Progressives along the East Coast seem unmoved by the possibility that the “environmentally friendly” wind farms springing up along the coast are potentially the reasons for whales dying in the region.Perhaps they may take a different view, as the beaches in Nantucket have now been closed because of the failure of newly installed wind turbines.
The federal government has ordered the Vineyard Wind farm to shut down until further notice because of a turbine blade failure this weekend.Several beaches were closed on Tuesday while crews worked to clean up “large floating debris and fiberglass shards” from the broken wind turbine blade off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. A total of six south shore Nantucket beaches were closed to swimming due to debris that washed ashore.”You can walk on the beaches, however we strongly recommend you wear footwear due to sharp, fiberglass shards and debris on the beaches,” the Nantucket Harbormaster said.
Fiberglass shards are sharp, and splinters can be extremely painful and difficult to remove. Having a beach loaded with this debris at the height of tourist season seems…sub-optimum.
The blade had been newly installed and was undergoing commissioning testing when the failure occurred.
Craig Gilvarg, a spokesperson for Vineyard Wind, said shortly after 2:30 p.m. that the cause of the incident is still unknown.Some time on Saturday, one of the three main 107-meter blades “experienced a breakage approximately 20 meters out from the root,” Gilvarg said. The affected turbine was still undergoing testing as part of its commissioning process.Although the damage threw debris into the water, the blade was not completely severed and most of it remains attached to the turbine, Gilvarg said. A photo published by the Nantucket Current showed one blade hanging directly downward, parallel to the tower.GE, which manufactured and installed the turbines and blades, will investigate the root cause, Gilvarg said.
In fact, the wind farm only started generating electricity in February.
The damage to the blade occurred on Saturday evening at Vineyard Wind, the country’s second large-scale offshore wind farm, which is 14 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. It’s still under construction but the first turbines began generating electricity in February.The companies behind the project, Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, plan to install a total of 62 turbines by the end of the year that could, at full strength, produce 800 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power more than 400,000 homes.The turbines being installed at Vineyard Wind are enormous, featuring 351-foot-long blades that can reach heights taller than the Eiffel Tower.Beege Welborne of Hot Air has some additional analysis, and noticed that the wind farm firm’s notification timeline seems less than responsive.
The offshore wind company knew the turbine blade was blasted all to bits on Saturday but only notified the beach community of Nantucket on *checks notes* MONDAY.
I have long chronicled the staggering failures of wind farms to live up to the hype. Scientific evidence and a serious review of the numbers shows that the power and reliability of wind pales in comparison to one traditional energy source.
This is just one more failure to add to the fail pile….fiberglass shards and all.
Meanwhile, the problems continue.
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