Thank you, once again Linda, for bringing this news & evidence to light. I only hope that everyone who reads this, forwards it on to every member of governing bodies concerned with granting licences to these particular wind farm owners!
I am a retired professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. My research lab was devoted to developing reliable equipment for the NASA space shuttle program and industry. I have been researching the problems with offshore wind turbines for the past two years.
GE claims that the recent failure of their blade on their 13.7MW wind turbine was due to a material problem during manufacturing. The turbine blade is 351 feet long. Modern wind turbine blades are designed to be aerodynamic efficient with long tapered blades that can twist and bend during each rotation. What happened with this blade is that a moderate wind excited an aerodynamic torsional flutter mode which caused failure.
The reason that the blade so easily failed was that it was made entirely of inexpensive, low strength fiberglass .
BSEE has stopped all further development of vineyard winds offshore project and the cause of failure is under investigation.
The cause of failure with these large blades is aerodynamic blade flutter.
Edgar Gunter,PhD,
Prof. Emeritus Mech. &Aerospace Eng., UVA, Fellow ASME
Thanks for your comment Dr. Gunter. If that is the case, it appears that all the blades installed so far for Vineyard Wind are in imminent danger of failing. What about the other projects, and how did you become aware of the use of this low-grade fiberglass? Linda
Thank you for telling the truth about this so-called "non-toxic" very toxic junk that is washing up on our beach here in Westport, MA. I've personally picked up a large garbage full of the foam plastic, along with a 20"-long shard of fiberglass, pieces of which became embedded in my fingertips and hand even though I was very careful about how I handled it. There is no way to see the fiberglass in the sand once it breaks down to small pieces, but I've no doubt little bare feet and paws can feel it! The offshore wind build out along the Outer Continental Shelf is criminally insane.
What can we do to stop them? I am onboard. This is not Green. It is super dirty and will destroy our whales, ocean life and ocean birds. Stop trying to dupe us with so called green production and face it ...it is greed. I am not willing to lose our oceans ecosystem for others greed.
Good Morning Linda! Thanks again for bringing this topic to our attention. MSM will never take your angle on this topic. “They” drive up cost of energy, force “wind” on us, kill whales 🐳 and birds 🐦, pollute skyline, oceans and plains then turn their toxic garbage into an ironic bench for you to sit on - no doubt because you’re tired … from walking … because your battery car is dead and the chargers are broken, of which there are few because it’s all a boondoggle, which doesn’t matter anymore because there’s no more electricity anyway because you need natural coal and natural crude to generate it! (And of course to build all the things that won’t work in its place.) Ah, progress.
The democrap governor of NJ who made his fortune on bonuses selling off the assets of E. Germany is pushing the hell out of windfarms off the coast. Whales have been dying almost certainly due to sonar mapping for the turbine columns, yet that and the issues reported here stop nothing.
Marine micro-plastic is a sponge for PCBs and is displacing phytoplankton as the beginning of the oceans food chain. Phytoplankton permanently sequesters most of our CO2 and converts it to most of our oxygen as well as feeding billions of us. As it goes all life will soon follow, the best estimate is 20 years before we perish. If we spent a fraction of what we give the utility CEOs on saving phytoplankton we could survive it. Sadly we won't.
If we invest in energy dense solutions, we don't need any of the unreliable and polluting wind and solar cheapfakes and we'd really reduce carbon emissions.
I called this type of disaster in 2020. When this crap started happening in NJ. And everyone on the left thought I was a nut. There's cake in your face for not believing me
Great update since few in the media report facts about energy addition ( not an energy “transition”). Most people do not understand that there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.
This could be the greatest ecological disaster of our time if we don't stop it now Thank you Linda for your always spot on investigative reporting
Great piece, Linda! Thanks for shining a bright light on this mess.
Thank you, once again Linda, for bringing this news & evidence to light. I only hope that everyone who reads this, forwards it on to every member of governing bodies concerned with granting licences to these particular wind farm owners!
I am a retired professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. My research lab was devoted to developing reliable equipment for the NASA space shuttle program and industry. I have been researching the problems with offshore wind turbines for the past two years.
GE claims that the recent failure of their blade on their 13.7MW wind turbine was due to a material problem during manufacturing. The turbine blade is 351 feet long. Modern wind turbine blades are designed to be aerodynamic efficient with long tapered blades that can twist and bend during each rotation. What happened with this blade is that a moderate wind excited an aerodynamic torsional flutter mode which caused failure.
The reason that the blade so easily failed was that it was made entirely of inexpensive, low strength fiberglass .
BSEE has stopped all further development of vineyard winds offshore project and the cause of failure is under investigation.
The cause of failure with these large blades is aerodynamic blade flutter.
Edgar Gunter,PhD,
Prof. Emeritus Mech. &Aerospace Eng., UVA, Fellow ASME
Thanks for your comment Dr. Gunter. If that is the case, it appears that all the blades installed so far for Vineyard Wind are in imminent danger of failing. What about the other projects, and how did you become aware of the use of this low-grade fiberglass? Linda
Thank you for adding your professional opinion and experience.
Thank you for telling the truth about this so-called "non-toxic" very toxic junk that is washing up on our beach here in Westport, MA. I've personally picked up a large garbage full of the foam plastic, along with a 20"-long shard of fiberglass, pieces of which became embedded in my fingertips and hand even though I was very careful about how I handled it. There is no way to see the fiberglass in the sand once it breaks down to small pieces, but I've no doubt little bare feet and paws can feel it! The offshore wind build out along the Outer Continental Shelf is criminally insane.
What can we do to stop them? I am onboard. This is not Green. It is super dirty and will destroy our whales, ocean life and ocean birds. Stop trying to dupe us with so called green production and face it ...it is greed. I am not willing to lose our oceans ecosystem for others greed.
Remember all this when you go to vote in November. It needs to STOP!
Good Morning Linda! Thanks again for bringing this topic to our attention. MSM will never take your angle on this topic. “They” drive up cost of energy, force “wind” on us, kill whales 🐳 and birds 🐦, pollute skyline, oceans and plains then turn their toxic garbage into an ironic bench for you to sit on - no doubt because you’re tired … from walking … because your battery car is dead and the chargers are broken, of which there are few because it’s all a boondoggle, which doesn’t matter anymore because there’s no more electricity anyway because you need natural coal and natural crude to generate it! (And of course to build all the things that won’t work in its place.) Ah, progress.
The democrap governor of NJ who made his fortune on bonuses selling off the assets of E. Germany is pushing the hell out of windfarms off the coast. Whales have been dying almost certainly due to sonar mapping for the turbine columns, yet that and the issues reported here stop nothing.
https://time.com/6254785/whale-deaths-offshore-wind-power/
Marine micro-plastic is a sponge for PCBs and is displacing phytoplankton as the beginning of the oceans food chain. Phytoplankton permanently sequesters most of our CO2 and converts it to most of our oxygen as well as feeding billions of us. As it goes all life will soon follow, the best estimate is 20 years before we perish. If we spent a fraction of what we give the utility CEOs on saving phytoplankton we could survive it. Sadly we won't.
If we invest in energy dense solutions, we don't need any of the unreliable and polluting wind and solar cheapfakes and we'd really reduce carbon emissions.
I called this type of disaster in 2020. When this crap started happening in NJ. And everyone on the left thought I was a nut. There's cake in your face for not believing me
Great update since few in the media report facts about energy addition ( not an energy “transition”). Most people do not understand that there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.