may live and even prosper in the evacuated areas (due to the lack of humans), but with lifespans of under 20 years they are much less likely to develop cancers than beings with 80 year lifespans. And in any case this makes little difference to anyone who lived in these areas since they cannot go there even if they want to.
Strong Wind Topples a Wind Turbine in Japan
That's it, wrap it up boys and let's make whale oil great again!
here in the USA we've engineered with it in mind, yes.
The Fukushima plant had a nominal production capacity of 4696 MW. Multiplied by nuclear's average 90% capacity factor and that's 4226 MW average for the year. It currently has a 371 km^2 evacuation zone. So the evacuation zone (which is by no means permanent, nor likely to be permanent) works out to 0.088 km^2 per MW average.
The largest wind farm in Europe is Whitelee Wind farm in Scotland. It has a nominal generating capacity of 539 MW. Onshore wind typically has a 20%-25% capacity factor, but Scotland's winds are strong and consistent, yielding an average capacity factor around 40%. So that's 215.6 MW average for the year. The farm covers 55 km^2 in a 13x8 km rectangle. Add a half km exclusion zone around the periphery and you get a total area of 76 km^2. So its exclusion zone works out to 0.353 km^2 per MW on average.
So MW for MW, just the regular operation of the largest wind farm in Europe renders about 4x as much land uninhabitable as the second-worst nuclear accident in history. Hydroelectric dams create a lake behind them, rendering that land uninhabitable. Itaipu dam has a 1350 km^2 reservoir. It generates 91.6 TWh annually, which works out to 10449 MW on average, for an uninhabitable area of 0.129 km^2 per MW average. Solar (pretty much the most expensive power source) actually fares well by this metric. At 125 W/m^2 and a 15% capacity factor, it weighs in at a featherweight 0.053 km^2 per MW on average.
But wait, we looked at pretty much the worst case for nuclear, while looking at average or better-than-average cases for other technologies. What happens if you look at nuclear on average? After all, the vast majority of nuclear plants have operated safely for decades. The world's nuclear capaicty is 351 GW. The evacuation zones around Fukushima (371 km^2) and Chernobyl (2600 km^2) work out to 2971 km^2. So the average land area rendered uninhabitable by nuclear works out to 0.008 km^2 per MW on average.
In other words, nuclear is the technology which renders the least amount of land uninhabitable per MW generated. If you replaced all nuclear power capacity with solar, you'd render 6.6x as much land area as Fukushima + Chernobyl uninhabitable (though I suppose you could be sure to mount all those panels on top of buildings). Hydro would render 16x as much land uninhabitable by converting it into reservoirs. And wind about 44x as much land area uninhabitable (about 80x for a more typical wind far than Whitelee due to lower capacity factor) as a safety zone around the turbines.
The danger zone works out to about 350 meters in radius. Most countries have opted for exclusion zones around 500 meters just to be safe.
That is nonsense.
So the land around a wind turbine is for all practical purposes uninhabitable by humans.
That is nonsense.
In Germany most "on land" (as opposite to "off shore") turbines are simply placed on fields.
https://www.google.de/maps/dir...
So MW for MW, just the regular operation of the largest wind farm in Europe renders about 4x as much land uninhabitable as the second-worst nuclear accident in history. Hydroelectric dams create a lake behind them, rendering that land uninhabitable.
That is complete nonsense.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Japan: We stress-test power utilities against natural disasters more than just Godzilla!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Ah yes...Gone with the Wind...
There's a joke there somewhere, eh?