Wind Power: Real Deal or Hot Air?

I've been reading a lot lately about smaller-sized and smaller capacity wind systems. This is just an example of the technologies I've come across:

http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/windcube-generates-electricity-in-moderate-wind/

They're designed for urban rooftops, the decentralized generation market in densely populated areas, etc.

Couldn't these make some contribution, if deployed in number?

I guess, but I don't think I would want one on my rooftop. I like quite.

If you remember in the 1970's - 80's there was a rush for home windmills. The problem was that they really didn't pay for themselves and it represents a nightmare for the electric company to regulate the grid. The whole idea just fizzled.

Also, birds don't get along with windmills too well.

Not to mention the bats that are killed. They may not be cute and cuddly or inspire the love many have for birds, but they do eat them pesky mosquitoes.

When I lived on East 11th in Manhattan there was a wind turbine on one of the buildings across the street. It was missing a blade. I wasn't around for the day when the blade flew off, but no wonder the thing wasn't repaired.

Overall I feel there is of course some place for wind turbines in the energy generation mix, but as so many things about alternative energy what is practical for one geographic area, isn't for another, and integrating these technologies seems to demand too much thinking.

Eventually I do think, certainly for the smaller wind turbines, better designs that utilize cowlings will come along.

P.S. I always look for Anonymous Hero's posts, for he typically takes an objective view backed up by what look to me to be real numbers.

The 20% figure probably refers to the capacity factor of the wind turbine, which is the percent of the rated output (1500 kW) that it generates. It is calculated with the location in mind, or at least statistics such as average wind density, that factor in the fact that the wind doesn't constantly blow. A 1500 kW wind turbine with a 20% capacity factor will generate approximately 1500*24*365*.20=2628000 kWh a year.

A wind turbine requires about 12.5 acres of land. Check out http://www.bwea.com/ref/faq.html. Its got a good overview of pretty reliable facts (checks out with many other sources Ive seen). But keep in mind that they are advocating for wind energy and they are in England.

When you say meaningful power, or talk in a later post about tieing into the grid, dispatchable wind is a hopeful option. By using the wind's energy to compress air, the air can be stored for a certain amount of time (up to a month I think) until it is needed to generate electricity. This helps wind companies make more money and helps electricity distribution companies ease imtermitency. A company in MA is beginning to move foward on projects, General Compression, and when credit opens up, there should be serious progress.

Dan

I'd like to see you register Guest. I'd like to see you and Anonymous Hero bat these numbers around.

The site you link to says the Turbines are quiet, and then I read reports from others saying the noise bothers them.

Anonymous Hero says the Wind Farms would take up a couple of states, which really doesn't bother me since there are States in the US with Wind where hardly anybody seems to live anyway.

The Grid connection has been mentioned time and time again when Wind comes up as well.

The US certainly benefited from Hydro Electric, and it ought to be a no brainer to expand that success into the oceans.

Of course that also demands improvements to the Grid.

Windpower efficiency is just a DREAM!!!.

First, the wind never blows consistantly!

Second, the costs of the roof top turbines can never be regained!

Third, too many birds, bats etc, get killed!

In other words, investing great amounts into wind-power is just plain stupid!

Spencer.

Location, location, location is imperative when taking photo's, hanging signs, starting a business and expecting benefit from wind powered devices etc....

There appear to be some flaws in your data and calculations. According to the Energy Information Administration, the total US generator nameplate capacity is just over 1 tera-watt. Using your data, the number of 1.5MW windmills required would be 10 million, not 1 million. Using the EIA data, it would be 2.67 million.

According to my atlas, Texas covers 261,797 square miles.

The separation values that I have read in articles related to spacing of larger (3.25MW) wind turbines is .34 miles perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction and .5 miles parallel to it. I don't know what the rotor diameters of these units might be, but they are in an array of 130 units that is planned for construction in Nantucket Sound

Certainly your points are well-taken and for wind energy to become any significant factor in replacing fossil-fuel-fired generating plants, much needs to be done. There are so many elements related to siting, distribution, time of deployment, etc., that the timeline for this process is much longer than is being touted by the government and alternative energy proponents.

Thanks for the correction of the figures. Even using the EIA data and 6 units per square mile yields 445,000 square miles, so the results are about the same.

Regulating against wind starts to become a real issue when wind penetration approaches 20% of the system capacity. At 20%, most of the intermediate load units have been displaced and the base load units are left to shoulder all the ancillary functions of grid stability. Wind providers are not required to guarantee capacity, nor are they required to pay for rolling reserve. Only a few of the most advanced wind generators have the capacity to support system regulation, again putting even more burden of the base load plants for voltage and frequency control. These all have a real cost associated in reduced thermal heat rate and equipment wear & tear.

Texas have 268,601 square miles

important news you may have missed:

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/50677127.html

I think wind has promise but not in all areas. It definitely pays on mountain ridges where there are proven high winds all the time. Those areas generally lack the transmission lines necessary so when you add all the costs it isn't quite as cheap as most optimists think. It does seem that bat kill-offs is a sizable problem too. I've also been led to believe gear unit maintenance is more costly than most designers expect because of higher than predicted failure rates. Most wind generation by nature requires a considerable amount of electrical storage and that's still not cheap. I still believe solar has more predictable generation patterns which should allow for better storage design for now.

Wind turbines are noisy and when they fail, which they do, the result is catastrophic.

They are building a wind farm off the coast of New Jersey and spending tons of "stimulus" money out of your wallet so that the more immediate environmental issues are addressed.

Frankly, I am of the opinion, that research into harnessing tidal currents offers a more predictable solution, at least for those fortunate enough to be located on the North American coastal areas.

What would provide a much more dramatic savings in energy and reduce the so-called "carbon footprint" would be to legislate a 10 hour, four day work week.

In an instant, the hydrocarbon diet would be cut by 20%! If the feds mandate such a thing or offer tax credits to employers and/or employees, they would eclipse the benefits of any wind farm, except perhaps one built downwind of the US Capital building!

That one would generate enough power to light the entire western hemisphere!

L.J.

Others do and enjoy it.

Wind powered electricity generation is already cost competitive with with coal or gas powered generation when all the pollution control hardware (but not CO2 capture and sequestration) are included. What is hampering more rapid deployment is lack of transmission lines to move the power to markets. Without 'eminent domain' provisions, it is often impossible to purchase right-of-way for new power transmission lines.

U.S. political and bureaucratic agencies are hopelessly ineffective at this time and unable (or unwilling) to implement policies and regulations facilitating distributed generation--which will 'break' the psuedo-monopoly held by 'legacy' power companies.

Hi Wind Power,

I refer to a PV and wind generators set-up and a HOH electrolyzer (storage) and HOH turbine that is in use at NREL.gov. Fuel is clean, free and forever.

We use HOH engines on the space shuttle deployment system, and there must be a good reason to use it there.

This process is similar to one used at a commercial power plant in remote Saudia Arabia (they use PV for power source).

By generating H2 and O2 and storing in lower pressure tanks, the gases (when recombined) can give a steady-state power supply with a HOH generator station.

To me, I would like to see this process used for a remote and rural 10kw facility, and later have output expanded to match diverse industrial and residential applications.

4000 MW of wind turbines are being installed in 2009. We will see a doubling of wind turbines every three years, to help put a dent in the overall power grid.

It will be expensive up-front, but so was Hoover Dam. Just think of clean, cheap, and forever power forever, and you are in the 21st century. The jobs will be sure safe and forever, too. Now, this is real excitement!

PV became useful to regulate controllers for 20,000 domestic oil wells, twenty years ago. PV was great for remote apllications, but PV will get ,$4 a watt soon, and that changes a lot of things.

To me, wind+PV is a smart combination for cheap on-site power.

DRS

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We must extrapolate our ordinary design spectrum to meet the needs of the future.

Wind power should looked as peak load power plant. Most offices and small factories work 8hr a day. Hence obtaining about 10kw to 50kw for individual buildings will be a good idea. The battery size and capacity should be optimised since power generated should be used during the 8hr.

Good point. I don't TRY to be a nay sayer. I TRY to be positive. Your point about location being critical is right on. I believe that one solution is not the answer to every problem. I am just suggesting alternative solutions, and alternative ways to look at the problem. This forum is full of excellent people who can come up with great answers when the question is framed in a different way. That is why I am so positive that we WILL come up with something that will work. I never said I was smart enough to come up with the answers...grin!

I have a major problem with windmills. They remove energy from the atmosphere, yes dear hearts that is what causes them to spin. Removing this energy must affect the weather down wind of them. No one has done an exhaustive study of the effects of removine this atmospheric energy. This needs several decades of government study before we rush headlong into this foolishness.

Hi Guest,

I would appreciate some kind of "basis" for having an idea of "major problems" occur from the effects of "wind turbine energy conversion". What makes you think that "removing the energy MUST affect the weather down wind of them?"

Please tell us you basis of "effects". If your hypothoses is correct, then the wind effects of semi-truck could be causing "global warming"?

How can such a conclusions be drawn? I am dumbfounded.

DRS

We have less chance of effecting wind down stream than we do of curbing volcanic effects or tectonic movement

Though eliminating or reducing the effects contrails are culminating may benefit wind and solar energy aims.

Well, do not be so fast to reject Guest's opinion. I agree with him greatly actually.

If we as a society are looking to alternate energy sources, extensive research should be done to make sure that these new energies will not produce a whiplash of destruction in the future. Who knows, maybe large scale wind farms will throw off wind patterns and could cause a nationwide drought (or other damaging event).

Now I find this highly improbable, but I would still like some research to back this up.

Considering that out of all of the energy that comes to Earth from the Sun, 5% is converted to wind energy (according to a college physics text book), there is TONS of energy in the wind. I feel that throwing up large scale wind farms wouldn't even put a dent in this energy.

Hi RScincy,

A small scale experiment into the effects down-wind of a group of wind turbines was carried out in Wales (UK). The wind there blows mainly from the west, and it brings with it a lot of rain that was picked up over the Atlantic!

The results of this experiment showed that there was a lot less rain on the down-wind side of the turbines, and the valley where a lot of agriculture was carried out was getting a lot less rainfall which the needed!!!

Spencer.

Ok, well great! I'm glad to see there is some research being done. But is this a significant less amount? Less would be the obvious response, considering that the windmills have surface area and with tons of wind coming into contact with the blades every hour, I'd expect some of the water to be picked up on the blades.

Just a thought.

It's a perspective debacle; do we gain more by doing or talking about it?

I would like to see that down wind effects study as well!

But to be fair it will need to include the added effects of sky scrapers, the millions of trees put in fields as wind breaks, highway billboards, hilltops that get leveled during city expansion, and well basically every single human made object or action that either stands more than a few feet tall or takes more than a few feet off a high spot in the global terrain.

Also if your going to nit pick, what percentage of the atmosphere does the first 300 - 400 feet that 99% of human energy collection or constructed objects account for in relation to the total hight of the atmospheric air column? (400/150,000 = .0026) Or about the hight ratio between an average sized person and an average sized ant. Anyone having trouble walking because you keep tripping over a few scattered ants?

And just for rough energy references I have read in a number of environmental studies that one hurricane has enough energy in it to power the human civilizations power consumption on every level for any where from 20 - 100+ years depending upon its size and duration. And how many of them happen world wide every year?

Since nit picking the cost of manufacture of things is common here how about reversing it just for once and calculating our human world wide energy consumption against the naturally occurring forces at play in the world that go on with or without us!

We don't even consume a sub fraction of a percent of what nature tosses about energy wise! Our 'energy hungry ways' don't even add up to drop in the earths collective swimming pool of energy!

Do the math and prove me wrong! I dare you!

There is more renewable and collectible energy happening world wide than we can and ever will use. Its the storage and improved transmission techniques we need to be more focused on, not the 'What if/just maybe chance something may happen if...' BS that is tossed around all day long instead of 'How about if we... and things improve' ideas that should be getting tossed around and tested.

The planet as a whole is a living organism and we are just parts of it and our actions are part of the planetary evolution. I think of us as being the collective brain cells of the planetary life form. We just have not yet developed or evolved far enough to collectively work in unison towards greater good and control in a more orderly fashion.

We are still suffering from having too many defective cells governing the wrong muscles and also having to many retard cells that just put out noise and work against the collective whole by continually doing there best to create seizures instead of rational thought and reasoning processes.

Just my opinion.

Amen. I hear ya, there is SO much energy coming from the sun and humans use an infinitesimally small amount of energy that is coming into the planet. But I feel as if the world is in a very delicate balance, and even a small change in the way things run may throw things off. Yet again, I feel like this is unlikely, or would be exponentially less damaging than burning fossil fuels, but I would still feel a lot better if more research would be done at possible side effects.

Of course, we could look to major skyscrapers and say "well, ok, everything seems to be ok with them being there and disrupting wind patterns, why would windmills be anymore of a nuisance?". Good point tcmtech!

There is nothing wrong with investigating the effects of mankinds use of natural resources, especially coal and oil.

Nature is under great stress because of man's over exertion of consumption of somethings. Should there be concern and reaction to try to be more accomadating to natural tendencies. And how does man react to threats to a balance in nature?

I am very concerned that "mankind" consumes 60 million barrels of oil, EVERY SINGLE DAY, and that CO2 increases are eventually going to create oblivion to nature, if we reason like real scientists.

Should we consume wind and photons instead of hydrocarbons? I think so, and if anyone disagrees, then they are not concerned about the major problems associated with mankinds use of natural resources.

If the house is on fire, should we call the fire department, and put the fire out (if we know how?)?

DRS

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WE CANNOT SEE THE FOREST BECAUSE THE TREES GET IN THE WAY.

True, good point and nice graph.

Personally, I really have been weening away from the whole global warming business.

EITHER WAY...it does not help that these 60 million barrels of oil a day help the American economy (as it is produced mainly abroad), America's diplomatic stance (the majority of the oil coming from the point of the world we are currently at war with), and good for the environment and for humans to live among. Even if global warming does not exist and C02 levels do not lead to climate change, oil is a non renewable resource and we need to look to other sources for energy.

this is the kind of data presented by Michael Crichton in "State Of Fear". GA.

GA pour some reason on the blaze of grandiloquent language.

We are running out of domestic oil (US has 6% of world reserves), and CO2 is not the issue. The issue is, are wind turbines OK? There are some very good answers to this question.

We consume 70% of the world oil production, and export $1T a year to buy foriegn oil, that goes out the tail pipe of our cars and trucks. And it is getting worse. Therefore, our economy is in oblivion, and the dollar is about to crash, and my retirement fund has already crashed.

I am a retired Civil Engineer and a Congressional Delegate for Pickens Plan. I am not trying to be a somebody, but just trying to make somebody (with a brain) find solutions to the answers to the problem. I worked in the oil fields of Alaska, Canada, and the Permian Basin, and simple statistics told me, 40 years ago, that we would need something like wind turbines. I vote for "Wind Turbines" until you have a better solution.

Do you "vote" for WT's?

Where I live (New Mexico) the big temperature differentials in the atmosphere are creating massive downbusts with 100+ wind velocities. We had a two inch rain, two nights ago and roofs and structures were affected. Does anyone else see a change in weather patterns? What will happen when the ice is gone at the poles?

I wish you would post a "smart" answer to the question, and you will be greatly complimented. A good engineer will always have a "good" answer. It would be even better if it were the right answer.

DRS

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If I had an answer, I would not ask a question. The frog is in a pot of hot water, and he will not jump out, since he is not concerned about small temperature increases.

Dear DRS,

There are two forms of analysis for this, in my opinion: Relative and Absolute.

In Relative analysis, the systems are compared relative to each other, and in complex systems, it is often difficult to compare apples to apples, and therefore no clear answer emerges.

In Absolute analysis, you simply want to know whether the given system works or not, to produce energy. If you are in a desert, dying of dehydration, you don't often quibble over the quality of water. you just want to know if you will survive drinking it.

So the absolute answer is that Wind works. It will produce some energy, and in a time of dire need, when the economy has collapsed, we will be very thankful for every alternative energy source that simply works. (wind, solar, chemical, wood, biofuel, geothermal, oceanthermal, fission, hydrocarbon, etc.)

Anyone who states the finding of the Absolute analysis is false, must have an anthropocidal agenda. The only real question is, if time is running out, what is the best solution in which to invest to prolong our survival.

Chris

The right answer has been plied without other than contempt for the last fifty years and is no nearer to political correctness today.

Hi

Just a small comment about the globe temperature and the amount of CO2. No human beings lived on the plant – life did not even exist some millions of years ago.

Why – not sure, but it had to do with lack of right conditions.

All the negative people about sustainability, who says we need to "investigate in decades before …". Yes, we should have investigated in decades before using fossil fuel.

Fossils show abundant life 570 million years ago and there is evidence that life began 3 or more billion years ago.

During the start of the Cambrian period nearly 600 million years ago (this is the beginning of the graph), our fossil records show a burst of life called the "Cambrian Explosion".

Life on land was limited, but that was changing pretty quickly.

The sea level occupied about 85% of the Earth's surface area (we are at about 70% now) and the continents were beginning to take shape (breaking apart from the supercontinent with continental drifting).

About 400 million years ago insects had a foothold on land. 350 million years ago sea life invaded the land (invertebrates). 250 million years ago dinosaurs began their rule of the planet (Mesozoic period).

So the graph is very relevant to life on Earth and life existed in the sea and the land under some very different conditions than they did today. Note that the Mesozoic period had CO2 levels above 2,000 ppm and Dinosaurs were thriving as well as the beginnings of mammals nearly 200 million years ago at the beginning of a rather large CO2 spike (peak at 2,300 ppm). By 100 million years ago mammals were present in significant numbers and 65 million years ago marked the end of the dinosaurs and mammals began their rule of the Earth.

And only a few years ago Reality Shows began their domination of the Earth. ;-)

$15000 for a 1 KW wind generator? WTF! Apparently someone doesn't think their poop stinks.

$1000 for a 1 Kw is still over priced by my experiences. Half that would be a reasonable value for what actually goes into building one.

And thats still not including the tower and other components that go into making a wind generator workable.

Hi Solar Guru's,

We have found the solution to the "intermittent" Wind and PV storage problem.

I just attended the "Re-Energize America" conference with DOE Sectretary Steven Chu as prime speaker. I am the Congressional Delgate for Pickens Plan (NM-02), and here is the new findings.

We can solve the "intermittent energy output" problem by "using establish CNG system to provide "back-up" power at the farm site to enable "steady-state" power output into the grid". (Solution to problem?)

Am I missing something?

DRS

Thanks. The Pikens Plan and the whole Re-energise America is a really nice political football. Lots of feel good stuff going on. And it no doubt has a worthy place in the "buy America" world of the 21st centuries "great depression". Like a lot of great plans, there is a lot of good in it. It will allow us to get the engine of the economy going again, it will allow a lot of natural gas to be pulled out of the ground instead of burning imported oil.

(how to critisize this very worthy initiative without attacking it.... hmmm. Well, here goes....)

I know the line..."solar and wind will take over, but we are not there yet".

I still have to stick with my original line...."if we make more and more energy, we will simply USE more and more energy." The Pikens Plan does not address the primary problem...it only puts off the day of reconing for a few years. It allows us to think that we can continue this energy binge forever. The problem is that we are using too much energy. The answer is not to make more energy (like the Pikens plan suggests) but rather to use less and less.

That means we need less transmission losses from moving electricity around. We need energy efficient lighting systems. We need energy efficient transportation systems (fewer trucks, more trains). We need renewable energy systems that work, that last a long time. We need fewer conversion losses...I suggested using wind power directly for industrial applications like we have been doing for centuries before we discovered electricity, and have purchased a compressor which can run from a windmill so I am putting my money where my mouth is. These are the things we need to use less energy.

Instead,

What do we get? A cash for clunkers programme instead of electrifying and double tracking our rail systems. (I shake my head in dismay!) Wind farms which are expensive and dangerous to wildlife instead of legislation demanding doubling the insualtion in houses, refrigerators and air conditioners. We get expensive photovoltaic cells instead of building codes to demand energy efficient site layout of homes and automatic "off" switches for lighting. We get new highways instead of toll booths leading into the cities that waive the toll for vehicles with multiple occupants.

I'm sorry to report that Mr. Pickens, we "ARE there yet", we just don't have the economic incentive (or the guts) to actually DO it. And your plan won't do that, it will only prolong the agony to the little guy, provide lots of money to natural gas interests, keep us on this rocky path to economic ruin and will uplift the very broken status quo.

What we were doing led us to this predicament. Doing more of it is simply digging the hole deeper. If I may stretch my metaphor a bit, Wind power as it stands right now will only help us pump water out of the hole....we need to fill the hole in, not make it deeper.

That being said, natural gas is a pretty viable alternative until we have the guts to get off the fossil fuel train for good.

Hi Yusef1,

You are quite a guru, Yusef1.

My whole point to Wind , Solar, ect. is "jobs, good jobs, forever jobs". (God help us if the sun refuses to shine).

Pickens wants to go 100% US made fuels, and create 2,500,000 NEW jobs(forever jobs) by 2020.

All this DOE money (billions) for AE is for "public works" projects. Hoover Dam was one of many hydroelectric (public works) jobs. Remember CCC and PWA? The government was the only that could afford to put people back to work. People were hoarding gold, and if you hoarded gold, you were sent to prision (federal law).

Our problem really is, how do you change crooked people?

They had guys like Benard Madeoff and Kenneth Lay (Enron) back in 1929 , who thought they would get rich quick (on credit margins), and look what happened.

They have 15 - 115,000 hp electric hydropowered generators at Hoover Dam (728 feet high). Civil Engineers think big, because we want good jobs. Engineers should be making more money than doctors and lawyers put together. My father was chief engineer on the George Washington Bridge (1935-1938).

Hey, we should be thinking of terawatts and millions of new jobs (from the $1 trillion that will go into 2,500,000 US jobs, instead of to Omar Kadaffi, and his buddies pockets, and who get their jollies by blowing up airplanes.).

Hey, our attitude needs to be adjusted, OK.

DRS

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We cannot see the forest because the trees are in the way.

All US made fuels will equal two and a half million new permanent jobs.

Jobs that will not go to Muammar Al-Gaddafi.

Oh----kay.

Hi Yusef1,

OK Yusef1,

1. By shifting from imported oil to domestic energy, 2.5M jobs (possibly) may be created. Let's look at may be's or definite maybe's. Picken's may change his projections, but "projections" are like trying to predict the weather. Then we have to look at "empherical evidence" or "crystal ball analysis". Is it analytical or empherical or BS? The distinction is important to investors.

2. Jobs going to Kaddafi is a "metaphoric" term. I can apply it to a lot of our "friends" from OPEC. Even so, it "may" take 20 Years to become "energy independent". In other words, OPEC needs our addictive "oil glut" behavior as much as we need their oil. (They say that the Saudi's have 80% of known reserves, and it is useless unless they sell it).

3. There is a "process" called "polymerization" where you can glue CH hydrocarbons together to form chains (gasoline is CH8 or octane, plus or minus). The Germans used it in WW2, since their oil supply to power tanks was cut off (I heard), so they made diesel from coal gas (CH4 or methane or natural gas).

4. The bottom line is that we need jobs, millions of jobs, that will support our families and get this country out of debt (and that is a important "need").

Hello all you genius's out there. I am bi-polar and some say that is almost a "genius", but who am I to say that I am either bi-polar or multi-polar?

DRS

Hi guys, I have a wind turbine patent that I am working on that addresses most of the other shortcomings of tower systems, i think chris288 will back me up on this opinion, and soon a web site will be available for the grand unveiling, I will need your critical opinions to help find any problems Ive missed and address them. thanks everyone for their help so far. Lynn

Well the main worries I think that this thread (and others alike) pose are the following:
1. Energy production- maximizing the obtained energy from the wind. Windmills that work under small wind speeds would be crucial. People also believe that wind will not be able to contribute a substantial amount of energy to the grid.

2. Upfront cost- one reason I find many people go against wind energy is upfront cost.

3. Bird populations- many people feel as if windmills will annihilate dozens of birds species (ok, maybe not species, but many have been killed due to windmills).

Those are the main issues I can think of.

The wind turbine Im proposing takes up a small footprint of acrerage, it is based on stacked teathered blimps ( I know, crazy idea, but so was passing electricity thru a filament to produce lite, the lite bulb.) Wind turbines are much more efficient at altitude.

Up front costs are comparable to tower wind turbines, and by our calculations economically feasible.

Since these are at altitude we believe we will eliminate bird strike problems, we may have a problem with nesting weighing the blimps down.

Biggest problem will be the FAA, they say anything over 10,00ft will require a lot of hearings.

Lynn

Has anyone ever given a real honest study or analysis report relating to provable bird deaths by wind generators Vs say vehicles? Guesses and unproven speculation will never win me over but cold hard provable numbers will every time!

I would bet birds to money there are a ten times more birds, bats, and flying critters killed every day by vehicles than by wind generators every year!

I have experimented with wind generators for nearly 20 years and I have only found evidence of one dead bird in that time. However I have knocked off too many birds, bats, and flying critters of one sort or another with vehicles in that 20 years to even try to count!

Just came across this. A recent study "estimates that wind farms and nuclear power stations are responsible each for between 0.3 - 0.4 fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity, while fossil-fuelled power stations are responsible for about 5.2 fatalities/GWh. Although this is only as a preliminary assessment, the estimate means that wind farms killed approx. 7000 birds in the USA in 2006, but nuclear plants killed about 327,000 and fossil-fuelled power plants 14.5 million. However, the data is sparse, especially on bats, and the paper concludes that further study is needed."

http://environmentalresearchweb.org/blog/2009/07/wind-birds-and-bats.html

That study finds a kill rate of bats at .7 per turbine per day. Seems pretty significant to me. The birds were not killed by turbines though...they were killed by flying into towers, and getting electrocuted....problems which will not go away just because you replace a coal plant with a wind plant.

Thanks for the link.

My design is economically feasible, without gov. subsidies, it has to be Im a businesman, but Im also an oportunist and will take anything they will give me. If what Im saying is true then most of the 'hot air' arguments are mute. Lynn

The main reason electricity is generated is simply because of the convenience factor relating to converting it to another type of working energy be it heat, mechanical actions or light.

The national electrical system is not as inefficient as most think, its more of a myth but compared to any other known power transfer system its very efficient.

Point out one realistic and viable power transfer system that has no moving parts and can transfer say 1 Gigawatt of usable power over a 1000 mile distance with less than a 15% total energy loss and can run for over 100K hours unattended with no major maintenance after the initial setup.

All I am asking is for anyone to provide an honest and provable by conformable numbers example putting the known numbers of an electrical transmission system Vs any other system that meets the above working criteria!

Sure...a pressurized water/oil/air pipeline. But transforming this energy into some other form of more useable energy might prove difficult. Next question please...

But of course, you missed the point. "Viable" wind systems have always been mechanical in nature....pumping water for the cattle, pumping water out of canals in Holland, grinding grain, moving manure. All pretty local stuff. No thousand mile transmission involved at all. Compare to "Non viable" wind systems have always been those systems which competed with electrical systems head to head. You are not going to beat nuclear or coal or hydro by being cheaper. You are going to have to pay to be green. That's the point. Eventually, of course, we won't have an option.

What we are seeing now is electricity being used for everything. Farm down the road replaced its hundred year old windmill with a brand spanking new electric pump for the cattle. I personally don't see this as a "progression". And the farmer is now having second thoughts as he contemplates the higher electric bill. Small detailed example I know, and of course, cannot be applied to everything. The computer upon which I write this uses power from Niagara Falls, translates it to a hundred thousand volts and transmits it to the substation up the road. (losses 3% in generation, another 3% to boost voltage, 7 to 10% loss in transmission, another 4% in step down transformation and another 7% loss to the local substation. Then 3 to 5% loss in the pole transformer on my street, (we are up to a third of the power lost by now...) then it is distributed to my computer, where it is used to charge my laptop battery. Big charging loss here of more than 75% of what is left. The electric light overhead is a 60 watt bulb which needed 100 watts to be generated to run it. So transmission losses are huge, and ongoing and they won't go away. The answer is NOT to come up with ways to make more power....you will never replace a billion barrels of oil which is driving the one person-one-car-commuters with wind power....the idea is ludicrous. The answer is at the other end...the consumption end. The question we should be asking as architects and designers is "where can we use a wind powered mechanical device instead of importing electrons from a thousand miles away. The designers of hvac systems in shopping malls can look to using wind to reduce electricity consumption in pumps and cooling systems. Note I did not say "replace". Remember, saving one kilowatt of energy at the consumption end means you don't have to produce four kilowatts at the source. Can you think of any other industries which could benefit by installing a wind turbine on their roof?

I can.

awesome points. GA

Good Ideas Yusef1,

Could be that compressed air be the ideal energy storage medium for wind turbine machines. Better than batteries and non-corrosive. Compressed air is even efficient in braking a hundred car freight train.

WE have had compressed air (for oxygen/acetylene heat production) in high pressure cylinders for quite some time. (Wonder what the energy u\potential is for a 1000 psi compressed air storage? ) Could be that initial costs, maintenance expense and break-down risks could be reduced?

Think Compressed Air for storing wind energy (air compressor instead of electic motors, batteries, and capacitors), and we have solved the need for steady-state power output from wind turbine farms.

We can move mountains if we seek all the mechanical and energy resources. Could this be the right solution? Hello?

Good thinking, Mr. Yusef1 Engineer.

DRS

Having worked for Johnson Controls, I know that an entire generation of facility controls was run on compressed air, and every kind of controller, sensor, switch (and compressor) has been used. I believe that as the pressure goes up, the number of leaks also goes up, and as you enter "High Pressure" zones, the more your technicians/pipe fitters have to know and be certified, and the equipement too, depending on who you are selling to. Also it is harder to find leaks with air, that say hydraulics.

I also worked with a company that made hydraulic accumulator systems for oilfield drilling blowout preventers (big hydraulic safety valves) and at the higher pressures, you are very likely using the same systems... so why not simply go hydraulic?

Chris

GA...Hydraulic-air-assist is an all time favorite, it favors the K.I.S.S. dynamic

I like hydraulic...after all, I worked twenty years on aircraft hydraulics. Nothing better for rams, actuators, and positive movement. It has its place. I like air better because when it squirts in your eyes, you don't get blinded for a week, when it spills all over the floor or farmer's field, you don't have an environmental disaster on your hands, and when you have a "problem" a thousand miles away from home and your supply of hydraulic fluid, everything doesn't come to a grinding stop. Plus you don't become a fire hazard when compressed air spills all over your coveralls. Air powered rams are becoming more popular for fixed load applications such as opening windows way up in the attic or cooling tower, opening and closing shutters and blinds. They are a fraction of the price of electrical actuators of equal power, and air lines don't boil because they are too close to the exhaust manifold, become air entrained, or turn to wax in 40 below temperatures.

I am a fan of low to medium pressure air myself. Its easier to make, and fairly easy to store....and has a lot of uses. One thing it cannot do is drive a car.

Electronic actuators are very interesting too.

Good answer in general but unfortunately techicaly you did not meet the no moving parts requirment! There is an inherent flaw in large distance energy transmission by pressurized fluids or gasses, line drag, pumps and motors. I seroiusly doubt there are massive pumping systems capable of producing a constant output for 100K hours with no maintnance! Plus real life experiance says line losses add up fast and take away large amounts of the usable energy in rather short distances. It never reaches 100% loss but it gets very near that with any fluid over the length of a pipe. Far faster than electrical transmission does. Plus as mentioned leak factor gets to be a problem . As does the conversion from one form of energy to another. In the right applications its super! I like the hydraulic controls and power on machinery! But lets see the real numbers on a 1000 mile system that transfers that 1 GWh. The problem with compressed gasses is even worse though. I have not seen any real documented and proven information on a pumping and reclamation systems that gets even reasonable start to finish energy transfer numbers. My air powered die grinder takes an honest 5 Hp two stage commercial air compressor to run it. But it doesn't have any greater power than my 1/2 hp electric one it replaced did. Roughly 10% efficient doesn't thrill me one bit.

Local hydraulic and air based power transmission systems have been tried and tried again over the last 150+ years but simple setup cost, power capacity, overall efficiency, reliability, and versitility is why electrical power got to be what it is today.

The common problem of local power storage is never fully addressed and only ever speculated on. Do the numbers on how big and how high of pressure a storage system would need to be in order to power a mall just for off peak power consumption offsetting. How big is the tank for 1 MWh of returnable and usable energy and how much power went into charging it up? The cooling effect of releasing the air is not a free meal either. Its just reclaiming the heat the was developed when it was compressed in the first place. Standard heat pump physics to me.

I live in an area with wind and livestock. The ranchers dumped the old wind mill systems due to too much maintenance and unpredictability. Too windy they don't work, to calm the don't work, light winds they dont pump enough, good winds they keep pumpeing even when its not needed. If the old wind mills were truly cheaper and more reliable they would still be widely used but simple cost analysis says thats why the got dumped in the first place. Operating costs were high capacity and availability was erratic and just not financially better in the overall cost of livestock production.

Efficiency of actions ultimately leads to better solutions! If it can be done cheaper, more reliably and with less maintenance it will.

I like the idea of producing as much power as possible as close to the load as possible but unfortunately that has practical limits and thats why we have the national grid electrical system and not the small independent generation systems that were common decades ago. The national electrical grid works as a giant load sharing system more than anything.

What really is required to even the wind load is STORAGE.

As for cattle... just get the cows to pump the water. They weight hundreds of pounds, so just have the herd walk over a thingy on their way to the pond, that pumps the water into the pond, and again on their way out, and on their way to food/shelter/milking/whatever.

For that matter, there is 6 billion people on the planet... thats a herd...

Chris

ever try to get another person to do something that required physical effort that was not in their immediate best interest?

Cows on treadmills will happen sooner!

Hi Chris,

Would you believe that there are people making a living off of "cow manure".

We have a "milk" industry here in the Pecos Valley (home of 100,000 milk cows), and many people are living profitably off of "cow manure". That is a lot of cow manure.

Who needs wind power?

All you solar nurds, like me, should check the solar energy article in September 2009 National Geographics. It is a mind boggling blog.

Hey guys, this is the 21st century, and I will be here in 2038, to celebrate my 100th birthday.

DRS

___________________________________________________________________

Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.

Well,

This has been a contest using our wits, our egos, our education, and our determination....to harness the power of the wind. In 20 years, 20,000 Megawatts of wind power will enter the power supply, because it's technically possible and as always, "Clean, Free, and Forever".

It appears that we are back to low-maintenance-hydraulic motors to possibly transfer torque to a generator on the ground and electrolize water to HOH and has a reversible on-demand, steady state generator to serve local or distant demands, or whatever. Some kind of machine will get the power to your shop or home.

The result of utilizing enormous wind power potential comes to a summary:

1. We are looking at AE to make clean and cheap energy to power our economy, like Germany, which is years ahead of the US in AE capability, including elevated hydro storage systems, and could technically shut down the fossil fuel powered generators for some periods. It is a matter of "do I have natural resources?", and "I have no other choices?". Soon we will have roof-top wind turbines on multi-stories buildings?

2. Nuclear power plants are in design stages (like those on carriers) to provide short term demands, and make smaller hard core reactors to keep the nut-cakes away. Nuclear has a good performance track record, and where people in France do not have to many choices, they survive with nuclear power. Peak Power stations (using natural gas engine/generators) have been around for decades for peak demand periods. We can , and we will, and we must. We are building a huge European design "Uranium Recycling Facility in Eunice, New Mexico, because smart investors are way ahead of the "HERD".

3. The whole purpose of windturbines (or any kind of AE) is to provide long-term jobs that will feed lots of people. There has always existed (The plane will never fly), a negative attitude problem about any or all technolgy advances, and that is just human nature. I've have seen oil rigs which drill 25,000 foot holes in West Texas that were powered by huge Hall Scott Natural Gas Engines, in 1962.

4. Through Pickens Plan, a private venture, it is just a realistic "attitude" more than anything (let's use 100% American Energy resources). Just within the past few weeks, DOE estimates an immediate 33% increase in natural gas reservses. The Natrual Gas Bill will have resistance, but our resolve will guarentee us in using our own natrual resources, which will eliminate insane oil importation, and dollar exportation. Pickens is right, and the grid will be modified, just like in France or Germany or China or India, because there is a need, and his Army has the will.

Any other ideas?

DRS

------------------------------------------------------------------------

If there is a will, there is a way.

I like wind.. here is 2 ideas I had for wind capture devices.

1 Horizontal Axis (see here for more)

2 Vertical Axis

plus, if you have enough concrete... you can build a hydroelectric storage/generation system like this, and never run out of power. (read the whole thread here)

and I think there is still a vast amount of tidal and wave energy to be tapped.

but as I said before.. storage would be soooo helpful to the dilemma. with that, we can put solar, wind, wave, tidal, hydro, chemical, nuclear, geothermal, OTEC, etc into that storage, and live happily ever after.

Chris

perspective

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124753066246235811.html

Dear Anonymous Hero,

I don't think the papers or other media are at all shy about pointing out what the politics involved are.

In fact whatever politicians and political parties somehow wrest credit for improving the economic circumstances will mean they will either keep their jobs, or be voted out.

What's new about the government having control of the economy anyway? It sure doesn't look like we'd be in quite the mess we are if they had actually paid a little more attention to it. Last I knew I as a citizen was still part of the government, and actually had some responsibility.

Do you believe everything you read?

We who know you have strong evidence that you don't. Certainly when it comes to the issue of what is either called Global Warming, or alternately now, Climate Change, you are pretty strongly on record as saying you don't believe we have much to do with it. In one paragraph you say the government should do nothing, and in the same paragraph you say it ought to reduce taxes.

Come on now my friend, is not reducing taxes doing something?

Energy in excess is the foundation of civilization. We know that oil is finite so betting on that seems foolish. Sure enough Wind is not alone the solution to all of our energy needs, but even if it was, and simply required two or three states in the US to be dedicated to getting it and putting it on the Grid, that's no real reason not to do it. Doesn't seem to me Texas got all upset about sucking all the oil out of its ground as long as the "right" people got rich doing it.

Oil is old. Natural Gas is going to be long legged and transitional. Wind, Solar, Tidal power, and all the rest of the alternatives are going to be the future.

That's the way things are.

P.S. The Government, is us. Vote for the Grid!

Hi Yusef1,

Yes, I think of those problems too.......but I am an engineer and I am paid to solve these problems, but I do not always give the perfect solution, so I will check the "solutions", because I have made serious errors in my initial assumptions.

Remember from high school algebra......provide "proof" of your answers.

DRS

_________________________________________________________________________

Be humble, my poop stinks, just like everybody else"s

Wind energy is most efficient when able to take advantage of economies of scale, making wind-farms with massive turbines the smart way to go. The wind conditions where a wind farm is sited - consistent, laminar air flow -- also contribute to their efficiency. If you try to scale a wind turbine down to, say, building size, you lose the efficiency to the point where you are roughly equal to solar panels in to terms of cost per kilowatt. And solar panels don't have the operating problems associated with wind turbines - noise and vibration, maintenance issues and that whole pesky turbine-blade breaks off and goes flying thing that building owners and insurance companies love so much. Airflow conditions are generally too turbulent for building-based turbines to be efficient enough to make economic sense. Eventually, engineers will learn to design around all these issues, but for now, small turbines just don't seem to make sense. Rich Silverman Goodway Blogging Team http://www.goodway.com/hvac-blog/

There is a turbine called a "Swiss Ball" which is not the traditional three blade design, it does not kill bats, and is designed for very small operations. Like, you "could" air condition a dog house with it. Or run a small compressor. Nobody has mentioned this item yet. But it is in production....

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/09/03/energy-ball-by-home-energy/

Inhabitat has a really ugly but remarkably small and efficient and very quiet turbine set pictured here....I don't know how it does against bats, but the enclosed turbine seems to be very bird friendly.

http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/05/06/optiwind-accelerating-wind-turbine-taps-new-fields/

You are totally correct that the smaller ones are not nearly as efficient, however, in all fairness, an efficient wind turbine located a hundred miles away becomes inefficient as well, even more when you start calculating the copper costs, power factor losses, and impedance losses. Maintenance costs and manufacturing costs could (and do) presently exceed the energy recovery available. The creation of super reliable and inexpensive turbines is an engineering problem which is being solved as we watch (!) so this situation is only temporary.

My barn is unpowered because the local utility will charge me a couple thousand dollars per pole to get electricity to it. If that is a refection of the true cost of getting electricity from point A to point B, I am tempted to just opt out of it for good. The electrical "grid" is really expensive to build, and maintain. A local wind set up can do a lot of good stuff without building an electrical grid.

I put a black painted flat galvanized steel vertical pipe on the south side of my building, the heat from the sun results in a remarkable flow of air. Hot air no less. (I understand firemen use just such towers to dry their hoses...or so I have heard.) I use just such a system to ventilate my basement, I got the idea from watching how termites in Africa ventilate THEIR huge mounds. I figured I was at least as smart as a termite...so I built such a system. It works as long as the sun shines, and because of residual mass, it works well into the evening. At present, I have to manually shutter the "tower" to regulate the remarkable amount of air flow. A small computer, a tiny amount of electricity, a simple sensor could actuate that shutter for me.

What is the lesson here? Well, rather than having a ventilation fan which used up a fair amount of "grid" electricity, I replaced that noisy old fan with a tower which has very few moving parts. The few moving parts which are left could be powered by an "inefficient" local windmill sitting up on the roof out of the way. The idea of having a windmill of a sort inside that tower would, of course, be just too elegant a solution...grin...but wouldn't that be awesome! You would not need much, it would not need to be very efficient. No bats or birds. (and of course, you would not get any benefit from night breezes.)

I keep thinking about how to use that system to heat my house. Maybe next year...grin!

This is an HVAC blog, full of HVAC experts. Can any of you hvac guys see a use for such a scaleable, easy to install, amazingly "green" supplementary ventilation system?

I like the Optiwind plan, but I think that they have made a design error in choosing a perfectly round tower. In aerodynamic terms it has long been known that round induces too much friction for proper streaming flow. better to at least use an oval plan. other than that, it would be excellent for wind energy and storing water as energy storage, and could easily support solar panels too. lots of potential here, although it does not have a lot of leverage or torque to the turbines, and therefore total power will be low. this is why modern turbines are large.. radius = leverage = torque = generating power.

also not shown, is how they intend to keep the unit pointed into the wind.. which if the tower was oval plan, with a tail, would be automatic. otherwise you have to use a positioning control system of some sort.

Chris

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/03/21/micro-wind-turbines-small-size-big-impact/

Yusef1 wrote: My barn is unpowered because the local utility will charge me a couple thousand dollars per pole to get electricity to it. If that is a reflection of the true cost of getting electricity from point A to point B, I am tempted to just opt out of it for good.

We are seeing more and more of this. There was a time when the electrification of rural ( Canada or America) areas meant everyone could be hooked up. In this age of cost cutting power utility companies are passing on the entire cost ( and then some) to the consumer. Result? In the short run we are seeing more and more homes powered by noisy internal combustion motors spewing ou toxic exhaust gases. Until people get smart about it they will also consume huge amounts of fosil fuel. Talk about counter productive. Unfortunately small scale power generation is not common available nor is the equipment affordable compared to buying a cheap genset at Costco.