fair winds and following seas

The £250,000 tower, which stood as tall as a six storey building, was hit by gale force gusts of 50mph.

The structure then collapsed at a farm in Bradworth, Devon, leaving a “mangled wreck”…

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21 Comments!

  1. DougM (Progophobe)
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 12:56 pm |

    … thereby saving countless birds
    and tax money.

  2. bocopro
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 1:02 pm |

    It is to laff.

    That’s kinda like buildin a ship outta adobe and tryin to operate it off Hatteras.

  3. geezerette
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 1:06 pm |

    Wind power at it’s best.

  4. SondraK, Queen of my domain
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 1:15 pm |

    The guy in the middle…scratching his head…..owie.

  5. Lord of the Fleas
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 1:31 pm |

    What was that again? “… gale force gusts of 50mph …?

    Sorry, but I’ve lived in places where that’s little better than a stiff breeze.

    (So I guess it’s no wind power on the Gulf coast.)

  6. Merovign
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 1:37 pm |

    Sic semper birdblenders!

  7. danintampa
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 1:48 pm |

    Viewing this demonstration of ‘safe’ harnessing of wind; it’s probably best these energy companies stay away from nuclear power.

  8. Caged Insanity
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 2:14 pm |

    “gale force gusts of 50mph”

    The news source is the Telegraph in England.

    Shouldn’t they be using kph?

  9. DougM (Progophobe)
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 2:14 pm |

    Time to have a sit-down with the fellers who specified, provided, and torqued the base bolts.

  10. mech
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 2:42 pm |

    ^^Probably got an award for using recycled bolts.

    50 MPH shouldn’t be a breaking wind. . .

    ”

    Other areas of the “shires” with stone churches and houses in “dingly dells” are also inappropriate for wind, he said.

  11. Jess
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 2:58 pm |

    There’s a point where the blade speed can cause all types of havoc and automatic safeties are supposed to kick in and stop the blades. If they don’t, either the damn thing will come apart or fall down.

  12. dick, not quite dead white guy
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 2:59 pm |

    That’s not a wind, just a good stiff breeze. Smells like opportunists cashing in on the Green Subsidy or whatever euphemism GB uses for the scam where you get govt grants for green energy bullshit, skim off the cash up front, and go bankrupt a few years later
    (See: Solyndra)
    The incident is right in line with Progs’ tendency to ignore facts, logic and plain arithmetic if it doesn’t suit their template, then blame conservatives for whatever goes wrong [see today's news: Economy Shrinks: Dems Blame GOP]

  13. Colonel Jerry USMC
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 3:27 pm |

    They set the prop blades to turn at low wind speeds. Spooling it up to 50 mph rpm creates a lot of drag. And w a 6 story moment arm the bolts prolly need to be long enuf so the threads come out the other side of the earth, where they screw on the washer an nuts….Plus, unless the wind hits the prop at a perpendicular angle, you got to figure in the “P-Factor” (…where, say, the downward half of the propellor is generating less lift than the upward half of the propellor…) In a prop aircraft, this is why pilots have to add right rudder when rotating the plane at liftoff speed on the runway.

  14. Wollf
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 3:28 pm |

    “I found a pail of unused Nuts, Boss”, said no Union worker ever.

    It’s probably the Republican’s fault anyways…..

  15. Steve Skubinna
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 3:50 pm |

    Shouldn’t they be using kph?

    I believe the current term of measurement in Old Blighty is “furlongs per fortnight.”

  16. DougM (Progophobe)
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 4:15 pm |

    Then again,
    mebbe it got hit by one bigass bird.

    ‘Course, since it’s in the UK, it could’a been that they torqued the bolts to the left ‘stead’a right.
    (What? Yeah, but in Oz, that’d be “counter-clockwisy tighty, clockwisy-loosy,” woodnit?)

    Hey, wait …
    any chance the torque specs were in pound-foot rather than newton-meter … or t’other way ’round?

  17. JoeBandMember™
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 6:29 pm |

    Well, folks, I’m still trying to find me one supporter, one wind power company, one anybody who can quote me a price per KWH of wind power.

    Each windmill generates DC, which is then filtered, inverted into a fake AC sine wave which is hard on anything AC, synchronized with the grid sine wave, and then backfed into a transformer stepping the voltage up to whatever the local grid rubs at.

    Maybe that’s why all the supporters and wind utilities yell at me when I ask the price.

  18. PeggyU
    Posted January 30, 2013 at 7:20 pm |

    Doug – Bigass bird? Like this one?

  19. TimO
    Posted January 31, 2013 at 7:25 am |

    Sometimes they just add to the carbon footprint on their own….

  20. Claire: rebellious pink pig with car keys - and a *cause*
    Posted January 31, 2013 at 8:17 am |

    or this…

    In an unfolding plot that is part “The Sopranos,” part “An Inconvenient Truth,” authorities swept across Sicily last month in the latest wave of sting operations revealing years of deep infiltration into the renewable-energy sector by Italy’s rapidly modernizing crime families.*

  21. Paul
    Posted January 31, 2013 at 8:49 pm |

    Pity Al Gore was not inspecting that wind generator when it fell over.

    I can see him at the top of the six story generator and it starts swaying in the 50 MPH wind.

    Maybe Aljazeera would save him.

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