Bloomberg: Wind Turbine Collapses Could Raise Insurance Premiums

“Wind Turbines Taller Than the Statue of Liberty Are Falling Over.” (See below)

Bloomberg: Wind Turbine Collapses Could Raise Insurance Premiums

h/t jeffy; If it wasn’t so serious it would be funny.

Wind Turbines Taller Than the Statue of Liberty Are Falling Over

Jan. 23, 2023, 7:00 PM

On a calm, sunny day last June, Mike Willey was feeding his cattle when he got a call from the local sheriff’s dispatcher. A motorist had reported that one of the huge turbines at a nearby wind farm had collapsed in dramatic fashion. Willey, chief of the volunteer fire department in Ames, 90 miles northwest of Oklahoma City, set out to survey the scene.

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The instances are part of a rash of recent wind turbine malfunctions across the US and Europe, ranging from failures of key components to full collapses. Some industry veterans say they’re happening more often, even if the events are occurring at only a small fraction of installed machines. The problems have added hundreds of millions of dollars in costs for the three largest Western turbine makers, GE, Vestas Wind Systems and Siemens Energy’s Siemens Gamesa unit; and they could result in more expensive insurance policies—a potential setback for the push to abandon fossil fuels and fight climate change.

The race to add production lines for ever-bigger turbines is cited as a major culprit by people in the industry. “We’re seeing these failures happening in a shorter time frame on the newer turbines, and that’s quite concerning,” says Fraser McLachlan, chief executive officer of London-based GCube Underwriting Ltd., which insures about $3.5 billion in wind assets in 38 countries. If the failure rate keeps climbing, he says, insurance premiums could increase or new coverage limits could be imposed.

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Read more: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/esg/wind-turbines-taller-than-the-statue-of-liberty-are-falling-over

The following is a video of some impressive turbine fails;

TOO MUCH WIND! 10 Wind Turbine Fails

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What can I say?

Clearly the hundreds of carbon intensive tons of concrete and steel and petroleum plastic used to build each wind turbine are not enough.

What we need for truly safe wind turbines is even more coal smelted steel and concrete, even more plastic and factory produced fibreglass or carbon fibre, to reinforce the structures and ensure turbines are strong enough to provide clean energy. /sarc