As Germany’s nearly 30,000-strong fleet of wind turbines approach 20 or more years in age, the list of catastrophic collapses is growing more rapidly. The turbines are now being viewed by technical experts as “ticking time bombs.”
According to a commentary by Daniel Wetzel of online German Daily ‘Die Welt’, the aging rickety wind turbines are poorly inspected and maintained and thus are now posing a huge risk.
Over the past months alone there’s been a flurry of reports over wind turbines failing catastrophically and collapsing to the ground, e.g. see here, here and here.
As the older turbines age, their components and electronic control systems are wearing out and beginning to gravely malfunction. And according to Wetzel, these turbines are not even subject to strict technical monitoring by Germany’s TÜV(Technical Inspection Association), which provides inspection and product certification services.
In Germany industrial systems are required to regularly undergo technical inspections and approvals in order to ensure that they operate safely.
However, wind turbines are exempt from this strict requirement, and so many wind park operators are neglecting to properly inspect, maintain and repair the systems.
And so it does not come as a surprise that the aging turbines are beginning to fail catastrophically.
As a result, the TÜV is calling for turbines to be treated like any other industrial system, and be required to undergo rigorous inspections as well, Wetzel writes.
In 2016, near in the region of Paderborn, a 100-tonne turbine and its rotors plunged to the Earth. The turbine was nearly 20 years old.
“Razor-sharp shards” threat to grazing animals
In another case, earlier this year, near Bochner, Wetzel reports, a brakeless 115-meter tall turbine spun wildly out of control before “two of the 56-meter blades “ripped to shreds ‘in a cloud of glass, plastic and fill material’.”
“Razor-sharp fiberglass shards flew 800 meters,” the Westfalen Blatt reported.
The debris from exploded turbine now poses a threat to the environment. The sharp fiberglass pieces injure grazing animals, says the Hanover School of Veterinary Medicine. “For cattle, they can even perforate the stomach.”
Hazard to groundwater
Another hazard comes from the hundreds of liters of transmission oil the turbines that seep into the groundwater. Moreover, the huge reinforced concrete foundations require tremendous energy for their manufacture and they penetrate deep into the ground, which adversely affects soil and groundwater.
Growing list of disasters
The number of wind turbine disasters is mounting, reports Wetzel. Wind energy opposition group Vernunftkraft keeps a list, which has grown to be pages long. But the German Association of Wind Energy (Bundesverband Windenergie) downplays the incidents, calling them “isolated cases”.
Dealing with “ticking time bombs”
Yet the situation has in reality grown so serious that TÜV is now urgently calling for rigorous inspections and regulations in order to assure operational safety. TÜV expert Dieter Roas says that we dealing with “ticking time bombs.”
Wetzel writes that many turbines are now approaching their 20-25 year lifetimes and that extending their operating time should require technical approval.
The technical and structural integrity of the turbines in most cases is completely unknown.
TÜV expert Roas warns: “Here we are dealing with significant dangers.”
Read more at No Tricks Zone
Those Useful Idiots why are they not opposing Wind Farms/Turbines as much as their opposing Fracking/Drilling because it wont get them big coverage in the New York Pravda(Times)or the Fake News Network(CNN)no liberal Journalists to show up
Do these monsters carry liability insurance? Wouldn’t the insurers insist on regular inspections?
I expect that in the future, tree huggers will be replaced by turbine huggers.
This article brings up another issue. It appears wind turbines have at best half the life of a fossil fuel plant. Part of the cost of energy, or anything else, is the capital that must be invested to build it. Having a shorter useful life makes wind power much more expensive. It is my speculation that the short life of the turbines has not be factored into the cost of wind energy.
@David Lewis – you are correct. Solar panels have a similar problem. It is a good bet most “renewable” energy devices have manufacturing costs – in terms of energy input, monetary and environmental costs – that make them a highly dubious proposition. Hence the subsidies and soaring electricity costs in countries like Germany. Funny enough, Germany’s CO2 output keeps rising anyway – though not as fast as the electricity bills consumers are forced to pay. The whole thing is a racket – crony socialism at its finest.
How big is Greenpeace’s Carbon Footprint especialy for the fact their ships and zodiacs still use Fossil Fuels to run on otherwise their stuck in port somewhere