Lincolnshire wind farm incident

fuzzyfelt

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/l...re/7817378.stm

Any thoughts?

Andre

One of the possibilities could be just a structural failure at the root of the missing blade, The latter may have hit the next blade.

Such a down to earth scenario is probably hard to imagine for the witnessing crowd. If you don't see where the departing blade was coming from, it's automatically an UFO, isn't it?

matthyaouw

It's a head scratcher. Look what happens when the thingamybob that limits the blade speed breaks:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7nSB1SdVHqQ

Something to think about.

Ivan Seeking

From what I've read, there is nothing to suggest that this was anything but a mechanical failure. The reports of strange lights in the area likely have no connection whatsoever.

mgb_phys

in that case why did my and Evo's posts about aliens in Lincolnshire mysteriously disappear?
Because the matrix is controlled from Grantham - thats why!

Ivan Seeking

Posts disappeared? How strange!!!

fuzzyfelt

Thanks everyone for your thoughts, and thanks matthyaouw for the impressive broken blade speed limiting thingamybob causing explosion video.

Ivan Seeking

One question that I have not seen addressed is rather obvious: Was there any wind that night?

fuzzyfelt

As far as I have read, there was little wind, but there could have been ice.

Ivan Seeking

I did check last night and found one source showing a median wind speed of 5 kph that day, but it didn't provide an hourly graph. In order to do the damage seen to the blade that was bent, I would think that the blades must have been moving fairly quickly, which doesn't seem likely if the wind speed was in fact only a few mph.

russ_watters

Regarding the "UFO" phenomena, it wasn't clear to me from the articles whether anyone actually saw them that night. The way they read, no one witnessed the actual failure. So there isn't necessarily any corellation at all.

Also, if there is anywhere that one might expect to find ball lightning or other similar atmospheric electrical phenomena, a wind farm is the place due to the static electricity the rotor blades would produce.

Ivan Seeking

That was my original point as well - I haven't heard anything to suggest that the reported lights had anything to do with it. But if there was no or little wind, it seems difficult to account for the damage. I am starting to suspect that there was no wind, which is why the wind turbine company keeps the UFO option open. Not to suggest that it was a UFO flown by aliens, but it does seem a bit more likely to me now that something actually hit the turbine.

Since one blade was bent [made of metal], it seems likely that the blades are grounded through the tower, which would prevent the accumulation of a static charge.

matthyaouw

I caught a snippet about this on the local news this morning. There is still no word from the owning company about what happened. They are investigating but so far undecided.

glondor

Similar damage on this one. Lightening strike.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyOiD...eature=related

Ivan Seeking

Do you have any supporting information? YouTube is not a qualified source for explanations.

If it got hot enough to fail in that manner due to a lightning strike, I would expect to see signs of heat - scorched paint or discoloring, pitting or holes, etc.

Orion1

The report I read said that one of the blades was missing and was not located by search.

Where did the blade go?

mgb_phys

1, Stolen by aliens
2, Nicked by locals
3, Somewhere in a ditch/long grass but it's too cold and wet to bother searching for it - especially when surrounded by farmers with shotguns shouting "oi, gerroff my land"