Losses widened to $313.3 million at Clipper Windpower in 2008, as the wind turbine maker was forced to spend $300 million over two years fixing faults. The Carpinteri, California-based firm has also reduced its head count and said it will continue to be affected by the credit crunch in 2009, as difficulty securing financing forced some customers to defer or reduce turbine orders.

"We're two-thirds complete. It's gone very well and we'll get this done in the next couple of months. We're on schedule," said Duncan Koerbel, chief reliability officer of the Mumbai, India-based company, the third-largest wind turbine supplier in the United States. The company has taken a $35 million charge for the program to replace all 1,200 blades in its previous generation of blades, some of which developed cracking near the base. One blade broke off a turbine in Illinois.

At NREL, senior engineers are expanding a research partnership with operators, utilities and turbine manufacturers to determine why some key wind turbine components tend to wear too soon - sometimes within a few years of installation. That's a problem because wind turbines are expected to operate for 20 years. Early equipment fatigue, especially in turbine gearboxes, threatens to reduce performance and drive up wind power costs just as the industry is poised to capture a greater share of U.S. generating capacity.

When we reported on the videotaped Vestas turbine explosion, the wind energy watchdog group Industrial Wind Action Group had a list of 36 turbine failures in the U.S. Today that list has grown to 51 recorded turbine failures. Across the pond, the British group Caithness Wind Farms, which tracks such global turbine accidents, says the number has jumped to 65 so far this year, up from 11 in 2001.

Wind power may be one of the cleaner, greener energy sources available, but turbine and blade failures point to dangers that were not anticipated, says Michael Connellan

Frontier Pro Services of Banning, California conducted an informal survey of approximately 75 wind farm operators in the United States. Designed to assess the specific operation and maintenance service needs of wind energy operators, the survey reveals potentially serious threats to wind farms owing largely to the industry-wide shortage of qualified turbine technicians.

In what implies a Rs.1 billion ($25 million) hit on its balance sheet for the current quarter, leading wind power equipment-maker Suzlon Energy will refit wind turbine blades for a project in the US, the company said Monday. “The company will do a retrofit programme to resolve blade-cracking issues discovered during the operations of some of its S88 turbines in the US,” the company informed the Bombay Stock Exchange Monday.

Rahall's spokeswoman, Allyson Groff, said last week that committee staff already were working on the points of greatest contention - especially the wind provisions. The bill as introduced "was a proposal," she said. "Nothing was set in stone. He wanted to be able to work with the Republicans on this."

To continue its rapid growth, wind energy must overcome some major hurdles in the next few years. Market development in the United States is strongly dependent on the federal PTCs, which for now must be periodically renewed by Congress.

LINDSBORG -- Rose Bacon, member of the Governor's Energy Task Force and a rancher who owns property in the Flint Hills, spoke about the vulnerability of communities facing proposals from international companies that want to build commercial wind farms in rural areas. She pointed to the lack of “teeth” in regulations, and the attractive tax write-offs granted to wind energy companies, and the inexperience of local officials in dealing with such monstrous deals, depicting a state-wide scenario akin to the “wildcatter days in the oil business.”