Wind turbines are like giant pinwheels.

When you blow on it, the blades spin. The more they spin, the more vibration or energy the child feels in their hands and arms.Turbines operate on the same principle.A turbine fundamentally converts kinetic energy into electric energy.The blades are connected to a hub, which in turn connects to a shaft. The shaft is connected to a nacelle. The nacelle is the school-bus-sized box that sits atop the tower. The movement of the blades creates movement within the nacelle's moving parts and generates energy which moves down the tower into a ground collector system. The energy moves along the underground cables to a collector substation, where it is transformed to the voltage of the existing transformer lines, which in this case is 69 KV.From the collection point the energy is moved to a station where it connects to the power grid owned by PJM Interconnection. PJM is the regional transmission organization that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity throughout a large portion of the eastern part of the country.According to Craig Poff, director of business development for Iberdrola Renewables, which is proposing the farm, a number of safety features are designed into the system to prevent failures or dangerous conditions during the collection process."These systems are designed to reliably ensure that a fault at some point does not cause a system failure," Craig said. "There is a long study process into all sorts of possibilities to ensure the reliability and stability of the existing infrastructure for safety."Despite any company's best efforts to design in safety, failures and safety issues still arise. In February a wind turbine in Huron County, Michigan, belonging to Exelon failed. The Times Herald reported that Kristen Otterness, a spokeswoman for Exelon, the owner of the 396-foot turbine, said that an overspeed condition led to the failure of the unit."As designed, the turbine had put the blades in a locked position because of high wind speed," Otterness said. "But because of the loss of pressure, the high winds caused the blades to continue spinning at a high rate of speed. It resulted in an overspeed condition. Because of the load that was placed on the tower … it led to it falling over."Poff said the turbines are run on wind and wind only."I have heard that turbines run on coal or nuclear energy, and now oil," Poff said. "This simply isn't true."Poff said that the units have moving parts and as such they have lubricating oils in them. What oil and how much is used will depend on what brand of turbine is selected for a particular site. The lubricating oil is changed on a regular maintenance schedule just like in a motor vehicle.In the case of the Exelon turbine, the unit that failed could hold up to 400 gallons of oil. It was estimated that about 30 gallons of oil was spilled as a result of the failure.