Wind Generator Accident

1. Lasse
   February 25th, 2008 at 8:46 am

   Actually poor maintenance was the reason. But of course in the end it was the wind.

2. Ross
   February 25th, 2008 at 9:53 am

   I'm curious how they just happened to be filming it when it broke.

   Seems too convenient.

3. Jeremy
   February 25th, 2008 at 10:17 am

   HOLY CRAP!

4. bean
   February 25th, 2008 at 11:54 am

   Hey, I saw this episode of House... Mira Sorvino is surprisingly hot.

5. The Dane
   February 25th, 2008 at 12:02 pm

   Ross actually what you see is not a wind mill, its an UFO, but plz dont tell anyone.

   ...back to real life...

   well how about he put up his digital HDD video camera which can record up to 50 hours. And then just edited out the other boring parts...

   Seems to convinient...gimme a break...its all over the news here in Denmark

6. Ali S.
   February 25th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

   Maybe it was a wayward goose that flew into it?

7. L
   February 25th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

   I thought for sure the anti-environmentalists would've had a field day in the comments section already. You know... "wind generators are too dangerous" and that kind of crap.

   Never mind the fact that more people are killed in car accidents each day than have ever been killed by wind turbines...

8. DrJones
   February 25th, 2008 at 12:41 pm

   @ Ali S.

   That reminds me of this quote from an awesome movie: "I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne. Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky."

9. Thespian24601
   February 25th, 2008 at 12:44 pm

   I agree with Ross. Seems strange that he would just be happening to film a turbine that exploded, out of all the days that it spins. And who only has one turbine?

10. Binford DK
    February 25th, 2008 at 1:23 pm

    My understanding is that they were aware that the brake system was having difficulties. Perhaps they were filming because they knew it would be a problem if there were strong winds while the brakes were not working.

    And yes, in Denmark there are turbines scattered all over the place. They are not all in wind farms like in the US. It is very common to see a single turbine in the middle of a field with no others for miles.

    My guess as to what happened was that it spun too quickly to the point that either something excited a natural frequency, or more likely until the force on the blades was too strong causing one to shear off (if you pause right before the accident you can actually see a frame where one blades is warped). Once the first blade moved out of position, the imbalance in the machine would be enough to throw the other blades and bow the driveshaft, which is probably what brings the tower down.

11. Algonkin
    February 25th, 2008 at 2:44 pm

    @Binford DK

    I believe it was the force of the wind that stressed the propellers to a certain point that they arched towards the tower and then...bang!

    You can see how lightweight and flexible they are at the end of the clip. They were obviously made of fibreglass.

12. Dan
    February 25th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

    The camera is amazingly steady for somewhere apparently so windy.

13. andy cochrane
    February 25th, 2008 at 3:11 pm

    that blew apart pretty damn quickly- i was expecting a much slower demise, but either way, impressive how much destructive power is in those blades.

14. artbot
    February 25th, 2008 at 5:28 pm

    #12 Yes, a tripod is an alien device to 99.9% of YouTube posters. Here's the other .1%.

15. ted
    February 25th, 2008 at 6:01 pm

    They had to know something might happen in the strong winds.

    Cool video, though.

    L - I hope you have the stats to back up your claims that more people are killed in car accidents than freak wind turbine accidents.

16. Emily
    February 25th, 2008 at 9:29 pm

    OH GOD, THE FALLOUT WILL KILL MILLIONS

17. Jim
    February 25th, 2008 at 11:30 pm

    "L Says:
    I thought for sure the anti-environmentalists would’ve had a field day in the comments section already. You know… “wind generators are too dangerous” and that kind of crap.Never mind the fact that more people are killed in car accidents each day than have ever been killed by wind turbines…"
    ---ROFLMAO at ya."L"
    You are the only embicile to bring it up. Please tell me where you find these anti-environmentalist. Just because in your simple tiny little mind they don't agree with you does not mean they don't want to see the environment to be cared for. Rant on you closed minded fool.

18. Jim
    February 25th, 2008 at 11:31 pm

    slackers

19. zoomzoom
    February 26th, 2008 at 12:01 am

    I'll give $20 to anyone who can diagram the sentence "Just because in your simple tiny little mind they don’t agree with you does not mean they don’t want to see the environment to be cared for."

    Or, $5 to anyone who can just explain what the f*** it means.

20. fz
    February 26th, 2008 at 12:15 am

    @ zoomzoom

    It's not that hard to interpret...
    Are you slow? Or is it that English is your second language? Do you also want this "diagrammed"?

    @ The people who think this is fake

    What would anyone have to gain from this being a fake? Obviously someone saw a turbine spinning very fast and thought to film it. It might be a coincidence that they caught it breaking on film or it might be that they were expecting it to break.

21. Christophe
    February 26th, 2008 at 12:19 am

    I thought that those windmills stopped when the wind was too strong ; at least it's what they say about the ones next to my place. But they're fairly new ; maybe the Danish one was from an older design?...

22. Rob
    February 26th, 2008 at 12:55 am

    Hey Jim (#17) I think it's spelled 'imbecile'. And by the way, name calling hurts feelings. That's what I always tell my kids when they're rude to someone. (Feels a bit awkward telling another adult).

23. Lasse
    February 26th, 2008 at 2:28 am

    Due to poor maintenance the brake system failed. So the mill spun out of control. The authorities anticipated what was going to happen and set up a perimeter around the mill. And captured it on film to upload it on Youtube.

24. Sofar
    February 26th, 2008 at 2:33 am

    That was cool. Better than a coal fire.

    @Christopher: Windmills have had brakes for centuries. But this one probably had broken brakes. Likely the men what ran the windmill knew the brakes were broken and set up a camera to film the imminent asplosion. So they could post the film on YouTube.

    So, uh, what are we arguing about?

25. Alex
    February 26th, 2008 at 4:39 am

    Turbine can't keep up with all the wind generated in the US Presidential Election 2008. Woohoo! Go windbags!

26. Willo the Wisp
    February 26th, 2008 at 4:39 am

    I hope nobody was hurt, but I'm not sorry the turbine broke. I hate those ugly things.

27. Louise
    February 26th, 2008 at 10:32 am

    Must I state the obvious? PHOTOSHOP!

    Sorry, been at the English Russia site a bit much.

    Seriously, though - who was the turbine manufacturer?

    According to some recent news reports, Texas is moving into windfarming in a big way. Oil isn't going to last forever, apparently. Once Texas is making money at it big-time, expect people who don't trust windpower now to love it.

28. zoomzoom
    February 26th, 2008 at 10:59 am

    @fz,

    I’m not slow, and English is my first language, which is why I don't write sentences with triple negatives.

29. L
    February 26th, 2008 at 1:12 pm

    @ Jim:
    Are you an anti-environmentalist? If not, I wasn't talking about you, so why get so bent out of shape?

    I love Neatorama. It's so easy to annoy people and get called names for making a simple observation. I'm not sure if it's thin skins or what. Oh, well... it's still amusing.

30. Sofar
    February 26th, 2008 at 3:06 pm

    @Wispy: I like the windmills. I think they're pretty.

31. PT
    February 26th, 2008 at 6:14 pm

    You don't have brakes on a windmill like this. You control it by feathering the blades - changing the pitch so that they don't catch so much wind. Most likely it was the pitch control system that failed and the tower raised its own alarm, bringing the owner on site with a camera to watch - as nothing else could be done.

32. Saskboy
    February 26th, 2008 at 11:22 pm

    What a sad world we live in. The anti-environmental sites on the web are linking to the video as a supposed demonstration of why wind power isn't good. Yet they leave it up to their readers to draw their own conclusions, supposedly.

33. Vako
    February 27th, 2008 at 1:53 am

    The tower looked like it was made out of fiberglass to me. Not a very good material for such a thing.

34. Sofar
    February 27th, 2008 at 4:15 pm

    @PT: That's pretty cool.
    @Saskboy: I don't think there are any anti-environmentalist sites linking to this video. I don't even know of any websites whose owner would describe as "anti-environmentalist." I don't even know of anyone against wind power. I think y'all just naturally assume there's constant a calvalcade of people looking to thwart your every move.

35. Theo
    March 7th, 2008 at 5:56 am

    This type of accidents and other will hapend again .
    This concept of wind tubine belongs to the past.
    Soon another new type and concept of wind turbines will replaced this old type.
    It will be named ''TORNADO TYPE ''with vertical axe and will be protected with two complete new sistems ,
    who did not alowed to the movig parts to exit from sistem , even in case of accident .
    The concept will aloud also to use another type
    of clean energy sources , and for this case the global eficiency can increase about 6 times .
    Is possible that this system will be developed in Romania , for the first time.

36. Saskboy
    March 10th, 2008 at 7:15 pm

    Sofar: "I don’t think there are any anti-environmentalist sites linking to this video. I don’t even know of any websites whose owner would describe as “anti-environmentalist.” "

    You don't know about smalldeadanimals.com then?

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