Windmill eyesore junk subsidized by tax payers

[Scholzee]

Yeah look at that wonderful grenn power on the lake, 4 of the 8 windmills have the blades off and how much electricity did we get from them ??? How many businesses came to Buffalo for green energy ?? Its a joke Europe is abandoning windmills after 20 years of trying and we think they are the answer. If they worked the would not need to be subsidized with tax payer money end the madness now and ban all future windmills!!!!!

[WNYresident]

You do seem to have a valid point. We have the damm in niagara falls. They should look into increasing the GREEN output with better generators powered by the water.

[Truthdetector]

Actually, the turbines are being replaced at Manufacturer's cost. There was a failure during manufacturing. The Manufacturer has also agreed to reimburse the power authority (Lackawanna?) for lost power revenue during the repair process.

[Dougles]

Why don't we just build 200 more nuke plants?

[Scholzee]

They were already replaced once less than 1 year ago. They were originally put up knowing they were bad ,to meet the deadline, and collect subsidized money, then the bad generating heads replaced. Now they are being replaced again???

[Truthdetector]

Replacements of remaining units are being completed. The problems were not found until after installation was completed. Actually, the failure was discovered in another windpark. The manufacturer passed the information on to other Owners. Don't make up facts to strengthen your position against wind turbines.

[Scholzee]

Replacements of remaining units are being completed. The problems were not found until after installation was completed. Actually, the failure was discovered in another windpark. The manufacturer passed the information on to other Owners. Don't make up facts to strengthen your position against wind turbines.

The timing problem of the gearboxes was known as they power heads were being installed to meet a target date to get paid, period , you are the one who does not know what they are talking about!!!

[Scholzee]

'The Gearbox: Wind power's Achilles heal'

(from Wind Power Monthly):

http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/...x-problems.doc

Wall Street Journal reported on July 1, 2009:

"Suzlon Energy Ltd are facing mounting mechanical problems."

http://www.livemint.com/2008/07/0100...d-turbine.html

'Gearbox fault halts turbines'

'Problem investigated'

"Unfortunately, the weather situation has not allowed us to access the turbines to restart them, and repair the remaining gearboxes," said Anders Soe-Jensen, head of offshore operations for Vestas.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/e...nt/6309013.stm

'Improving wind turbine gearbox reliability'

http://www.nrel.gov/wind/pdfs/41548.pdf

'Wind turbines off-line for repair work'
6/05/08

"Vestas-Canadian Wind Technology, Inc., supplier of the turbines, is in the process of delivering replacement gearboxes for the affected turbines to the wind plant."

http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/index.cfm?sid=132257&sc=98

'The Dangers of Wind Power'
Business Week 8/24/07

"Gearboxes hiding inside the casings perched on top of the towering masts have short shelf lives, often crapping out before even five years is up. In some cases, fractures form along the rotors, or even in the foundation, after only limited operation. Short circuits or overheated propellers have been known to cause fires. All this despite manufacturers' promises that the turbines would last at least 20 years."

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbi...824_562452.htm

Today's news...GE will not be rolling out the 3.6 turbines specified by Cape Wind for Nantucket Sound.

No turbines = No gear box problems.

[Scholzee]

CLIPPER WIND TURBINE GEAR FAILURES STOP "STEELWINDS" IN LACKAWANNA , NEW YORK
Submitted by Jeff Buster on January 3, 2008 - 2:35pm.

The Buffalo News reports today that the complicated gearboxes on the Clipper wind turbines in Lackawanna, New York have caused the facility to shut down. The photo above was taken in September of 2007 and shows the eight Clipper turbines on the old Bethlehem slag heaps with Buffalo in the left hand background.

The US designed and built Clipper turbines are a radical departure from the direction turbine engineering is headed in Europe.

For the last decade in Europe the goal in wind turbine engineering has been the elimination of any gearbox or gears between the turbine rotor and the generator. The privately held German firm Enercon produces what I believe are the most advanced gearless turbines using a large diameter annular generator. On my visit to the wind energy trade fair in Hamburg, Germany in 2004 large sections of the multiple convention halls were dedicated to gears, gearboxes, gear machining, gear face surface finishing, gear lubrication, gear lubrication heat, noise, and particulates monitoring, gear lubrication cleaning, etc etc about gears. It was clear from the number of gear engineering, gear maintenance and gear service vendors that gears and gearboxes were a big problem in the wind turbine industry. A problem to avoid, not embrace - as Clipper chose to do.

So when Clipper engineers went in the opposite direction and designed a turbine with four generators driven synchronously by a huge gearbox with one low speed input shaft and four high speed out shafts – I was very skeptical.

The present gear problems in Lackawanna were, I believe, predictable. In my April 4, 2007 field report on Clipper’s Lackawanna installation I wrote: “My bet is that this complex gear train will have maintenance issues”. And I do not believe the present Clipper gear problems will be fixed by re-manufacturing specific gears or gear teeth or changing gear surface hardness, gear lubrication, etc, etc.

Unfortunately, this will probably have a negative ripple effect right here in Cleveland where Advanced Manufacturing is machining the gear boxes for Clipper.

Clipper will also be seen as a horse with a broken leg – an injury from which I believe it will be difficult for Clipper to recover.





One expense Clipper will be eating for a while is the cost and maintenance of dozens of sections of new wind turbine towers which have been trucked to a Lackawanna lay-down yard. The photo above was taken from Amtrak in November. Photo of the these tower sections being trucked on interstate 90 can be seen here on Realneo.



Bill Mason, Richard Stuebi and the Cuyahoga County Energy "Task Force" should recognize that their scheme to put "10 wind turbines about 3 miles off of Cleveland in Lake Erie is a much more radical idea than Clipper’s failure prone gearbox. So, why is Cleveland using very scarce tax dollars to toy around with such a hairbrained risk – instead of building a turbine tower manufacturing facility or other more proven wind energy manufacturing process which will bring jobs to NEO?

[WNYresident]

Yet the power authority wants to spend millions on wind energy with no sound model to follow.

[300miles]

Build 'em!

What's wrong with getting more energy?

Unless you can prove that any public investment in Steel Winds can't be recouped then what's the problem?

[Scholzee]

Build 'em!

What's wrong with getting more energy?

Unless you can prove that any public investment in Steel Winds can't be recouped then what's the problem?

When something is good it gets talked about. Steel winds went operational in 2007, how much power was produced ??? how many businesses came here for cheap power??? they have nothing to talk about because it is a total failure!!!!!

[Truthdetector]

Scholzee - You have been against wind power since you joined the forum. You don't know anything about the status of the business but continue to imply problems and imply losses. Tell the truth.... you are against wind power. Could it be you hate driving by this clean power on your way to the coal fired power plants in Tonawanda, Dunkirk or Rochester?

[Scholzee]

Scholzee - You have been against wind power since you joined the forum. You don't know anything about the status of the business but continue to imply problems and imply losses. Tell the truth.... you are against wind power. Could it be you hate driving by this clean power on your way to the coal fired power plants in Tonawanda, Dunkirk or Rochester?

Why are they not bragging about this clean power, that would be a huge selling point to bring businesses here. I sent emails and wrote letters asking how much is being produced and what is the precentage of up time. Why will they not answer the questions ??? I guess they have nothing good to say. I am all for the wind generators if they work and bring business or lower rates to us. Do you agree we should see some benefit for having them here ?

[justKel]

Yeah look at that wonderful grenn power on the lake, 4 of the 8 windmills have the blades off and how much electricity did we get from them ??? How many businesses came to Buffalo for green energy ?? Its a joke Europe is abandoning windmills after 20 years of trying and we think they are the answer. If they worked the would not need to be subsidized with tax payer money end the madness now and ban all future windmills!!!!!

I don't know where you get your information from but wind power is increasing in Europe, there's no abandonment.

Personally, I'd rather have 1,000 wind turbines on that site, which isn't good for anything else (and probably won't be for many, many years, if ever) than to have them build a nuke plant anywhere near here. I don't care how many safety measures are in place, the possibilities for a leak or an accident are there.

I see the turbines as graceful and beautiful. Some day they will likely become obsolete as new technology comes along for clean power generation, but for now it's what we have and IMO a hell of a lot better than a nuke or coal plant.