World’s largest wind turbine ($100MM?) immediately breaks. Chinese blame . . . the wind?

Photo above - the only known image of "China's Largest Wind Turbine" taken immediately after it fell apart. Looking at this image in China probably gets you sent to a re-education camp. There are thousands of photos of this turbine BEFORE it broke, however.

China is bombing the internet with news releases about its technical superiority. Case in point . . . months of bragging about “the world’s largest wind turbine”. How big is it? The blades have a diameter of 260 meters (800 feet for you and me). How durable is it? Designed to withstand category 4 hurricanes (130 mph). What happened? If fell apart right away during testing. Presumably in winds far less than 130 mph, unless China also has the world's largest box fan they were using as part of the test. (see link below)

I take no satisfaction in this. We need more electricity from wind power. The question is, do we want a couple of insanely tall turbines nearly a quarter mile high? Which are hazards to aircraft and spy balloons pretending to be something else? This isn’t a trick question.

Back in the 1950’s, Russia was following the same path. Constantly bragging about having the worlds largest microchips and fastest wristwatches. In World War 2, Hitler signed off on the “Gustov Gun”, a cannon so big it needed 2 parallel sets of railway lines to move anywhere. It spent most of the war hiding in a cave.

Wanna bet that Russia or China has “the worlds biggest hydrogen bomb” in a bunker somewhere too? What is it with insane dictators and their mania for size?

Back to China’s broken pinwheel. The good news – only two of the three blades fell off. The 3rd one is still attached. Maybe they can reattach the other two? Will that take the world's largest helicopter? The world's largest construction crane? Or will the blades be towed offshore to become part of the world’s largest artificial reef?

If you think the broken windmill thing is a one-off, then you also missed the sinking of China’s first nuclear powered attack submarine. It sank at dockside, before even making it to sea trials. Even Russia knows how to build these (they also claim to have the world's largest submarine!). President Jimmy Carter was on the team that designed America’s first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus, launched 70 years ago.

Wait, what? The Chinese are 70 years behind the times when it comes to nuclear powered submarines? But okay, I get their envy. China’s Xi Jinping, secretary general of the Communist Party, never invented anything or served in the military. His biography features events like “arrested for deserting his rural work detail” and “living in a cave”. But look how well he’s doing now! Even if you don’t dwell on the broken windmills and sunken submarines. China is working on launching astronauts to the moon. Presumably on top of the world's largest rocket, copied from some western blueprints.

The US reached the moon in 1969. 50 years ago. Playing catchup is never easy. Comparisons will always be made. Why can’t China experiment with catching up to the rest of the world in areas like democracy, freedom of speech, and safer bat virus labs?

I’m just sayin’ . . .

World’s Largest Wind Turbine Damaged in Extreme Weather