The above is not a "Wind Turbine Update" but rather a political statement by the author. It would have been more appropirate to see and read the report before passing judgement.

As of May 2007 the wind industry was well aware of gearbox problems for over the past twenty years. Anyone that did a feasibility study for the Portsmouth wind turbine should have made all the residents ,PEDC and the Portsmouth Town Council aware of the gearbox issues. Someone dropped the ball here ! The town failed to listen to anyone opposed to the "wind turbine fiasco"

http://www.nrel.gov/wind/pdfs/41548.pdf

"The wind energy industry has experienced high gearbox failure rates from its inception [1]. Early wind turbine designs were fraught with fundamental gearbox design errors compounded by consistent under-estimation of the operating loads. The industry has learned from these problems over the past two decades with wind turbine manufacturers, gear designers, bearing manufacturers, consultants, and lubrication engineers all working together to improve load prediction, design, fabrication, and operation. This collaboration has resulted in internationally recognized gearbox wind turbine design standards"

Gear Box Failures in 1999. The wind industry has been well aware of gearbox problems for over twenty years . Why didn't the Town of Portsmouth become aware of premature breakdowns of these turbines ? Because they made a mistake !

Here's the pdf from 1999
http://windpower.sandia.gov/2006reliability/tuesday/14-brianmcniff.pdf
• 1999, revised AGMA/ AWEA 921, which became
ANSI/AGMA/AWEA 6006 (2004),
• operating experience WTG 50 m,
• speeds to 25 to 30 rpm
• gearbox ratios from 60 to 73.
• 2 MW turbines in early development stage
• Bearing failures continued to be serious
problems in some units
• gear tooth failures due to the calculable failure
modes had practically disappeared from the
newer turbines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mablINxg3zE Portsmouth 2015

The wind turbine was a gamble from day one. The wind turbine company was a venture capitalist start up company that had never built a wind turbine before. The company was financed by off shore boutique banks that specialize in commercial wind turbine projects. The company had already changed its name twice before the Town of Portsmouth approached the company.The town went forward buying a turbine at what they thought was a thirty percent sale price.

The project was clearly a high risk gamble using a bond approved by taxpayers. The wind company had NO past history and was a poor choice .

Once the turbine was turned over to the town after a lawsuit over the construction of the base of the wind turbine the troubles began. The town conducted tours of the wind turbine saying it made as much as $400,000.00 in the first two years of operation. Today the taxpayers are looking at a loss of at least 2 million to pay off the remaining bond payments.

The town now continues to look for contractors to take over the wind turbine .The question now is : How deep is the hook into the town? How much longer will the town be taken by the ongoing bunco scheme of commercial wind ? Do you really believe a newer larger wind turbine is better than what is already there ? How many times to you get taken before you give up ?

Adult supervision required at the RI GA! Please end this madness now.
Yes, the failed Portsmouth wind turbine generator, RI GA EDC EBEC still advancing ponzi scheme, Deep Water Wind requiring mega millions yet to be quantified. All of the above equates to economic terrorism of both the tax payer and the utility rate payer, for many years to come..With out a continuations oversight and monitoring for conformance to viability and regulation by The RI PUC (our only qualified utility regulator) this will continue as a amateur hour resulting in costly failures. The very questionable viability for all of these projects is self evident. One need look no further than the failed European so called alternate green energy economic destruction..
We will have destroyed the Predictability, reliability and affordability for the greater RI especially electrical energy production along with destruction of the companion public utility industry. The RI General Assembly failure to heed the professional analysis and recommendation concerning these projects is unwise.

This is about giving taxpayer money to individual venture businesses! The town is playing the part of venture capitalist at the expense of taxpayer . The wind turbine was a three million dollar high risk project funded with offshore boutique renewable energy investment companies.The town continues to blow millions of taxpayer dollars on a bad idea.

The town appears to be hooked by the ponzi scheme investing more bad money .

One only needs to look at what happened in Greece .The Greek government has the most commercial wind turbines in the world .They thought the turbines would make them lots of money . Over 3000 Greek commercial wind turbines are breaking down and need replacement . What happened in Greece is what's going to happen here ! The commercial turbines are not economically feasible !

Bill Carson is intent in keeping his various blogs At The TOP. I'm here to help. SO: BILL: What happened at last nights Portsmouth Town Meeting...?? Where is the Wind Turbine REPORT you said would be presented in many of your previous posts......??? Just wondering.

John - The Newport Daily News has already answered your question in the announcement of a scheduled 3 hour meeting prior to the election where information will be presented as to the choices available and the companion data that provides the tax payers and rate payers (state wide) the bases to realize an informed decision. I havce appreciated the information from Bill Carson vantage point as one of many that must be very carefully considered and factored into the ultimate conclusion to this unfortunate situation. Yes, today looking more like a classic text book group think. Yes, everyone owns the mistake of yesterday and now the challenge for today is to be capable of learning from that error so that tomorrow we will not repeated an exercise in an over dimensioned set of conditions with an undesirable outcome. .We must recognize the contributions made by well intended individuals and the community as a whole. Specifically the energy market and the viable solutions and disruptive technologies will continue to challenge us for generations. In our quest we must not subscribe to a pseudo political cult of true believers based on counterfeit agendas. The journey must and will continue with all a little wiser from the experience. Today our defective national energy policy and companion RI GA state missteps must be reformed as a first order of business. The robber barons and their costly kluge solutions must be dismissed.

William F:: Why would you respond to my same post TWICE..in TWO different threads.... Verbatum..?? You are starting to Sound like..If not LOOK Like...BILL. Just an observation on my part

BILL: You and WILLIAM F. are the same person..NO..????