[The following is a Google translation of a story in the German newspaper
Die Welt. There are many others. It explains the point made in the letter
in the Herald today ]
By Daniel Wetzel, Business editor
Many wind turbines are now 20 or even 25 years old. This increases the risk
of serious accidents, the first cases already existed. TÜV therefore
demands the introduction of a mandatory inspection.
At the beginning of January in the district of Schaumburg: In a wind
turbine , the control electronics fail, the rotor can no longer align
itself with the wind. “After some parts of a rotor blade broke first, the
tower of the approximately 70-meter-high wind turbine collapsed at about
1.30 pm and the entire system crashed to the ground,” reports the police
station Nienburg. “The proper distance to human habitation has never been
to endanger the lives and health of nearby residents.”
Two weeks later at Bad Driburg: Two rotor blades break off on a wind
turbine, one is located a hundred meters away in the forest. “A thick pipe
has drilled like an arrow into the ground,” reports the “Neue
Westfälische”: “In the dense fog, the landscape around the destroyed
windmill looks like a theater of war.”
Why so many yearn for the return of filthy energy
Electricity prices have been rising for years. One reason is green
alternatives. Does not it matter what ultimately comes out of the socket? A
consumer portal wanted to know what expectations Germans have of energy
providers.
Eight weeks later, in Borchen in Westphalia, the braking technology is not
installed on a 115-meter-high system. The rotor rotates faster and faster
until two of the 56 meter long wings “shred in a cloud of glass, plastic
and filler,” as the “Westfalen-Blatt” writes. “Razor-sharp glass fiber
splinters” fly 800 meters far.
“When animals pick up the parts when grazing, it can even in the oral
cavity to injuries,” warns the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover.
In cattle, the perforation of the stomach is possible. Around 60 farmers
can no longer farm their fields and pastures for the time being. “Such a
large-scale contamination by a wind turbine accident, it has, as far as I
know, not yet been given in Germany,” the newspaper quoted an expert of the
Chamber of Agriculture of North Rhine -Westphalia.
Examiners demand treatment of wind turbines as industrial plants
Reports like these are collected by the wind power-critical association
“rational force”. Meanwhile, the list of windmill accidents includes
several DIN A4 pages. People have not been harmed so far, the Federal Wind
Energy Association speaks of “individual cases”.
But independent testing organizations are calling for wind turbines to be
treated as what they are: industrial plants that are usually subject to
very strict technical control. “We believe that comprehensive testing is
also urgently required for wind turbines based on the German Industrial
Safety Ordinance,” says Joachim Bühler, executive member of the board of TÜV.
“Despite considerable dangers and numerous accidents so far only individual
parts are tested according to completely different regulated
specifications.” It could not remain, the TÜV Association boss finds: “The
policy must introduce a legally regulated, independent third-party testing
of the entire system.” After all, turned in Germany already around 30,000
wind turbines.
Condition of many plants unknown
TÜV expert Dieter Roas, who heads a working group of all authorized
inspection bodies, speaks of a “ticking time bomb”. Many wind turbines
approached an operating time of 20 or even 25 years. Basically, the systems
are designed for a period of 20 years, additional tests are required for an
extension of the operating license.
“But as far as structural strength and material fatigue are concerned, we
do not know where we are,” Roas warns. On the side of the operators, he
wished himself a “more pronounced risk awareness.” This could also arouse
the state with a mandatory audit.
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