We’ve been told for years that wind power is environmentally sound and safe.

But experts admit that hundreds of thousand birds die in collissions [Peter Roff] collisions with wind turbines. New Jersey officials are investigating whether the increased ship traffic and intense sonar mapping associated with building offshore turbines have led to 10 dead whales landing on local beaches in the last two months.

Now we have a rash of turbine collapses all over the world. Last June, a huge GE turbine collapsed in Oklahoma, followed a few days later by another of the same model in Colorado. A massive 784-foot-tall turbine in Germany buckled in September 2021. A big new turbine in Lithuania toppled in March 2022.  Blades have fallen off turbines off the coasts of both Denmark and Sweden.

“We’re seeing these failures happening in a shorter time frame on the newer turbines, and that’s quite concerning,” says Fraser McLachlan, the CEO of GCube Underwriting, which insures about $3.5 billion in wind assets.