This week, the team discusses the collapse of a crane hoisting wire rope while offloading a turbine in Houston, revealing issues with corrosion and grease buildup on cables. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Then we move to the impacts of severe thunderstorms and lightning strikes on wind turbine damage and rising insurance costs. We got some offshore wind lease updates from BOEM, and discuss an agreement between Siemens and Vestas to standardize equipment for turbine transportation and installation. Our Wind Farm of the Week is Wyoming's massive Chokecherry Sierra Madre wind project being developed by The Anschutz Corporation.



Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!



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Allen Hall: I have you guys seen this rocket man on YouTube lately, this Robert Maddox, have you seen this guy where he builds these pulse jet engines and he sticks them on a go cart and this pulse jet is glowing red. It's gotta be like 500 degrees and it's right between his legs.



Joel Saxum: So he's he's retired, right?



This is a retired, it's someone's retired grandfather who is making jet engines out of everything. Or putting them on everything. Bicycles, wagons, scooters whatever he's bored with, right?



Allen Hall: Yeah, he's got a water jet cutter, and he's cutting these steel forms to make these pulse jet engines. And, Phil, you know what a pulse jet engine is.



That's what the Germans used early on in World War II, right? It's a really crude jet engine, so it doesn't have a lot of Impulse power is basically burning raw fuel and shoving out on an exhaust, but everything gets super hot in those in those pulse jets. And he's got four or five of these stacked up on a steel frame go kart.



And I'm not sure how fast he goes. Phil, you gotta check this out. He's got a selfie stick, he's sticking out in front of him, and he's like driving with one hand.



Philip Totaro: Driving one handed with four rockets on his back. That sounds like super safe. The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast does not condone this activity in any, where's our disclaimer?



Allen Hall: No, this is fascinating because it's such an engineering thing. You think, all those guys designing wind turbines and blades are Just like this guy was probably designing wind turbines back in his twenties.



Joel Saxum: This is my, this is what I want to be.



Allen Hall: That's exactly what's happening inside their garage right now.



If I could just get a water jet, my wife wasn't looking, I would be building this pulse jet engine and put it on a go-kart a thousand percent.



Back in July of 22 hoisting wire rope broke on a crane while offloading a Nordex Delta 4,000 nacelle in the Port of Houston. Now, I remember when that happened, and there was a little bit of discussion when that happened, but it went to the NTSB here in the United States to write up the report on the accident investigation, and those things take a year, sometimes longer.



They just released the report, so we have a little more insight and some photos as to what had happened, and the crane itself was on the ship, so it was a ship based crane, they had three cranes. And they had completed two lifts using that same crane, lifting nacelles and other things out of the cargo hold.



And just after lunch they were lifting another nacelle, and one of the lifting ropes, which is a steel rope, broke. And it dropped the nacelle about six feet back into that bay narrowly missing a couple of guys who we...