Windmills Crash, Gov't Refuses to Enforce the Law

Another day, more evidence of the state being the ultimate criminal racketeering operation as Norway's Energy Minister admits to breaking the laws consistently

Yesterday we looked at ‘gangs from Sweden’ as ‘the biggest threat’:

'Gangs from Sweden' are 'the Biggest Threat' to Norwegian Society

By now, the list of things that are grave societal threats is so long and encompassing, it covers virtually every aspect of modern-day life, including what police calls ‘environmental crime’. Given the magnitude of it, I consider it worthwhile exploring it in a bit more detail, hence here we go.

If you missed the first part, please consider reading it first for it discusses, at some length, the situation as the National Criminal Investigation Service (Kripos) sees it.

Non-English content comes to you in my translation, with emphases and [snark] added.

Environmental Crimes According to Police

To set the stage, let’s briefly consider the few paragraphs police wrote about in their threat assessment (p. 24); note that it’s a mere page while the ‘gangs from Sweden’, narcotics, and other forms of more serious™ crime are treated at much, much greater length. Far from judging a book by its cover, the amount of time afforded to any individual issue listed as society-endangering in the opening, these quantitative aspects matter:

Environmental crime is crime that affects nature, animal and plant life, art and cultural heritage, aquaculture, animal welfare, and the working of the environment. Most environmental offences in 2024 included nature conservation offences, fisheries offences and offences against animal welfare. The number of environmental offences reported has been stable in recent years, while the number of offences reported in 2024 was the lowest in the last five-year period. The crime causes serious damage to individuals, the environment and ecosystems, and is often motivated by financial gain or cost savings, and can involve individuals, businesses and municipalities.

I’ll merely add that such crimes may also be committed by the gov’t—as regards their unwillingness to act, and for this issue, we now turn to one of my least-favourite items: windparks.

Regular readers may remember that we’ve talked about this before, specifically concerning the hazardous ‘nasty fibres’ the blades are made of:

Windmills as Health Risk

Then there’s the issue of dumping waste illegally (often in Eastern Europe):

'Green' Companies Caught Illegally Dumping Hazardous Waste in Czechia

And the contamination of wildlife and the environment, which, as the study discussed below, clearly affects the entire food chain:

Windmill Abrasion Contaminates the Environment, New Study Shows

Note that esp. that both the first and third above-linked pieces concerning the hazards emanating from the materials used for windmill blades concern regular stuff. This is the proverbial ‘standard operating procedure’, and this isn’t anything that’s related to when things go bad.

What happens when things turn south is what we’re looking at today.

January 2025 in Trøndelag

According to the above-related piece by Henning Levold, which appeared on the website of Norwegian state broadcaster NRK in mid-March 2025, this is the situation (the below quote is from the caption of the picture):

FALLING DOWN: This is how one of the turbines in Sørmarkfjellet looked in January. On Sunday, a blade from another turbine fell down in the same wind farm.

Sørmarkfjellet windpark is run by the energy company (sic) Aneo and has both its own Wikipedia entry (it’s a ‘stub’) and here’s its business website. The windpark became operational in 2019, but according to online information, Aneo didn’t exist back then: it was spun off Trønder Energi, which is a publicly-owned energy company servicing a total of 19 municipalities (incl. Trondheim) in the area plus the regional pension fund KLP.

Back to the NRK piece where Aneo explains (sic) what happened in January:

They [Aneo] state that a turbine blade is 57.5 metres long and weighs around 14 tonnes.

Following the incident at the weekend, [Rødt = far-left MP Sophie] Marhaug has now asked the Minister of Energy a written question in the Storting [parliament] about what the authorities are doing to hold the wind power industry accountable.

She points out that this is not the first time parts of a wind turbine have fallen down.

‘In Nord-Odal, for example, it was not extreme weather or a natural accident that caused the turbine blade to fall down’, says Marhaug [see the associated reporting by NRK from mid-April 2024].

Aneo’s Head of Communications, Ragna Vorkinnslien, says that they don’t yet know what caused the turbine blade to fall down on Sunday [we note that this is from mid-March, i.e., two months thereafter].

‘It’s far too early to say anything about it.’

She says the plant is currently closed, both to the public and to their employees:

‘When it is safe to move around inside the plant, they will carry out investigations. Then we will of course carry out all the investigations necessary to determine both the cause and the course of events.’

Vorkinnslien says that Aneo has not yet finished investigating the turbine blade that fell in January.

And if, at this point, you’re wondering about what the Norwegian Energy Regulatory Authority NVE (Noregs vassdrags- og energidrektoratet) says, here we go:

NVE Section Head Anne Johanne Kråkenes says that such incidents have little impact on the electricity supply [well, I’m glad for that]:

‘However, it is serious when such incidents occur. First and foremost, it entails resource-intensive clean-up work.’ [please shed a crocodile tear for the cost of running such a business]

She says that in recent years NVE has focused more on monitoring the condition of turbines during inspections and that they are planning a dialogue with turbine suppliers.

‘Such incidents are often caused by production faults, which are difficult to detect before they occur.’ [true story; perhaps the expertise of the biomedical establishment as regards product safety and efficacy may be harnessed, you know, for lessons learned and best practices…]

Kråkenes says that turbine malfunctions occur both in Norway and in other countries:

‘It’s not unusual, and when granting licences we have to accept a certain safety risk.’ [there you have it: do you feel safer and well-regulated now?]

As utterly absurd as it sounds, it is also needless to say that these ‘not unusual incidences’ apparently don’t come with any consequences for either the company running (sic) these windparks nor for the regulatory authorities policing (sic) these installations.

‘Broken Pieces Remain Untouched Months Later’

That would be the title of another NRK piece written about this one windpark with its—so far two—malfunctioning windmills, which went live on 24 May 2025.

‘Come Monday [26 May 2025] clean-up operations will start’, that is, according to Aneo as cited in this piece. A bit further down, there are the following lines:

Pulverised After a Storm

Raine Olaf Ørsnes lives close to the Sørmarkfjellet wind farm in Flatanger in northern Trøndelag…Ørsnes is most surprised by all the small glass fibres they have found on the mountain, after blades from two wind turbines have fallen down.

‘The big pieces are quite frightening. It looks ugly to say the least, but the problem is the small pieces.’

Motvind Norge [an anti-windmill association] fears that the small glass fibres will disappear into the vegetation. They believe there is a risk to both nature and animals [check out the top-linked pieces: there is considerable risk].

‘Everything from entire airfoils to thousands of bits and pieces are now part of the landscape. This is pollution on an industrial level—right in the middle of Norwegian nature’, says John Fiskvik from Motvind Norge.

I would encourage you to click on the provided link and check out the images taken by Motwind Norge and Mr. Ørsnes (even if you don’t read Norwegian, these images are very telling).

Aneo Promises to Clean Up

The wind power company Aneo says that the clean-up at Sørmarkfjellet will start on Monday [26 May].

Communications Manager Ragna Vorkinnslien says that it has taken some time to sign contracts.

‘There are large sections to be removed, and they are dependent on weather conditions.

‘We've been working on Sørmarkfjellet since the blade failure was discovered on 15 March. The work has been extensive. Blade experts have examined every single blade.’

This week, wreckage will be removed.

‘It's unclear when the clean-up work will be completed, but it will be ongoing throughout the summer.’

Well, at least something.

We note in passing that these materials are extremely dangerous and that the German Federal Environmental Authority (Umweltbundesamt) considers these so-called ‘nasty fibres’ to be ‘as dangerous as asbestos’. Here’s a few choice quotes from my piece ‘Windmills as Health Risk’:

The damage to the rotor blade could have released not only sharp-edged, larger fragments but also very fine, respirable fibre dust from carbon fibres, so-called nasty fibres [orig. fiese Fasern, Carbon-fiber reinforced polymer, but note that the English-language Wikipedia entry doesn’t mention any health effects], which can penetrate the organism of humans and animals via the skin and lungs.

As Dangerous as Asbestos

Composite materials of rotor blades made are glass fibres (GRP), balsa wood, steel elements, and, in the case of very large blades, carbon fibres (CFRP) are bonded with epoxy resins. These contain toxic substances such as bisphenol A [one of the more dangerous ‘forever chemicals’, which has a long and sordid history of human health risks]. After GRP was used as the main component for a long time, manufacturers are increasingly using plastics reinforced with carbon fibres (CFRP) to save weight.

Yet there is much more to this—including explicit warnings by the Federal Office of Infrastructure, Environmental Protection, and Services [orig. Bundesamt für Infrastruktur, Umweltschutz und Dienstleistung] of the German Armed Forces:

According to experts from the German Armed Forces, a fire involving CFRP releases fibres that could have an effect comparable to asbestos. Above all, this would pose a risk to helpers at the scene of an accident, such as firefighters or police officers [source]. One expert cites a radius of approx. 300 metres around an accident involving burning CFRP as a guideline.

I’ll add the source for the last above sentence, which hails from 2010 (!): Norbert Simmet, ‘Nasty Fibres—Danger for First Responders’ (orig. ‘Fiese Fasern—Gefahr für Rettungskräfte’, Merkur, 13 Dec. 2010).

Consider what happens if there’s an accident—written by Prof. Sebastian Eibl wrote back in 2017:

A final assessment of the toxicological effects of carbon fibres is still pending. Compared to the asbestos problem, there is a lack of corresponding long-term experience. In principle, however, there are similarities with asbestos. The carbon fibre material is also chemically non-reactive. The harmful effect on health is therefore primarily due to the critical fibre geometry. It is also more difficult to break down the material in the alveoli of the lungs, as macrophages are unable to enclose these fibre fragments, mainly due to their length, and die in the process. It is therefore very likely that inhaled fibre dusts remain in human lung tissue for a very long time…

According to the technical rules for hazardous substances, demolition, renovation and maintenance work with old mineral wool (TRGS 521) and the ‘Risk-related measures concept for activities with carcinogenic hazardous substances’ (TRGS 910), various protective measures must be taken at the fibre concentrations determined in order to avoid exposure to critical fibre dusts. This includes wearing personal protective equipment with a fine dust mask (FFP3), eye protection, gloves, and a disposable protective suit. Avoid releasing fibres when handling burnt CFRP material. Material to be disposed of should be packed dust-tight in plastic films/bags…

According to the sources cited here, 29 tons of plastic per rotor blade end up in landfills as there’s not yet any protocol to dispose of these monstrosities.

We note, in passing, that these blade materials are also used for fighter jets and attack helicopters (just think of war zones in, say, Ukraine or the Middle East in terms of environmental devastation and health risks on top of guns and shells).

Things Break Down, not Up

According to Norwegian state broadcaster NRK’s most recent piece (dated 24 May 2025), authorities are counting defect windmills:

Ten times in the last ten years, turbine blades have fallen down at wind power plants in Norway, according to an overview from NVE [do you trust the gov’t?]. This was revealed when Minister of Energy Terje Aasland (Labour Party) recently reported on this to the Norwegian Parliament.

It also happened at Odal wind power plant in April last year. A blade weighing 22 tonnes was thrown 50 metres away. Poor production quality was a contributing factor to the accident, the wind farm concluded in a report presented in April.

The company Aneo does not yet know the cause of the turbine blade falling on Sørmarkfjellet.

If you’d click on the word ‘reported’ in that quote, you’d get to the written parliamentary enquiry sent to the competent (sic) Minister of Energy—where one finds this gem:

The concessionaires inform NVE of faults or damage, and NVE maintains an internal overview based on communication with concessionaires, monitoring and partial reporting. While the overview is not complete, it shows that there have been ten cases in the last ten years where turbine blades have fallen down.

Who would have guessed: taxpayer-funded regulatory agency ‘NVE maintains an internal overview’: are they perhaps afraid of these ‘internal’ numbers?

I call BS on this one—and while the Energy Minister is at least open about the numbers (10) he’s peddling being ‘not complete’—i.e., a lie of omission—the implications are gargantuan:

• NVE is technically charged with regulatory oversight yet fails both to actually compile information (i.e., do its statutory job) and to inform the public

• NVE is leasing out concessions to windpark operators it is overseeing™, yet since the ‘internal overview’ is ‘not complete’, the competent (sic) minister admitted in writing that not only is NVE not doing its job (which may also include a violation of its charter) but that windpark operators are failing to report problems

At what point would one consider organised criminal behaviour of these people—from the competent (sic) Minister of Energy to the regulatory agency (NVE) cosplaying oversight to windpark operators breaking the law—both a racket and worthy of investigation under the Norwegian equivalent of the RICO Act?

I do understand the incentive for the managers and staffers at the energy companies to be mostly, if not exclusively, about making money. Since these energy companies—as the cited examples of both Aneo and its parent company Trønder Energy clearly show—are publicly owned and operated utility companies, serious implications must be noted:

• What is a crime? Is it something natural and/or legal persons may do as defined by the state?

• Is the state itself a criminal enterprise when it knowingly fails to perform the obligations it has set itself (I think it is)?

The main issue may be summed up as follows (this is once more from the Police’s Threat Assessment on p. 24):

Illegal waste management is a nature conservation offence that can lead to pollution and discharges of substances hazardous to health and the environment many years into the future. Internationally, this form of crime is characterised by the fact that it particularly involves the exploitation of legal structures. Other forms of nature conservation offences include disturbance of bird and animal life in the form of illegal hunting, trade in endangered species, illegal motor vehicle traffic in the countryside and illegal destruction of nature, such as illegal construction in beach zones or illegal logging. The number of reports has fallen slightly in recent years. This may be related to the fact that the Norwegian Environment Agency has been given the opportunity to impose infringement fines, which means that cases are less frequently registered as criminal cases with the police.

Oh, look: yet another regulatory agency that’s actively working towards undermining the law.

Bottom Li(n)es

Yet if one were to take the meaning of the wording of the threat assessment literally, everyone involved in these above-related shenanigans ‘involves the exploitation of legal structures’: the regulatory agency NVE doesn’t discharge its duties, energy companies are not held to account, and the competent (sic) gov’t minister of energy admits to these facts.

At some point, the criminal behaviour of these people has become so pervasive that these notions are taken with a shrug, if they are considered at-all.

Again, I’m reminded of stuff we all knew once upon a time; hence a few words by French political economist Frédéric Bastiat (1801-50) shall conclude this long-ish exposé (sources in the linked Wikiquote piece):

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

That’s a quite well-known quote, but there’s another one from the same essay (‘Economic Sophisms’) that’s perhaps even more appropriate in this context:

It is a rather singular argument to maintain that, because an abuse which has been permitted a temporary existence, cannot be corrected without wounding the interests of those who have profited by it, it ought, therefore, to claim perpetual duration.

And thus the charade continues:

• If the NRK journos™ didn’t do their job, it may be due to Occam’s Razor (they’re both lazy and stupid).

• If the regulatory agency™ NVE didn’t do their job, it may be due to the same circumstances but since they surely must know their statutory tasks, we must add the quality of evil (to their laziness and stupidity).

• If the competent gov’t minister of energy has the audacity to affirm, in writing, that he’s not doing his job (I’m not pointing at the Labour Party; the right-of-centre coalition in charge before the current gov’t wasn’t doing better: it’s a big club, and neither you or I are in it, to paraphrase the late George Carlin), intentional abuse of state power is added to the list.

Hence, I shall conclude with another quote by Frédéric Bastiat to sum up where we are (and where we’ve been at since time immemorial):

When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.

It is high Time for Outrage, to pay homage to another French author, Stéphane Hessel.