Bloomberg Philanthropies Tracks “Petrochemical Incidents”: Accidents Jan.–June 2024

Bloomberg Philanthropies Tracks “Petrochemical Incidents” but Not Wind and Solar Accidents (full series)
Beyond Petrochemicals | Basic Physics
Accidents Jan.–June 2024 | Accidents July–Dec. 2024

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Wind and Solar Accidents: January–June 2024

January 11. Colorado-Nebraska border: A wind turbine either caught fire and fell over or fell over and caught fire. According to the media report: “Readings from the Sidney Airport MesoWest station at the time indicated winds of 16 to 24 miles an hour and gusts up to 31 miles an hour, with a period of light freezing rain and ice fog that preceded light snow.”

“Our country is too big and too diverse to rely on one source of energy,” said a resident living next to the accident. “But I don’t know if this one has been thought out. You need to have a plan to take care of stuff like that.”

This was the first, but far from the last, example of weather causing big problems for weather-dependent energy.

January 22. Ohio: A blade fell off a turbine. Bad bolts were blamed.

February 21. Washington, DC: In the ritzy Georgetown section of town, a rooftop solar panel caught fire, lighting up the roof along with it.

March 10. Rhode Island: The solar panels atop a modest home malfunctioned and lit the roof ablaze. The following day, smoke started coming from the same house. Firefighters determined the original fire had damaged the house wiring. The local power company arrived to “de-energize” the whole system.

March 13. Maryland: According to a Fox TV affiliate, another residential rooftop solar panel lit a home on fire.

March 23. Staten Island, New York City: Yet another solar panel fire atop a modest home. According to local news, a neighbor noticed the fire start and woke up the sleeping residents. They had a small daughter. Nobody was harmed.

March 31. Massachusetts: A solar panel atop an auto parts warehouse hospitalized one person and challenged firefighters who “arrived to find 20-foot-high flames coming from the roof.”

April 3. Texas: A rooftop solar panel system started a fire at a modest home in Lago Vista, Texas.

April 6. New Jersey: The headline was “3-alarm fire badly damages South Jersey nutritional products company.” Video from the TV station’s drone “showed extreme damage to solar panels on the roof.”

April 21. Connecticut: The solar panel system atop a home lit on fire. The local news noted this little detail: “Crews exercised extreme caution in extinguishing the fire as there still could have been power flowing to the panels.”

April 26 – Missouri: A turbine tower collapsed at the High Prairie Renewable Energy Center. This would be the first of three turbine tower collapses that would take place at the facility during 2024. (See also: August 25 and October 31). It was later determined that the tower collapsed because the nacelle—the housing for the turbine’s generator—broke off. The turbine was installed in 2021.

Ameren Missouri, the owner of the facility, began construction on High Prairie’s 175 turbines in April 2020. In April 2021, the facility was shut off at night after the discovery that it was killing birds and bats. The Missouri Independent reported 52 bird kills, including a bald eagle.

But despite the intermittent energy system operating even less reliably than anticipated, Ameren asked the Missouri Public Service Commission for a $300 million rate increase to cover the costs of the troubled facility.

The Missouri Independent quoted Geoff Marke, chief economist for the Missouri Office of the Public Counsel, who presciently warned back in 2018 that wildlife kills would be a problem:

If Ameren Missouri’s project results in fatalities of vulnerable, endangered or protected species, Ameren Missouri could be liable for financial penalties and potential enforced curtailment of generation, which in turn could raise future prudency concerns and would almost certainly include greater scrutiny of future wind projects.

And then, proven correct after the turbines began spinning, Marks testified against Ameren’s rate increase: “As such, I do not believe ratepayers should be responsible for any costs related to Ameren’s poor managerial decisions in electing to site its wind farm where it did.”

May 1. Virgnia: A fire broke out at a commercial solar facility. The fire department ruled it “accidental.”

May 13^.Iowa: Lightning struck, lit ablaze, and destroyed a wind turbine on a family farm.

“Flames shot into the sky as the damaged blade hung down before plunging tip-first into the cornfield,” reported local media. “There was nothing the family or firefighters could do besides watch it burn.”

“Most of the time, turbines spin without incident,” the report alleged.

Another turbine on the same farm was hit and destroyed in 2023. And a third strike and fire occurred in August 2024 (see below).

May 15. Arizona: A fire broke out at another commercial solar facility. Local media reported some challenges for the fire crews:

On-site personnel arrived on scene and shut the power down to the inverters. However, with the sun still shining, the panels generate electricity.

High-voltage lines hampered access to the middle of the array.

The fire spread due to high weeds under the panels, but CFD had favorable weather conditions on Thursday that assisted them in quickly extinguishing it.

Maybe they should have put wind turbines in instead? Well… maybe not …

May 21. Iowa: Tornados rolling through Iowa destroyed 10 turbines. Wind speeds reportedly hit 100 mph, which was too much for the . . . wind . . . turbines.

Imagine the reaction if a tornado tossed a nuclear reactor all over Iowa.

May 25. Massachusetts: A house fire was blamed on “a squirrel nest with rodents eating the wires from the home’s solar panels.”

Solar energy may not be reliable, but it can be delicious!

May 26. Virginia: A wind turbine at the “Brock Environmental Center” caught fire after getting hit by lighting (and a lot of irony).

June 9. New Jersey: Local media reported that a “rack of 25 solar panels caught fire” at an elementary school. Fortunately, it was a Sunday.

June 28. California: Solar panels caught fire atop a five-story building.

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In the next installment, the trend of “green energy” failures continued in the second half of 2024.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/bloomberg-philanthropies-tracks-petrochemical-incidents-part-3/