At last night's meeting of the Portsmouth Town Council, representatives of maintenance contractor Lumus Construction delivered the news that the town's wind turbine generator needed a new gearbox, according to reporting in Patch. The replacement would require disassembly of the nacelle, and could cost the town over $1M.

In a wind turbine, the gearbox connects the rotor with the generator. Like the transmission in a car, it converts the rotational speed of the blades to the appropriate RPM the generator requires. Inside the gearbox case are bearings that support the rotor shaft and gears to convert rotation, both of which are subject to variable stresses introduced by the spinning of the enormous blades.

According to a source familiar with the situation, about three weeks ago, a periodic oil sample report showed "high levels of metal particulate," indicating an issue inside the gearbox, and the turbine was taken offline to prevent further damage. After reviewing borescope video, images of the oil filters, and oil sample analysis, the source said, both the gearbox manufacturer and Lumus recommended replacement.

Yes, it's a serious failure. But it is neither completely unanticipated, nor is it necessarily indicative of hardware defects or failures in oversight. Cars have been around for a hundred years, and there are still transmission repair shops that do a good business.

Gears and bearings all eventually wear out. That's an unpleasant fact of life. Was the town over-optimistic in thinking we'd get something more like the industry's expected 7-to-11 years of mean time to failure? Yeah, probably.

It's a bad situation. We need to analyze the problem, assess our options, and determine the best way forward.

And all the hysterical haters who are – literally – crowing over the failure in the cesspool of comments on Patch should ask themselves: How is what I am doing helping our Town?