Our post – Happenstance or Enemy Action? Giant Wind Turbines Collapsing with Alarming Regularity – was barely up a week, and yet another story of a 290 tonne whirling juggernaut crashing back to Earth popped up in Sweden.
This time, another vertically vulnerable Vestas hit the deck – a V112 with three 54.7m blades, weighing in at 11 tonnes a piece, the hub at 45 tonnes (the hub and blades together weigh in at 78 tonnes), the nacelle and its contents – bearings, gearbox, generator etc at more than 80 tonnes – bringing the earth-shuddering total weight at the top-end to a massive 158 tonnes.
Add a 90m tower – weighing 130 tonnes – and the whole whirling, Danish Dervish weighs in at more than 288 tonnes. The Saturn V Rocket that sent Neil Armstrong & Co to the Moon weighed in at a comparatively svelte 239.7 tonnes, without its fuel payload. So, little wonder these things have problems with – among other natural forces – gravity.