# Windmills are dangerous...



## Soren (Feb 26, 2008)

Oooh ****!


_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nSB1SdVHqQ_


This happened in Denmark just recently, and it was one of the big types of windmills. The tip of the blades hit ca. 1000 km/h. Pretty amazing.


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## Soren (Feb 26, 2008)

From another angle;


_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u14tBwO5QVQ_


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## timshatz (Feb 26, 2008)

Whoa! That was amazing. Kinda always wondered what would happen to one of those things at high revs. Now I know.

Thanks for sharing. Pretty cool.


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## Njaco (Feb 26, 2008)

I don't think when they say 'Going green' they meant to eat the grass!  I'm curious as to how not only one but 2 cameramen were there to record this? It wasn't staged?


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## wilbur1 (Feb 26, 2008)

No they had a bunch of people around trying to shut them down. It wouldn't have fallen if the prop hadnt hit the post though


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## Thorlifter (Feb 26, 2008)

I bet that thing was generating a ton of electricity before it blew!


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## Konigstiger205 (Feb 26, 2008)

So now even wind energy isn't safe...


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## syscom3 (Feb 26, 2008)

I thought those windwmills were designed to handle (or shutdown in) hurricane force winds.


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## Marcel (Feb 26, 2008)

syscom3 said:


> I thought those windwmills were designed to handle (or shutdown in) hurricane force winds.



They usually have an automatic breaking system when going to fast. This one's obviously failed.


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## ccheese (Feb 26, 2008)

Marcel said:


> They usually have an automatic breaking system when going to fast. This one's obviously failed.




Ah, Mon Ami.... That is really something. I rather like the old fashioned
windmills of Holland..... the ones that pump water.

Charles


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## magnocain (Feb 26, 2008)

I heard on the news recently that they (you know _them_) want to stop wind farmers from running the windmills because they found dead birds that ran into the blades!


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## Njaco (Feb 26, 2008)

That cuts it! Al Gore will have to find another energy source!


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## Maestro (Feb 27, 2008)

Hah ! And they want to plant those piece of sh*t all over our territory because it is greener that dams ? Holy sh*t !


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## Soren (Feb 27, 2008)

Guys,

This is incident was a freak accident, it has never happened before. Each windmill is equipped with a computer which controls the direction of the mill and the pitch of the blades. The computer in this particular windmill malfunctioned, and instead of pointing the tower indirectly into the wind and alter the pitch of the blades, to slow down the prop, it remained stuck in one position pointing directly into the wind with the blades optimized for low wind speeds. This meant that as the wind picked up the windmill just kept going faster and faster, the blades creating too much lift. Furthermore the braking system had broke in storm a few days earlier, so there was no way to stop it.

All the guys on the ground could do was wait for the inevitable. The windmill had already been spinning out of control for hours before any camera crew got there, and it apparently took another two hours before the windmill failed, as the wind speed kept increasing.

Pretty amazing that the prop managed to go that fast before breaking though.


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## Henk (Feb 27, 2008)

Everything that is man made is not perfect though.


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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 27, 2008)

Pretty wild -

Where I used to live in SoCal we had a whole bunch of them. Never heard of one going out of control.


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## Matt308 (Feb 29, 2008)

Yep. As was stated earlier, they are not "dumb" windmills. These things are millions of dollars and have the the electronics to protect themselves from over torgue, over rev, auto-feather in high winds, and other protection mechanisms. There are quite a few farms here in the eastern Washington area. Pretty friggin' amazing actually in size and power output, even in a normal day.


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## DOUGRD (Mar 4, 2008)

My boss's father is involved with a group trying to establish some windmills here in Minnesota. Matt's right, they are pretty sophisticated pieces of equipment. Last October my wife and I went to Duluth,MN. for a weekend and we saw these windmills sitting on the pier awaiting transport. They were huge. The generator/control section that sits atop the mast was as big as a city bus! The end of the blade that attaches to the hub was large enough to drive my van into. Really amazing. The problem here is the bureaucracy involved. One of the hoops the group has to jump thru is a wind survey. This takes a full year. The bureaucrats here must be overworked because they can only process one application at a time and it takes them TWO years to sign off on the project. Amazing!!!


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## Soren (Mar 4, 2008)

Windmills dont get any bigger than those in Denmark though, check this is out from the windmill park outside Copenhagen:


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## magnocain (Mar 5, 2008)

Those are like, bigger than Copenhagen!


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