 |
| A burning turbine, still spinning creates smoke rings in Texas after it was struck by lightning. Image from the viral video of the incident |
I suppose it's not surprising that wind turbines are susceptible to lightning strikes. They poke up high into the air, and are festooned with electronic equipment. Lightning can strike easily, and if it does, it can do a lot of damage.
It's not surprising that a German study concluded that lightning strikes account for 80 percent of wind turbine insurance claims.
The turbine in the viral video was struck in a Crowell, Texas wind farm in July. A strong thunderstorm in the area was spitting out tons of lightning strikes, and one of those bolts hit the turbine.
"Crews with the Crowell Volunteer Fire Department responded, but Fire Chief Perry Shaw said there was little his firefighters could do to put the fire out.
'We're not equipped to handle that kind of fire. Nobody in the area really is to speak of,' Shaw said.
The fire chief estimated there were 800 gallons of oil in the gearbox and around 1,300 gallons of mineral oil in the ground level transformer, which caused the smoke to appear dark black in the sky."
Nobody was hurt, and the fire did not affect any other turbines in the wind farm, which has 139 windmills.
When I think of Texas I think of oil wells, among other things. However, Texas produces more power from wind than any other state. There's more than 13,000 turbines in the Lone Star State.
The video is pretty fascinating. The smoke rings continue for awhile, with one arm of the turbine on fire and the whole thing still spinning. Then the whole turbine just kind of melts and falls apart.
The video: Click on this link to view it, or if you see the image below, click on that.
No comments:
Post a Comment