Notes From an Environmentalist.

The Vineyard Wind Accident

                            Chapter 2 

                         The Incident

           14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard

July 13, 2024 was a pleasant summer day with moderate winds and no exceptional waves. But on the same day former president Donald Trump was shot, an offshore turbine blade the size of a football field inexplicably folded over and broke apart scattering pieces of fiberglass, foam, and balsa wood into the ocean south of Martha’s Vineyard.

The accident had not happened when the blade was being attached as had happened on the Dogger Banks Shoals off Yorkshire England. It had also not happened because of a flaw in its design. Apparently, something had occurred in GE-Vernova’s manufacturing plant on Canada’s Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec.

According to Scott Strazik, the CEO of GE-Vernova, the flaw should have been identified when the blade was being bonded and he pledged that the company would use ultrasound and crawler robots to reinspect all the 150 blades that had been produced in the plant.

He did not say how many blades had been built for Vineyard Wind which would eventually have 62 turbines in operation and supply electricity to 400,000 homes.

Apparently, the blade was on a turbine that had already installed but was still undergoing commissioning so it had not been turned over to Vineyard Wind for activation.

But Vineyard Wind had suspended further installations and turned off power generation from the eleven  existing turbines that had been in operation since  the beginning of the year. Twenty-four more had been installed but not yet activated.

Soon after the blade broke up pieces of fiberglass, foam, and balsa wood started washing ashore on Nantucket Muskegat, Tuckernuck, Monomoy, Martha’s Vineyard, Hyannis and Falmouth.

The debris was considered inert and six truck loads were carted off to regular landfills, sand Vineyard Wind pledged to use crawler robots to collect any material scattered on the ocean floor.  

This was not the first time GE blades had failed. Onshore GE blades had failed in Sweden and Germany. Locally the blade of one of three wind turbines in Gloucester, one in Falmouth and the nacelle, or generator box, had rather embarrassingly caught fire in my hometown of Ipswich Massachusetts.