http://www.windaction.org/ facts, analysis, exposure of wind energy's real impacts en-us Windaction hourly 1 http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.windaction.org/articles/37420 Mon, 18 Feb 2013 12:54:07 GMT Wind developers play down the issue of ice throw until the plant is operating. After that, even hardhats are not enough to protect persons or property from flying chunks. http://www.windaction.org/articles/37420 http://www.windaction.org/articles/29335 Fri, 01 Oct 2010 05:31:51 GMT This image shows the location of Nantucket High School's newly sited 100-kilowatt wind turbine. The turbine stands about 160-feet tall including the blade. The radius of the circle is approximately 50 feet. There does not appear to be any safety or fall zone around the turbine to protect students from collapse or blade/ice throw. http://www.windaction.org/articles/29335 http://www.windaction.org/articles/19492 Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:11:55 GMT This photo of the Newburyport wind turbine (292-feet tall) was taken from at the rear property line of a nearby residence. The residents in the area have expressed their concerns to the city about noise, flicker, ice throws and other safety issues. http://www.windaction.org/articles/19492 http://www.windaction.org/articles/19491 Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:03:04 GMT This 292-foot wind turbine recently erected in Newburyport, MA is located just 319-feet from the public pedestrian rail trail, 350-feet from heavily-traveled U.S. Route 1 (in the foreground), and 800-feet from the nearest residence. See: http://www.windaction.org/faqs/18868 for information on potential safety risks. http://www.windaction.org/articles/19491 http://www.windaction.org/articles/2288 Fri, 31 Mar 2006 00:23:15 GMT PRINCETON — On February 21, when Princeton Light Department Manager Jonathan Fitch drove over Westminster Road to check on the windmills, he got an unpleasant surprise. Instead of seven, he counted only six. One of the 22-year old windmills at the PMLD’s wind farm had fallen over, landing on the storage garage, demolishing the building. “I check on the site weekly, and had made a point to check the site on the previous Friday because of the high winds,” said Fitch. “All seven turbines and towers were up and okay then.” After a long weekend of windy weather and the Monday holiday, Fitch decided to recheck the site. “I drove by Westminster Road and counted only six towers, so I walked up to the site to look and that’s when I discovered one of the towers had fallen over and landed on our storage garage,” he said. The bottom section of the tower was a pile of twisted metal, mixed with large pieces of splintered wood that had been the garage. The broken turbine and smashed blades lay in a pile nearby. According to Fitch, the garage was used to store old parts and pieces for the old windmill and was going to be taken down as part of the wind farm upgrade. Fitch called in his crew and got a backhoe to the site along with a 30-yard Dumpster to start getting the area cleaned. “I came back to the office and contacted the state Department of Conservation and Recreation to let them know,” he said. The existing windmills haven’t been on line producing energy since October 2003, said Fitch. “We knew we weren’t going to maintain them so we turned them off hoping to take them down when the project was approved to construct two new towers,” he added. The department received approval in 2003 to take down the windmills, but the work wasn’t done because the project has been delayed, he said. Fitch called a structural engineer for a forensic analysis of why the tower failed and is awaiting his report. “I also wanted an engineer to check the other towers to see if they were at risk for failure until they are taken down,” said Fitch. “It appears the back leg of the tower bent first, then the tower went down. It could have been over a period of time or gone down quickly,” he said. Top photo The lower half of the 100-foot tower amid the wreckage of the storage garage. Bottom photo Twisted pieces of the roof of the storage garage and parts of the blades lay in a pile. Phyllis Booth photo The Board of Light Commissioners inspected the site on Tuesday and Wednesday and told Fitch to take down five of the remaining towers immediately, he said. “We knew they were at the end of their use in 2001,” said Fitch. “We’ll leave one windmill up, that has the 50-kilowatt turbine, which Composite Engineering will use to test new blades for that size turbine. But the board doesn’t want to wait any longer before taking the other five down.” Composite Engineering has put up $10,000 toward the removal of the other turbines. The five towers will come down piece by piece and Composite Engineering will refurbish them. One of the towers will go to the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan where it will become part of the museum’s collection. The windmills were installed in 1984 and consisted of eight, 100-foot, steel lattice towers with 40kW wind turbines. At the time, residents voted in favor of purchasing the 16-acre site and developing the wind farm as an alternative to PMLD purchasing power from the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant. The original plan recommended approximately 500kW of capacity on 164-foot towers. PMLD didn’t install the recommended size and quantity of units due to the high cost, installing instead 320kW of capacity on smaller towers. At the time the windmills were projected to produce about 10 percent of the town’s energy requirements. The wind source at the lower height and the 50foot mature tree canopy surrounding the site were also factors in contributing to the lower than expected amounts of renewable energy. For a brief time the windmills produced about 3 percent of the town’s energy needs, but that fell to about 1 percent as the years went by. In December 1999, PMLD started the process of researching options for the wind site, considered a number of options, and finally decided to upgrade the wind farm by installing two 230-foot towers with 1.6megawatt turbines. In a February 2003 ballot vote, residents approved PMLD’s proposal to replace the eight windmills with the higher towers. The new windmills are expected to generate at least 40 percent of the town’s energy needs. The project has been the subject of extensive state and local permitting processes, and court challenges. “We didn’t want to take the old windmills down until we were ready to work on the entire site because it’s much more efficient to do all the work at once,” Fitch said. “Keeping the old turbines establishes the fact we have an existing wind site and it was important to have them there as we went through the permitting process.” Removing the old wind towers requires a crane and is dependent on the weather for good climbing conditions. “We can’t do the work if there are winds,” said Fitch. “We’ll coordinate the work over the next few weeks — a combination of Composite Engineering manpower, my linemen and the crane operator.” A crane will lower the turbines until they are about 25 feet from the ground where the PMLD crew using the bucket truck will remove the blades. Once the turbine and blades are on the ground, the lattice tower will be unbolted and lowered to the ground in one piece by the crane, said Fitch. “We’ll do all five that way to maximize the use of the crane. That’s the most expensive piece of equipment at about $1,500 a day,” he said. Fitch expects it will take three or four days to get the towers on the ground. Then they will be disassembled and taken back to the PMLD where they will be taken away by Composite. “It will be a little more costly to take the towers down now, separate from the project. But there isn’t any monetary loss to the Princeton ratepayer other than the salvage value of the turbine that was destroyed when the tower fell. We were going to give it to Composite anyway,” said Fitch. “I suspect the tower fell as a result of the high winds, some with gusts over 50 miles per hour, and the age of the towers,” he said. “But I’ll know more after I get the report from the forensic engineer.” In the past, two wind test towers have fallen at the site, one during an ice storm in 2002, and another in March 2003 as a result of a fault in the bedrock where the tower was anchored. In 2004, a generator mounted on one of the eight windmills failed and the blades broke off. ]]> The top half of one of the 100-foot windmills, with its broken turbine and missing blades, lies on the ground at the PMLD wind site. PRINCETON — On February 21, when Princeton Light Department Manager Jonathan Fitch drove over Westminster Road to check on the windmills, he got an unpleasant surprise. Instead of seven, he counted only six. One of the 22-year old windmills at the PMLD’s wind farm had fallen over, landing on the storage garage, demolishing the building. “I check on the site weekly, and had made a point to check the site on the previous Friday because of the high winds,” said Fitch. “All seven turbines and towers were up and okay then.” After a long weekend of windy weather and the Monday holiday, Fitch decided to recheck the site. “I drove by Westminster Road and counted only six towers, so I walked up to the site to look and that’s when I discovered one of the towers had fallen over and landed on our storage garage,” he said. The bottom section of the tower was a pile of twisted metal, mixed with large pieces of splintered wood that had been the garage. The broken turbine and smashed blades lay in a pile nearby. According to Fitch, the garage was used to store old parts and pieces for the old windmill and was going to be taken down as part of the wind farm upgrade. Fitch called in his crew and got a backhoe to the site along with a 30-yard Dumpster to start getting the area cleaned. “I came back to the office and contacted the state Department of Conservation and Recreation to let them know,” he said. The existing windmills haven’t been on line producing energy since October 2003, said Fitch. “We knew we weren’t going to maintain them so we turned them off hoping to take them down when the project was approved to construct two new towers,” he added. The department received approval in 2003 to take down the windmills, but the work wasn’t done because the project has been delayed, he said. Fitch called a structural engineer for a forensic analysis of why the tower failed and is awaiting his report. “I also wanted an engineer to check the other towers to see if they were at risk for failure until they are taken down,” said Fitch. “It appears the back leg of the tower bent first, then the tower went down. It could have been over a period of time or gone down quickly,” he said. Top photo The lower half of the 100-foot tower amid the wreckage of the storage garage. Bottom photo Twisted pieces of the roof of the storage garage and parts of the blades lay in a pile. Phyllis Booth photo The Board of Light Commissioners inspected the site on Tuesday and Wednesday and told Fitch to take down five of the remaining towers immediately, he said. “We knew they were at the end of their use in 2001,” said Fitch. “We’ll leave one windmill up, that has the 50-kilowatt turbine, which Composite Engineering will use to test new blades for that size turbine. But the board doesn’t want to wait any longer before taking the other five down.” Composite Engineering has put up $10,000 toward the removal of the other turbines. The five towers will come down piece by piece and Composite Engineering will refurbish them. One of the towers will go to the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan where it will become part of the museum’s collection. The windmills were installed in 1984 and consisted of eight, 100-foot, steel lattice towers with 40kW wind turbines. At the time, residents voted in favor of purchasing the 16-acre site and developing the wind farm as an alternative to PMLD purchasing power from the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant. The original plan recommended approximately 500kW of capacity on 164-foot towers. PMLD didn’t install the recommended size and quantity of units due to the high cost, installing instead 320kW of capacity on smaller towers. At the time the windmills were projected to produce about 10 percent of the town’s energy requirements. The wind source at the lower height and the 50foot mature tree canopy surrounding the site were also factors in contributing to the lower than expected amounts of renewable energy. For a brief time the windmills produced about 3 percent of the town’s energy needs, but that fell to about 1 percent as the years went by. In December 1999, PMLD started the process of researching options for the wind site, considered a number of options, and finally decided to upgrade the wind farm by installing two 230-foot towers with 1.6megawatt turbines. In a February 2003 ballot vote, residents approved PMLD’s proposal to replace the eight windmills with the higher towers. The new windmills are expected to generate at least 40 percent of the town’s energy needs. The project has been the subject of extensive state and local permitting processes, and court challenges. “We didn’t want to take the old windmills down until we were ready to work on the entire site because it’s much more efficient to do all the work at once,” Fitch said. “Keeping the old turbines establishes the fact we have an existing wind site and it was important to have them there as we went through the permitting process.” Removing the old wind towers requires a crane and is dependent on the weather for good climbing conditions. “We can’t do the work if there are winds,” said Fitch. “We’ll coordinate the work over the next few weeks — a combination of Composite Engineering manpower, my linemen and the crane operator.” A crane will lower the turbines until they are about 25 feet from the ground where the PMLD crew using the bucket truck will remove the blades. Once the turbine and blades are on the ground, the lattice tower will be unbolted and lowered to the ground in one piece by the crane, said Fitch. “We’ll do all five that way to maximize the use of the crane. That’s the most expensive piece of equipment at about $1,500 a day,” he said. Fitch expects it will take three or four days to get the towers on the ground. Then they will be disassembled and taken back to the PMLD where they will be taken away by Composite. “It will be a little more costly to take the towers down now, separate from the project. But there isn’t any monetary loss to the Princeton ratepayer other than the salvage value of the turbine that was destroyed when the tower fell. We were going to give it to Composite anyway,” said Fitch. “I suspect the tower fell as a result of the high winds, some with gusts over 50 miles per hour, and the age of the towers,” he said. “But I’ll know more after I get the report from the forensic engineer.” In the past, two wind test towers have fallen at the site, one during an ice storm in 2002, and another in March 2003 as a result of a fault in the bedrock where the tower was anchored. In 2004, a generator mounted on one of the eight windmills failed and the blades broke off. http://www.windaction.org/articles/2288 http://www.windaction.org/articles/36761 Fri, 14 Dec 2012 18:48:49 GMT The accident occurred at about 9 a.m. Friday. Initial reports said he fell 40 feet, but Blanchard said he actually fell from 60 feet inside the turbine tower onto a platform 40 feet off the turbine floor. http://www.windaction.org/articles/36761 http://www.windaction.org/articles/36069 Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:19:02 GMT If it turns out it is a manufacturer's problem the $95,000 PMLD paid up front for the gear box replacement will be returned and Jake would pay for the gearbox, said Allen. Then the company will look at the loss of revenue issue, he said. http://www.windaction.org/articles/36069 http://www.windaction.org/articles/35792 Thu, 16 Aug 2012 10:51:14 GMT "A politically based determination of the Cape Wind project by the FAA is an unacceptable use of federal authority, contravenes FAA's statutory mandate and raises significant safety concerns for aviation in Nantucket Sound," they wrote. http://www.windaction.org/articles/35792 http://www.windaction.org/articles/35684 Fri, 03 Aug 2012 09:16:27 GMT McLaughlin said it is hard to believe political influence was not a factor in the FAA's decision, which came a month after U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved the project. http://www.windaction.org/articles/35684 http://www.windaction.org/articles/35528 Wed, 18 Jul 2012 12:20:42 GMT In a letter today to FAA chief Michael Huerta, congressmen John Mica (R-Fla.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) say they have "significant questions" about the role of politics in the agency's approval of the project. "A politically based determination of the Cape Wind project by FAA is an unacceptable use of federal authority, contravenes FAA's statutory mandate, and raises significant safety concerns for aviation in Nantucket Sound," their letter states. http://www.windaction.org/articles/35528 http://www.windaction.org/articles/35375 Tue, 03 Jul 2012 07:59:53 GMT U.S. Sen. Scott Brown yesterday joined the growing chorus of critics calling for a federal probe into Cape Wind, saying officials have been aware of safety concerns "forever" and raising questions about whether the hotly debated Nantucket Sound project was born from "backroom deals." http://www.windaction.org/articles/35375 http://www.windaction.org/articles/35272 Wed, 20 Jun 2012 13:10:21 GMT "FAA has made decisions based on political factors rather than the recommendations of the local aviation community and even its own employees, failing its statutory safety-first mandate," Audra Parker of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound wrote to the inspector general for the federal Department of Transportation. http://www.windaction.org/articles/35272 http://www.windaction.org/articles/35034 Tue, 22 May 2012 14:29:21 GMT The town's wind turbine, located at Portsmouth High School, has remained motionless since May 10 after an error code alerted town workers to a problem on site. "The short story is Lumus believes the fault is in a pressure sensor and they are having difficulty locating a replacement part." http://www.windaction.org/articles/35034 http://www.windaction.org/articles/4618 Sat, 21 Apr 2012 11:49:09 GMT Dr Hopkins said 150 sports utility vehicles (SUVs) would burn the same amount of oil as a wind farm would save.More than 60 abutters and neighbors filled the seats of the Mayflower Room at Town Hall Wednesday night to hear the Zoning Board of Appeal’s decision on the project. The vast majority opposed the project, despite repeated assurances from engineers that it meets the requirements of the town’s wind energy bylaw. http://www.windaction.org/articles/4618 http://www.windaction.org/articles/34805 Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:54:05 GMT The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority's wind turbine at the DeLauri Sewer Pump Station will be shut down in the coming weeks as a concrete ring and new piles are installed around the existing foundation. Workers performing a routine inspection of the turbine in February found that its foundation settled faster than expected, according to the authority. http://www.windaction.org/articles/34805 http://www.windaction.org/articles/34644 Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:28:38 GMT After the crack was analyzed, replacing the blade was considered, but last Wednesday Hyundai engineers decided to remove a section of the blade and replace it with new material, Ruiz said. http://www.windaction.org/articles/34644 http://www.windaction.org/articles/34427 Sat, 25 Feb 2012 21:40:54 GMT Massachusetts Water Resources Authority honchos and engineers met yesterday to figure out a fix for the $4.7 million wind turbine, which started turning in October, only to power down last month when crews discovered it had settled about 2 inches, agency officials said. Possible causes, they said, include soil conditions and vibrations from a sudden shutdown triggered by high winds. http://www.windaction.org/articles/34427 http://www.windaction.org/articles/33446 Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:14:36 GMT A federal appeals court has rejected the Federal Aviation Administration's ruling that the Cape Wind project's turbines present "no hazard" to aviation, overturning a vital clearance for the nation's first offshore wind farm. http://www.windaction.org/articles/33446 http://www.windaction.org/articles/33013 Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:09:46 GMT The appeal states that the FAA acted in an "arbitrary and capricious manner" by ignoring evidence submitted demonstrating that the wind turbines would in fact create a hazard to aviation and cause interfere with radar facilities used by air traffic control, failing to consider the cumulative effects of the turbines in Nantucket Sound, and exceeding its own authority. http://www.windaction.org/articles/33013 http://www.windaction.org/articles/29572 Thu, 21 Oct 2010 19:31:00 GMT Two weeks after a number of neighbors said they were not informed about the three-bladed Northwind 100 turbine's location so close to the school, committee members raised their own concerns, saying that somewhere along the way they were excluded from the planning process. http://www.windaction.org/articles/29572