Invenergy and General Electric have a growing turbine blade problem…

On Wednesday, May 7, 2014, Invenergy issued a press release:
“ALL defective blades were replaced this winter” at the InvEnergy Prairie Breeze Wind Farm (Nebraska) (PRESS RELEASE HERE).

And…since there is nothing better than good timing:

On Thursday, May 8, 2014 – ANOTHER WIND TURBINE BLADE FAILURE IN PRAIRIE BREEZE!
“It sounded like sheet metal falling down.” at Invenergy’s Prairie Breeze (Nebraska) (READ ARTICLE HERE).
Yes…..you read that right. Instead of a “limited” number of defective blades, the reality may actually be that there is an UNLIMITED amount of defective blades. Is this a “manufacturing anomaly” or “manufacturing regularity.” Which is it? I wonder if any structural or mechanical engineer, with a license to design anything, was consulted on these blades. If so, where did they get their education? At University of Phoenix (on-line degree) or California Berkeley Laboratory (origin of the false “no statistical property value loss from turbines” reports)?
Do they teach about “safety factor” in those engineering classes?
What does this mean for the blades here? Numerous broken blade disasters may be in our future.
We need new signs placed in various places here in the Invenergy California Ridge and every other wind farm with GE blades.

CAUTION!
DEFECTIVE GE TURBINE BLADE
HAZARD ZONE. WATCH OUT FOR
FLYING BLADES AND DEBRIS !!!!!

These are “designed to fall straight down” says their attorney – but they don’t.
Invenergy attorney (Blazier) also stated “Such blade failures “rarely happen” ” -but that’s not true unless you use a different definition of “rarely” than most people do.
There have been “no injuries” but someday there will be.
Here’s a new joke:
Q: “How do you make a wind turbine blade design engineer vanish?”
A: Every time you see one within your area, just yell, “SPAR CAPS SPAR CAPS SPAR CAPS………………”
 
(Written by a guest writer)