| Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005. |
Wind power: what really happened when the Ayrshire turbine caught fire?
Credit: Michael MacLeod, The Guardian, www.guardian.co.uk 27 February 2012 ~~
Translate: FROM English | TO English
Translate: FROM English | TO English
As Scots surveyed the damage after the fierce winds of 8 December last year, many newspapers carried a striking picture of a wind turbine in flames.
The drama at Ardrossan windfarm in North Ayrshire – which was caught on film – became a defining image of hurricane-force winds that peaked at 165mph, bringing down power lines and leaving about 60,000 people without electricity.
For some, the fire symbolised all that is wrong with wind turbines. Sir Bernard Ingham, secretary of the Supporters of Nuclear Energy group, said: “They are no good when the wind doesn’t blow and they are no good when the wind does blow.”
The Daily Mail columnist Alexander Boot quipped that turbines were more use as firewood.
While the turbine grabbed attention, a power line running into Hunterston power station, also on Scotland’s west coast, was brought down by the gale, causing the 460-megawatt B-8 nuclear reactor to cease generating for 54 hours.
Infinis, which owns the windfarm, and EDF Energy, which owns the power station, both refused to disclose how much energy they were unable to generate.
But Dr Ian Lange, director of the MSc in energy management at Stirling University, says the impact of the nuclear outage was much more significant.
He points out that while the blazing windfarm hit the headlines, “severe weather can affect all types of energy generation and nuclear is not immune to it”. He estimates that Hunterston lost around 17,388 MWh compared with the turbine’s 1,210MWh even though it has now been out of action for many weeks.
This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.
The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.
| Wind Watch relies entirely on User Contributions |
 (via Stripe) |
 (via Paypal) |
Share:
[ Short URL: https://wind-watch.org/news/?p=19807 ]
