i dont know anything about this but thats really funny

probably a game issue, if it uses electricity, it can break down and require components

Its a setting in the item if it breaks down or not, not hard coded.

Still occurring as of 1.6.

Also, the games only uses breakdowns from a set list, not item by item.
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Breakdown

It appears that the items added by VTE were added into the list of breakdown items. I think this was intentional as the hives added by other VE items do not breakdown.

Yeah I just used the Dubs patch that does away with the dubs ducts and heating in favor of the Vanilla Expanded temp ones but I noticed even having a few fans over a long time with VTE has eaten up a huge amount of components over several years as I have been playing on terraformed venus world builder so it swings between 120-130f in summer to 25-35f in Winter. The VTE fans seem more powerful even if they do not include a lightbulb like in dubs meaning I did not have to do as much in the way of actual coolers once I got fans but 50/100 steel item is gobbling up quite a bit of components each over the course of its lifetime.