I had this video digitized for its historical content from a video cassette provided by Mark Haller from his collection when he worked for SeaWest in California’s Altamont Pass. The provenance of the video is uncertain. It may have come from a local TV station or from a corporate video produced by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E). After more than three decades no one remembers.
After a brief on line search, I came up empty handed. I couldn’t find any other copy.
PG&E installed the Boeing Mod-2 in 1982. Previously, Boeing had installed three of the wind turbines in the Columbia River Gorge for the Bonneville Power Administration.[1] The video contains some installation sequences.
The wind turbine was problematic as explained in the video.
PG&E toppled the turbine in a controlled explosion in 1988. The first attempt failed, the video shows the second attempt. This is the most infamous part of the video. Mark Haller edited the video to repeat the detonation and toppling of the tower three times for display at an American Wind Energy Association conference to the embarrassment of NASA and the US Department of Energy.
I’ve written critically about the turbine and PG&E’s “research” on it. Here’s what I and Erik Möllerström have to say about it in a recent article.
“Despite the problems that plagued the Mod-1, NASA and DOE determinedly proceeded with the next machine in their program, Boeing’s Mod-2. The Mod-2 was nearly three times the size of the Mod-0 and more than twice the size of the Mod-1. Four Mod-2 turbines were installed in the DOE program. Another was delivered to Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) in California. The turbine operated sporadically from 1982 to 1988. In contrast to commercial wind turbines that must be available for operation more than 98% of the time, PG&E’s Mod-2 was available for operation only 37% of the time. Worse yet, it generated only 40% of the output possible if the turbine had operated reliably.
All the Mod-2s were eventually scrapped, with the PG&E turbine meeting the most spectacular fate. Concluding that it was too costly to dismantle, PG&E felled the tower like a lumberjack cutting a giant redwood. After a series of explosives severed the tower, the last Mod-2 crashed to the ground in front of television news crews helpfully assembled by PG&E.”[2]
PG&E’s Mod-2 only operated 8,658 hours in the six years it was in use, and it only generated 15 million kWh during its lifetime. In contrast, Tvindkraft, a wind turbine built by students and faculty at the Tvind school in Denmark has operated since 1978 more or less continuously, generating 16 million kWh and operating for more than 100,000 hours through 2005.[3] At the time it was installed, Tvindkraft was the largest wind turbine in the world.
My thanks to Mark Haller for preserving this amazing footage.
https://archive.org/details/mod-2-wind-turbine-removal-mark-haller
[1] “NASA Wind Turbines,” in Wikipedia, July 29, 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NASA_wind_turbines&oldid=1167795422.
[2] Paul Gipe and Erik Möllerström, “An Overview of the History of Wind Turbine Development: Part II–The 1970s Onward,” Wind Engineering, September 8, 2022, 0309524X221122594, https://doi.org/10.1177/0309524X221122594.
[3] Gipe and Möllerström.
