More details needed on towers
www.yumasun.com 19 May 2012
I went to the council meeting held on May 9 in San Luis, Ariz., to hear the presentation by president and CEO Ronald Pickett about the wind energy towers.
I believe his presentation was very poorly presented. He talked about the building of the walls for the towers. He told that they would be made out of steel made in the United States, possibly California. He didn’t mention the size of the tubular steel to be used for the tower walls. He emphasized that the only cranes in the world that are big enough to put a tower up that high are made in Denmark.
He stated they would hire 2,500 employees temporarily in the construction phase and 1,000 permanently in each of the two towers.
I don’t believe Pickett has ever constructed a project of any kind, let alone one of this dimension. I don’t know how he figures how many employees he’ll need. There has to be a number of skilled tradesmen to do this job. He said they could train these temporary employees. Where are they going to get the people to train these temporary employees on the job? I talked with Pickett on the way out of the meeting. I asked him about training employees and he said they need a lot of employees to use a shovel and maybe a wheelbarrow.
I asked him a question and he told me he was President L.B. Johnson’s youngest adviser. I don’t know what that has to do with building a wind energy tower.
I believe Pickett should tell the size of the structural steel needed for the walls of the tower, and if it’s round, the diameter and wall thickness. If it is square, the size and wall thickness is needed. If it is oblong, tell the size and wall thickness. He hasn’t said anything about that. He left out a lot of specifics that need to be brought out.
It would seem that there needs to be a lot of investigating done before any more approvals are given.
OMAR CAMPBELL
Somerton
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/05/20/more-details-needed-on-towers/