Unfortunately, many people are MIS informed about the cleanliness of renewable energy. Industrial wind turbines are anything BUT clean and green. In reality, each turbine has thousands of moving parts that must be lubricated with hundreds of gallons of oil. This oil, much like in your car, must be ‘changed’ every so often, but how? By building a crane, on site, that can reach to the top of the mighty high nacelle. This crane compacts soil and costs a lot of $ to transport to the site. Industrial wind turbines are manufactured from machines that USE oil, they are transported to the jobsite by vehicles that USE oil, and they then USE oil to lubricate their parts. Additionally, they utilize hundreds of pounds of rare earth elements, fiberglass, etc….all items that generate toxic, dangerous conditions for individuals. The only ‘green’ that these machines generate are in the form of tax credits for the international companies that own them. If you reside in NW Ohio, please feel free to inform Senator Cliff Hite of these truths, as he is an avid supporter of BigWind. The wind turbines in NW Ohio should begin to show similar problems as they age…
Wind turbines were planted along a strip of Mexico’s southern coast to make the country’s power industry cleaner. Now they’re spilling oil.
Flor, who owns the land where the turbine is sited and rents it to EDF, said she arrived on the scene after being alerted by a neighbor. “The stench was terrible, like a sort of burned fuel or ammonia,” she said, asking not to be identified by her surname out of concern over reprisals. “The trees were glistening with oil.” Similar problems have been reported all along the Tehuantepec isthmus, one of the western hemisphere’s windiest places….
He said oil from Acciona’s turbines never reached the ground, and the company is working on a fix: a sheath for the gearbox which will prevent the lubricant from running down the mast or onto the blades.
Gamesa Corp Tecnologica, which made the EDF turbines used at the Juchitan wind park, said oil leaks occur with “relative frequency” and operators are equipped with “spill kits” to deal with them. Most leaks are contained, though “small amounts habitually” spill from the turbines, the company said in an emailed response to questions….