More On Windmills

I assume we are discussing wind turbines.

Walt, you said "I know that a windmill will never produce as much energy as it takes to build." From where did you get that pearl of information?

Stetson number? Please expand, term is unfamiliar to me.

It's Zippy the Pinhead's hat size.

You must be anti-reality, too.

From: Wind Turbine Output

A 1.8-MW turbine can produce more than 5.2 million kWh a year--enough to power about 520 households.

The key term is "can produce", running all the time. they don't. And somewhere else there is a 1.8MW power plant ready to go online if the wind stops.

Uh, boy.

"The key term is "can produce", running all the time. they don't." Well this is why we need to put some turbines in your back yard... when the wind stops here, the wind will be blowing over there.

Didn't you get the memo?

[edit] I can see this getting fanatical in a hurry. I'm outta here.

That was not what you stated. No where did you qualify the question with "can produce' nor "running all the time".

"I know that a windmill will never produce as much energy as it takes to build."

You are not in touch with reality.

5.2 million KW/ year. That is not the size of what we have here. And my term is wrong. Wind turbine is correct. My point is that in all of the manufacturing of material to build the things, Steel, concrete, carbon fiber, energy used is added up, and spread out over the lifespan of the system, against the actual output, including the back up systems required there is a negative benefit. I am not anti-energy or progress just anti-feel good projects.

Doorman a stetson number is a number often used by pro and anti anything and governments to justify a position or action. Numbers pulled out of a hat, in this case a stetson. A current example is the unemployment numbers 71/2 percent, 81/4 percent

You have done three complete about faces in just three posts.

That my be a record.

Wear your tin foil hat if you go outside.

At least I learned what a Stetson was. Sounds kinda like a henweigh.

Bye.

"That's cheaply available only in wet mountainous areas. "

First off pumped storage isn't cheap anywhere; but is either "mountainous" or "wet" required to make it happen? Wouldn't stream flows only need sustain evaporation rates once the lower reservoir was filled?

And mountains? How much head does a hydro-turbine require?

Pumped storage is cheap in wet mountainous areas, because they tend to already have hydroelectric dams -- often a series of them, one below another on the same river. That makes it easy to add the pumping provisions, running the river backward, in effect.

In dry mountains, streams are typically too small to already host hydroelectric dams. You can still build nearby high and low elevation reservoirs and implement pumped storage, but if you have to build new dams, it won't be cheap.

Away from mountains, you could excavate a low elevation reservoir deep underground. If you have to do that, however, it's more economical to use if for compressed air energy storage rather than pumped hydro.

Arrrrroooooooooogah! Incorrect dimension alarm!

kWh/year is meaningful. kW/year is meaningless.

Anyone care to help me build a list of things that take more energy than they ever produce?

Your home, vehicles, garage, your lawn mower, highways, office buildings, manufacturing buildings, the internet, schools, trains, boats,cargo ships, furniture, construction machines, your children, your pets, telecommunications systems, rockets, the space shuttle, satellites, air planes, the military in general, our government.

The point is measuring the value of something based on its theoretical construction energy value compared the value of electrical power is completely pointless and has no true or valid meaning. When something is built or manufactured there are many different forms of energy that go into its construction and many of those forms of energy are far far cheaper than electrical on a per unit of energy cost.

Relating to what the value of a wind turbine in relative numbers that's measured by cost to manufacture Vs the value of its electrical power it makes in its designed life time.

In this case a typical large wind turbine costs about $150 per KW of output capacity which means that if its putting out electrical power valued at 1.5 cents per KWH it would have to run at full output for about 10,000 hours at full capacity to pay for itself. Even with adding in maintenance costs and up keep costs a large wind turbine when placed in a good location takes around 5 - 8 years to reach its break even point on its construction. After that the remaining 12 - 20 years of operation is largely pure profit which places it long term life value at minimal at around 3 - 5 times that of its initial construction costs.

Increase the value of the electricity it produces and that run time to break even gets even less. Same with if its placed in a high wind location and it reaches that break even run time in less years. Do both and a wind turbine can easily have a lifetime return on investment of over 20 times it initial construction price. (Stetson number of .05/1 ?)

Now that all said if an over priced wind turbine gets put in a low wind location where its market value of output power is near zero that politics fault (which is basically your fault for not voting for the right people.) and not the wind generators design costs fault.

"1.5 cents per KWH it would have to run at full output for about 10,000 hours at full capacity to pay for itself. "

In East Texas I pay about 11 cents/ KWH. In the past year I have been places that have payed as high as $1.08 (on an island off Thailand) and $.48 in Tonga.

Is $.015 a reasonable figure to use for sale price; even here in the US? That suggests about a 7 to 1 ratio of delivered sale price to production cost.

If grid costs are that high then perhaps its time to rethink large grid distribution. Whoops - does that infer decentralization?

I will suggest that one HUGE advantage in capital planning for Green Power Technologies is predictable operating costs that are non-responsive to the whims of Theocrats and Politicians. Not something that can be said for fossil fuels.

Good point.

I've always been a pumped water fan.

GA.

GA! Now how about using them for the Red River in the spring (dunno where to pump it tho!!)? If you could do that everyone there would gladly spring for one in their backyard!

So if I have a wind turbine, I can use it to cook the lime for the cement and heat/refine the ore and power the rolling mills and wire drawing mills in order to build its replacement? And cover the energy used to maintain the things? And to cover the energy used to keep it ticking over to prevent shaft slump damage. As well as the trucks and infrastructure and maybe even the paycheques for the workers as well? And cover the energy used in maintenance?

No seriously....I can actually DO that?

Really? Well, if I had a hundred of them, could I use them to create enough energy to build a second hundred then hmmm? Work up a continent wide set of bird grinders. So, when do you get to USE the energy they create to keep your home computer running?

Or is Walt onto something?

I think I should have made this reply to Silverthorn rather than to tcmtech, but hey, as long as I get it out there...grin!

I found Silverthorn's link to be...um a little biased....but all in all a good link.

So what points and concerns are you going after exactly?

Also what is shaft slump damage?

My point I thought was obvious. It takes energy to make concrete. It takes energy to refine stainless steel and aluminum. It takes energy to get the copper out of its ore and form it into wire. It takes energy to maintain, inspect and eventually dismantle the project. A LOT of energy. I just find it hard to believe that it can produce enough energy in its lifetime to cover the energy used to manufacture it.

I still don't.

Making concrete is not an "electrical" activity...you burn coal in a lime kiln to do that. Steel, stainless or otherwise is blasted in a furnace which burns coal. Copper is mined with machines which burn diesel, crushed,and then refined with electricity.

I think that when you look at the big picture, it takes a lot of green house gases to create those big machines.

Is it the best alternative? Well, maybe. I could easily be convinced that it is better (for the environment) to burn all that coal to make a wind turbine rather than a coal burning plant. But I don't for an instant think that we are going to fix the environmental problem of green house gasses by building more hydro dams, coal burning plants OR wind turbine farms.

Not a complicated point. The answer, as we can all agree, is to simply use less electricity. Less fossil fuel. Less power plants. Hardly radical thinking. Damned hard to do though. Especially today, here in Ottawa when it is minus 22 degrees C. I picked up a hammer yesterday which had been outside in the cold, and slammed it into my anvil, it shattered into a dozen pieces. The hammer that is. The anvil was fine. Damned high carbon steel! That was one of my best hammers too!

Oh well, I will put another log on the fire. I know, ... but its not fossil fuel now is it?

I have no problem at all with your bottom line: that we need to live more efficiently and waste less energy on stuff that we don't need. Amen to that. But beware the perils of innumeracy. "a lot + a lot + a lot = like, way too much, dude".

Any product can cost more than the energy consumed in making it. It can't cost less. If a product -- a wind turbine in this case -- can be made and installed at a price that is recouped in a fraction of its operating lifetime, and do that just through the sale of energy, then you can be damned sure it is harvesting many times the amount of energy needed to make it.

Engineers frown on using bogus arguments just because they align with a conclusion that you are intuitively convinced must be right.

That was the right answer to the wrong question. It assumes you can get coal really cheaply, sell electricity at high prices, and use all that cheap coal to refine your concrete and steel. And that the wind turbine industry will continue to get some fairly substantial subsidies. The question however, in my mind is fairly simple.... "If you had no coal, no oil, just wind turbines, could you make the wind tubine's replacement?" I think you stated an unequivocal YES. But I don't know if anybody has ever actually tried to do that.

I have not been convinced. But I have seen a lot of straw men being set up and shot down.

Price is a bogus measure because you can get coal cheap. Government subsidies can affect the price of the sale of energy, and carbon credits are skewing the whole picture. Special interest groups all have their personal agenda.

Anyway, bogus arguements? Really? I don't see an arguement. I simply stated that I thought it would take more energy (in the form of coal, oil, and electricity) to make a wind turbine than you get from it during its lifetime. And I have not got a satisfactory answer about why my "intuition" is flawed. All this dissembling about how anything costs energy to manufacture is just obfuscation, and unworthy of this forum.

And I have googled and searched for the answers, and yes, found a veritable army of straw men, but not many hard numbers to back my intuition up. One way or t'other.

Its okay to admit you don't know. No really, I understand. Almost everybody has an agenda. Well, except for me...I just have questions.

I will continue to google. I probably have not asked the right question, thats all. I have a feeling that it will take a spread sheet to figure out the real answer. Personally I rather like wind turbines...they wean us off dependance upon foreign imports, and thereby help remedy the presently squewed "balance of payments". They make people feel they are doing something for the environment. They do a lot of good for wind turbine manufacturer's wallets, and trickle down economics supplies jobs. But will we look back a hundred years from now and say "boy, did big coal ever pull a fast one back in the early 21'st, they burned all that coal to refine all that ore, and everybody thought it was somehow good for the environment." I have heard submissions from both sides, and tend to lean towards one side. I could be convinced, but not by suggesting that I am using a bogus argument. You would have to show me where the error lies, not by comparing apples to oranges, which is what you were doing when you suggested that manufacturing prices and RoI had anything to do with energy consumption.

Well, enough of that. Have a great day.

Yusef, you're right; it does take a spreadsheet to figure out "true" cost. Unfortunately, we're not going to come up with true cost no matter what we do (see "false precision"), what with all the subsidies for this and grant money for that. No one said life was fair, or even transparent, as those of us who have had the, ah, pleasure of Cost Accounting 101 et. al. can attest. Although calling a wind turbine a "bird grinder," that's pretty transparent. Fortunately, the Audubon Society

http://www.audubon.org/newsroom/press-releases/2012/federal-guidelines-step-forward-bird-friendly-wind-development

is not so pejorative.

As for whether or not they are cost-effective in a -->market value<--- sense (see "subsidized" above, this is OK

http://www.hpj.com/archives/2010/aug10/aug16/0807StudyColoradoWindEnergy.cfm

but the little chart about midway down is better:

http://www.wind-power-program.com/turbine_economics.htm

(The numbers are in English pounds, but trends are still visible even with extreme diddling with the scale.)

As for whether or not they are cost-effective from a --->EROEI<--- perspective, that's (1) another story, (2) the crux of your posts, and (3) so rife with assumptions (as in politics, yours are unprovable, self-serving, and oh so wrong; mine are common sense, self-evident, and found in Holy Writ) that, gosh, I'll bet (4) a bunch of engineers could post 50 comments and get nowhere near the bottom.

If you're looking for the same hard, verifiable SPREADSHEET data that I am (and that acerbic ol' lyn, and let's not forget "I'm the nice guy" jack and where's anonymous hero when you need him?) then you and I are fresh out of luck.

If you're willing look around and accept that Big Money keeps putting more Big Money into the "bird grinders" (hmmm...), then maybe where they are sited (condition 1), even lacking base load functionality (condition 2), given a reasonable PPA (weasel word for detractors, real world for utility folks and consumers), then they make -->economic<-- sense within those narrow parameters.

Regardless of the -->energy<--- content of the concrete, the steel, price of coal, the intermittent output, the maintenance, NIMBY fulminations, and, and, and. (It's a mighty long list.)

Oh, the Audubon report was pejorative enough, they just got "buy in" to be able to site the turbines in less destructive areas. I applaud them. A walk by the fences surounding Wolf Island's turbines down in Kingston will expose you to a stench and cloud of flies which seems to indicate "something" or "several somethings" has gone to its eternal reward. But hey, maybe that day was an exception. I think one of our CR4 members is FROM Wolf Island, and would be a better reporter than me. I was only there for one day...not enough to establish a pattern! (shrug) It DID, however, provide legs to the complaints made by bird and bat lovers, so what am I supposed to think?

Don't forget, I am just asking questions. There are no wrong questions.

The answer to one question leads to a whole host of other questions of course. I have not formulated all of them, but some of them have to do with questions like the sensible "my small town is being told that the price of electricity will rise in the ten years....can we forestall this by putting up locally owned and operated wind turbines?" to the off the wall "is a wind turbine sustainable in an apocalyptic Mad Max type world?" Or how about "they are talking of removing all subsidies on my wind power plant, should I plan for expansion or gradual shut down? All my questions assume there will be a change in the status quo over the next twenty or thirty years, an overdue limiting or cessation of fossil fuel burning, and sudden reductions of government subsidies to build alternative energy devices. Then social darwinism will kick in and the worst alt energy schemes will fall by the wayside.

All the people who seem to be sniping at me are assuming things will go on as they have in the past. (and unfortunately, I glumly suspect they may be right...we will go right on making the same dumb mistakes over and over again. I was kind of hoping that with alternative energy we can make a whole host of new and different mistakes plans.) And I for one would be delighted to install a wind turbine in my back yard. My neighbours though...might not be so enlightened. I could do with some of those governement subsidies!

And I DO have to admit that as vociferous as the commentary has got, there has not been a flame war! Wow! I LIKE this community!

'....There are no wrong questions...'

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Why are there no wrong questions?

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Will you please provide some support for the remarkable assertion?

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After you qualify your statement, should I remain unconvinced, will you entertain some examples of questions I believe to be wrong?

How would you make a wrong question?

A wrong answer...I could see...

A badly worded question I suppose. I seem to be full of them these days.

Are you becoming pedantic, didactic or merely obfuscatory?

But of course, you still have not answered my original question...."can a wind turbine create more energy in its lifetime than it took to make it?" Perhaps because you can't. Or won't. Or have an alternative agenda.

It takes a LOT of energy to refine all that ore, refine all that copper, and mine all that nickel and a lot of energy to cook limestone down into cement. So, the amount of energy it takes to create the wind turbine is admittedly high, but quantifiable. The amount of energy you get out of a wind turbine is quantifiable. It better be, or who would ever invest in them?

I have done a lot of googling, and I now lean towards the "yes". But narrowly. I would have to see the math to be sure, and even then I suspect "best case scenario's" will raise their ugly head. Like a badly sited turbine would never pay back (produce more of) the energy it took to make it. Such a turbine would be better to have not been made, or better to be moved to a better location. Perfectly sited turbines will pay back eventually. So the answer would have to be in the middle, since there are only a few "perfect" sites for turbines.

Enough of this. I have given up on CR4 because nobody knows the answer.

More fun to be pedantic I suppose.

went back and read the thread on bad questions.

Pedagogery at its finest...grin!

'...Enough of this. I have given up on CR4 because nobody knows the answer....'

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#69 was intended to exemplify one (of a myriad) of the possible forms of a bad question. You did not fail to notice the obfuscatory and pedantic traits establishing it as such.

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For almost as long as I can remember, being presented with, 'There are no bad questions', has always struck me as a challenge; something on the order of, 'you aren't creative enough to formulate a bad question'.

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More recently I have decided to see it as a challenge to present a 'bad question' that is appropriate for the current situation (vile or insulting questions are such low hanging fruit).

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My response was not intended to insult or frustrate.

I do understand it can be frustrating when someone you are trying to get an answer to a question in earnest and someone interjects a bad question.

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Assuming a pedantic tone, is only fun ...well, only as long as everyone it having fun.

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So, allow me to provide what I know in relation to your question. Perhaps some portion of it will be helpful:

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First I want to modify the question slightly, in a way that (I believe) preserves the intent.

"is a wind turbine likely to create as much or more usable electricity (KW-hrs) in its lifetime than the sum of what it took to make it, plus the net amount that could be produced had equivalent raw materials and necessary non-raw-material investment been utilized with other current electricity generation technology?"

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The motivation is a desire to narrow the focus while maintaining a useful relation to real world choices. The modification is meant to provide a perspective that accounts for things like the inherent differences in energy spent mining iron vs, the energy spent mining coal that was used in smelting. Obviously mining something that has an alternate use a common fuel for electrical generation is very different than mining something that that requires processing that uses a lot of electricity (or substance that is commonly used to generate electricity). My guess is that this doesn't yet present a problem.

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By 'equivalent' I mean of similar cost in current US dollars.

My guess is that this is the most likely assumption to present a problem. Admittedly the comparison changes depending on the metrics through which it is observed.

US Dollars being the de facto world currency, provides a basis for comparison inclusive of current realities. Those realities are often not 'fair' or necessarily 'equitable', but any comparison that ignores those realities would not relate meaningfully nor suggest viable avenues for making improvements.

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The unavoidable fact is that investment needed to access resources has huge variability based on many factors including, but not limited to: geography, remoteness, sovereignty of nations, trade imbalances, state of local and world economies, public opinion, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. I KW-hr of electricity provided to a hypothetical mine 3/4 of the way up Mt Everest is not equivalent (beyond being measured as a 1 KW-hr) to 1KW-hr of electricity provided to a factory in Crystal River Florida, 5 miles away from the power plant, , for example. Without an agreement on this point, meaningful discourse falls apart.

The most expedient way to account for those types of differences is use total after tax, royalties, customs, fines, etc., cost in US Dollars as the measure of equivalence.

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Within those bounds, we can arrive at a solid answer: 'Yes'.

'Yes': a modern commercial windmill is likely to generate as much or more electricity as measured in Kw-hrs, than the sum of the amount required to construct, install and maintain it, plus the amount of electricity that is likely to be generated.

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It will likely fall in the 'as much' category most of the time.

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The reason for my certainty about this, is a belief in the efficiency of the market.

If commercial windmills not profitable, and competitive against other current technology, then they would cease to be made.

Beyond this, since electricity generated would be sold at wholesale prices, but is consumed during manufacture at retail prices, a strong argument can be made that far more is produced than the sum of what is used for construction, etc., plus an amount equivalent to the other expenditures on a US dollar basis.

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Don't think I didn't see you there in the back (listening in on the the conversation Yusef and I are having), squirming in your seat, trying desperately to get my attention (or at least get a word in). I have a pretty good guess as to the interjection/objection, your eagerly waving arm is trying to signal.

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''But, but, but, you didn't mention subsidies! You've completely neglected subsidies! They won't be profitable without subsidies therefore your entire argument falls apart!'"

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Actually I didn't neglect subsidies. The effect of subsidies is accounted for already by the use of after tax cost in US dollars. Subsidies are a tax, albeit on everything that isn't subsidized.

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Do subsidies create bias and distortions in a market? Of course. Laws and taxes inevitably create market distortions (generally to an extent proportional to the effect on behavior in the real world). But bemoaning distortions introduced to market by Laws (taxes are a subset thereof) is folly, because laws are what establish markets. Markets are not possible without rule of law.

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The reality that some market distortions are less fair than others from a given perspective, would be difficult to deny.

From my perspective, the market distortion created by the huge disparity in requirement for emission from Nuclear Power plant as compared to those for a Coal fired Power plant are grossly unfair. If Coal fired Power plants had to meet to restrictions imposed on Nuclear Power plants for emission of radioactive material, electricity from Coal fired plants would be prohibitively expensive. The average 1000MW coal fired plant releases 5 tons of Uranium and 7 tons of Thorium ANNUALLY as fine particles (breathable). One place you definitely don't want these alpha emitters is in your lungs.

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If a Nuclear Power plant released a small fraction of that in a year, the NRC would have everyone's nuts in a sling....and yet that output is produced reliably, without fail from every coal fired power plant.

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Perhaps a question to ask is: Can a coal fired power plant produce and amount of electricity equivalent to the sum of what it takes to build it plus the amount of energy in the fuel provided for operation? (rhetorical of course)

I LIKE it!

And it sounds reasonable.

There seem to be some strident voices on both sides of this fence. Hard to get to the bottom of it. Where there is money, there is an agenda. Sorting through the agendae is a lonely job!

I don't get the whole argument of energy produced VS energy consumed to make issue.

The problem I see is that given the materials used in reference to our collective society and all the daily conveniences we have where on earth does the concept of valuing anything by how much energy it took to make Vs what it will return make any sense logic?

Very very few man made items we have in our world and society return any levels of energy for what went in to creating them yet they exist in grand abundance which means that apparently their value and purpose is not judged or valued by what energy it took to create them.

Same with the carbon credit concept. Seems pretty convenient/suspicious that it only applies to things that have monetary value or societal control aspects to politicians but they are never weighted in true levels of comparison and volume to what nature does with its carbon cycles whether they gainfully or negatively impact human activity.

'...I don't get the whole argument of energy produced VS energy consumed to make issue....'

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It is only a useful metric for comparing different projects that have as their main purpose conversion of one form of energy into a more readily usable form.

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In my opinion, it has utility when comparing different options for generating electricity, for example. It shouldn't be the only thing considered.

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It isn't a good go/no go test; it is just simple comparison of one measure of efficiency. The simplicity makes it useful as straight forward, quick analysis for cost/benefit. The same simplicity means, at best, it can only provide a preliminary indication of the real live (far more complex) relation of cost'/benefit.

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Not a definitive end to an argument, but not a bad place to begin consideration.

Except of course, tcmtech was right and I was wrong. The question I asked really WAS pointless. An answer to a pointless question would also be pointless. Similar questions really WERE being asked by people with a pre-conceived biased agenda...I admitted that at the beginning of this goat walk. My objective was to find ammunition to counter those self same biased agenda crowds....but I perhaps didn't make it clear that was what I was after. (I have found plenty of ammo, but it is disorganized. For now.)

By the time I stripped the variables away, the question really did become pointless. Clearly then, it was the supposedly "superficial" variables that were actually the meat of the question. Whenever that happens, I know I have missed the point of the exercise. I have asked the wrong question.

There are many complex questions like that...often it is a philosophy or a point of view which is cloaked and obfuscated by "details", when of course, it is the "details" which should have been addressed. It is a favorite debating tactic, just as a for instance.

Me, I 'm just going to shrug and move on. Examine some of those variables I discarded so blithely a little more closely. These include, but are not limited to carbon credits, green subsidies, political advantage, international agreements, native land claims, corporate and business interests, land use, globalization, energy expenditures, pollution and its clean up costs...all demand a more detailed look.

A spread sheet may not be enough!

I'll work on my "how to create a decent question" skills. And sharpen my eye.

So when considering what you wrote,

"....I have found my answers in any case, without input from any CR4 members. I would share them with you of course tcmtech, but of course, you would find them

pointless, biased and weighted...."

, it would be a misunderstanding to interpret the meaning to be:

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-you have found (not in this forum) what you consider valuable input on the topics discussed

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-you are unwilling to provide that information to the interested people in this forum who took the time to respond to your initial and follow up inquiries.

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- you want it to be known that you did not receive meaningful/helpful answers here, that you have found answers you deem superior elsewhere, and that you will not reciprocate the openness/helpful demeanor of those who took time to respond to your initial and follow up inquiries?

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Reading you demean you ability to ask a question in an attempt to invalidate the discussion is a cop-out. It is especially unappealing when you throw in the 'I said so from the beginning', statements not too far from the 'He was right I was wrong' statements.

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Sure your question could have been worded better. Some people to a stab at rewording it for you because there is a worthwhile discussion buried therein. No it isn't very useful to ask how soon the house you built will return the energy used to construct it. There are many questions related to efficiency of resource use that are becoming increasingly important.

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If you are tire, or if what you have gathered seems daunting, take a break, and then respond in kind to those who took the time to respond to you.

It is certainly better than claiming there is no merit in any of the questions, and that you were proven wrong which was really your plan all along as you were just testing to see if everyone would catch your duplicity.

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Go rest. I look forward to seeing comments later that will be more easily recognizable as your own.

Calm yourself, its not so bad!

I will happily state it all again, but I don't need to...its all there in writing.

But, in summary....I wondered if there was merit to the OP's original question. My mind was open. I asked here on CR4 for elucidation. I got some good leads from Marcot and Entrepreneur. I followed those leads independently. Everybody else shot me down, (even you) not by considering the question, but by considering the motives and reasons behind the questions. (biased, weighted, pointless were some of the words used. and now duplicitous! Oh my!) Such words do seem to imply that there is no interest in the answers to my biased, weighted, and pointless questions. Please remember, that I did not use those words...they were used to describe me. How SHOULD I respond?

Along the way, I wondered why everybody was squirming on their chairs and dodging the question. I considered why so many good people would shoot me down personally instead of dealing with the question, and I decided that perhaps I should duck for cover, (always a good idea when somebody is shooting at you!) and examine my methodology more closely. I found that the facts (such as I could find) are much more complicated than I ever realized. Everything is too holistic, and too many vested interests are at work, so it is difficult to summarize. Not impossible. It just cannot be done with justice in the comments section of an engineering forum....at least not without a half a year of analyzing of data, but I might have some back of the envelope figures which I will get to later.

So I looked at the OP's question. Looked at mine. Decided that mine was so bare bones that it really WAS pointless, so any answer would be pointless as well. I had to reluctantly come to the conclusion that the Walt's original question was best, and I would defer any further research to answering his self admittedly biased question, perhaps without the bias. I now believe that I had the wrong end of the problem, and that my approach does not admit of an answer.

What more do you want of me?

"It is certainly better than claiming there is no merit in any of the questions, and that you were proven wrong which was really your plan all along as you were just testing to see if everyone would catch your duplicity."

???????????????

shrug.

Be that as it may, there is really no merit to any of MY questions. They are too simplistic. I realize that now. Walt's original question is the strident battle cry of those opposed to Wind Turbine Farms. Lots of merit in HIS question.

"- you want it to be known that you did not receive meaningful/helpful answers here, that you have found answers you deem superior elsewhere, and that you will not reciprocate the openness/helpful demeanor of those who took time to respond to your initial and follow up inquiries?"

Sure I don't mind sharing the answers that I got when I looked up Walt's question. It is really difficult to pin down though. The "anti-wind bias" he refers to is REALLY ingrained with some people.

Tentative results of MY research, since you ask, are that wind turbines will not return more energy than was used to create them during their serviceable lifetime IF they are poorly sited. They will return more than the energy it took to make them if they are properly sited. Optimal sites for wind turbines are plentiful at this time, but since one of the factors is distance to market, almost any site can be considered sub-optimal in some way. The question facing those who plan to invest in this technology is how many sub-optimal things can you accept before this becomes a non-self sustainable power source. (the weighted and biased question at this point would be "Why not just send the coal you would have used to make the wind turbine into the coal burning power plant directly instead of refining all that metal and stuff?" Answer....because you get more energy by building a properly sited wind turbine. A poorly sited "suboptimal" wind turbine that just sits there, asking to be maintained but not putting out enough energy get you a pay back "on energy"...shoulda just stuck to the coal plant. The obvious question at this point would be, what is the payoff? It "might" get you a cash payback (RoI) if you can get the coal cheap enough, and it "might" get you a political payback if you can convince enough people that the jobs are worth the cost of the coal, and it "might" be valuable as a carbon credit for what it "might" be capable of producing. Those "mights" are outside of most engineering considerations, so I found them hard to track down. Some of these "mights" are very important, and some of them, particularly the political ones, make up most of the wild eyed conspiracy theorist's rants. Others, the more important ones are really hard to quantify.)

Things that can create sub-optimal conditions would include those factors I mentioned in my previous post, and my previous paragraph, but I will add to the list much less easily quantifiable considerations which we ignore at our peril. For instance, "criminals" of all levels, some who steal transmission tower components, wires, others who simply steal the product. You would have to add security (and their gasoline burning patrol vehicles) to the cost of this installation. "war torn areas" or potential war torn areas which may limit the serviceable lifetime of power generation technology, persons of influence who may divert energy to higher paying but less efficient uses, and service contracts (padded or otherwise) which affect the RoI, as well as those who site wind farms in sub-optimal areas due to political considerations. (Like, considering the political unrest we have been reading about this last couple of weeks, would you invest in a wind plant in Mali tomorrow? Tricky question that! A big multi billion dollar plant? A smaller less efficient local initiative? Your choices may well be governed by other considerations than pure efficiency and RoI.) Other conditions which contribute to sub-optimal use is how the land is being used at this time. Jungles and mountains might be good...or might not...but a powerful lot of land is covered in Jungle and Mountain. Skyscrapers in cities would be problematic, partly because what gets put up will eventually come down, and broken blades flying through city skies would give most politicians heart palpitations, and it would only take one incident to suddenly shut down part of a grid. So we agree that turbines built over built up areas would need to be better built and better maintained (more expensive energywise) than turbines built on pilings over Lake Ontario. That is just a "for instance". Some of the best sites might well be on waterfowl migration flyways and would, therefore, be disallowed under the legislation, their alternative would be less good, less "optimal".

So it is more complicated than it seems at first blush. (I was going to support the above statement with a dozen more links, then decided that they are self-evident enough and they get in the way. I can provide those links if you like though. I am not making this stuff up.)

I would hate to think that you think I just took my ball and went home just because I got a knot in my face.

Thank you.

From what I can find a typical large wind turbine in the 2 MW range weighs in at around 120 - 150 tons plus has around 300 - 400 tons of concrete and steel in its base.

So whats that equate to in every day life for equal masses?

150 tons of steel = about 3/4 of one railroad locomotive or 10 empty rail cars or 3200 feet of railroad track or 14 empty semi trucks and trailers or about 50 average sized pickups or 100 cars or 7 large pieces or farming machinery or the framing for one medium sized store or the re bar for one mile of 4 lane highway or one average highway overpass bridge or 5 typical EHV transmission line towers or two cell phone towers.

400 tons of concrete = 267 yards of concrete or full basements garages and driveways for 4 -5 average sized residential zoned homes or a 120' square area of commercial parking lot or 1/2 of a residential block of two lane road with side parking or about 150 feet of 4 lane interstate highway or about 1/3 of one typical highway overpass.

The point is in realistic comparisons to ordinary everyday things we all see use and take for granted 150 tons of steel and 400 tons of concrete really doesn't go very far or add up to much and what it does add up to in all most all of it has zero to highly negative energy return values!

Well said. A Good Answer in the discussion at hand.

Thank you. That really IS helpful.

Yusef1;

Couldn't the same be said for the mining and milling of uranium, the production and fabrication of the specialized materials for the centrifuges, the electrical power used in the enrichment process, the steel and concrete in the reactor vessel, piping, and controls?

in terms of lifetime and waste-stream costs; isn't wind energy, natural gas, solar, coal, hydrothermal, or geothermal energy production more predictable than Nuclear Power?

The only way a reactor operator can fix through cycle cost is to operate within the US or purchase the fuel from a US supplier; where the US Taxpayer takes financial responsibility for the SNF.

Perhaps Wind Energy isn't such a bad deal when looked at in that light?

Gavilan

Of course. But then, since when did two bads make a good?

Am I REALLY that difficult to understand? Clearly I am!

I never said it was a bad idea. Wind energy may well be an answer. Perhaps THE answer. It may well waste less fossil energy to manufacture than the production of (whatever, a hydro dam, an airplane, a tidal generator, whatever) but what does that have to do with the price of rice in China? That comes later when we are engineering to make it better. First, we would have to define "better". If it only put out half the energy, but used wooden carbon neutral vanes, would that be "better"? You see where I am going with this! But that is the next stage. I have never once drawn any conclusions because I have not got an answer to the first part of the problem. Remember, it all started when Walt asked about the energy of production, and I have heard that rant before. Was there anything to it, I wondered. So I asked the CR4 folks.

I said that I found it hard to believe that its energy output was so great that it could cover its own energy of manufacture. NOBODY has yet disabused me of that notion...they talk about price, knowing that there are countless considerations when you talk about price, foremost among them are subsidies of various types. Moreover, did you get a sale on when you bought the coal? Perhaps you own the coal mine? Did you make your own hydro plant? (Aluminum and copper producers do!) Did you get a development grant? They talk about carbon credits, a lot of things. It may WELL get you back more energy than you would spend to create the machine. I don't know. Apparently nobody here knows either. We all agree that it is a trickier question to answer than it seems at first glance. Energy of production in pretty high. Hydro dams put out more energy in their lifetime than they got from manufacture. Or DO they? Is the same true of wind turbines?

Would it help if I put it this way....Everything uses a carbon footprint to make it. We are all agreed that carbon footprint equals bad. (if we don't agree at this point, I may as well stop right here.) If I was to create one wind turbine by any means possible, would there be enough energy available from that turbine to make a second one? If so, there would be NO carbon footprint in the second one at all. That would be a good thing. If it still costs carbon to make the second one, it is still a bad thing. Perhaps not as bad as other projects, but still bad. The next question would be of course, how do we make it better.

Hardly rocket science, but I just don't seem to be able to ask the right questions to get any kind of solid answer.

Nuclear uses up a LOT of resources to get a LOT of power. Not quite sure why you brought it up.

The CR4 community by and large is supportive of lower carbon footprints, within the constraints of reasonable engineering. Why is carbon footprint a consideration? Well, increasingly it is becoming more important to keep the emissions down than to create the newest and best machine, bridge or whatever. But this IS a community of engineers, who know the best way (build that railway bridge with stainless steel) and they may resent being told to build it the carbon neutral way (build that railway bridge with wood). I am not suggesting that we build our windmills out of wood (though come to think of it, why not? Good enough for Don Quixote. Hmmm. a whole new thread here I think! Okay, I can think of a dozen reasons why not! No need to light the fire of the flame war!)

I think the world needs less energy producing machinery, and must learn to use what its got. It needs to use less oil and less war metals like tantalum and lithium. I wonder if huge wind farms will achieve that goal, or are we failing yet again. Delaying the piper's payment yet again?

If CR4 members can't answer these questions, then who the hell can?

You're effectively asserting that the manufacturing cost of an item can be less than the cost of energy used in the manufacturing process. That's a prima facia absurdity.

In that case, you'll just have to produce more to make up for the losses.

Please read it again.

"We are all agreed that carbon footprint equals bad"

Not so fast.

I own timber land, land with many trees and nothing else growing there, except undergrowth and bunnies and squirrels.

If I never harvest any wood from the forest and just let it die and rot in place, is my carbon footprint different than if I cut it by hand and burn it for fuel, thereby saving the electricity and natural gas I would have used otherwise to heat my home?

Wood is a renewable resource. It uses up carbon to make it. At best, it is made into lumber. At worst it is burned. Even if it burned, it took carbon out of the air to make it. So it cannot put more carbon into the air than it took out. Therefore wood is carbon neutral. Fossil fuels add more carbon to the air than was there before. Carbon neutral is easier on the environment than fossil fuels, which add more and more carbon to the air every year. That is my understanding. I suspect it is a gross oversimplification.

So burning wood to keep warm is better and creates a smaller carbon footprint than burning oil, natural gas or (possibly) electricity.

For some variables of "better". It is also smokey, and causes creosote fires and burns stuff, and is a real pain in cities. Understood.

So why do you ask?

"If I never harvest any wood from the forest and just let it die and rot in place, is my carbon footprint different than if I cut it by hand and burn it for fuel, thereby saving the electricity and natural gas I would have used otherwise to heat my home?"

Although the mass of the carbon may be the same; wouldn't the molecular distribution be much different?

(I promise to drag this post back on topic towards the end of it! )

Why? Why would it be different. If Lyn was to let the wood just rot in his woods, it will give off carbon dioxide, just by rotting. If he burned some of it to keep him warm, it will give off CO2. A couple of years quicker, true, but hardly significant in the long run. Not like burning over the Amazon Jungle! Wood is better than natural gas. Insulating his house so that he burns less fuel of any kind is better yet. Seems like a no brainer to me.

We still need to burn something. By burning wood from his wood lot, Lyn is burning carbon which his land pulled out of the air last year, and the year before that. If he burned natural gas to keep his house warm, the carbon dioxide in his woods will still be given off as the wood rots on the ground, and that would be added to the fossil carbon he is burning in his house. The goal is to use less fossil carbon. Again, seems like a no brainer to me.

And let me be the first one to state that Yusef1 one has just admitted to no brain! Ha ha!

Darned good question though.

Now, I will have to slide a little off topic. If this is a problem, please click to the learning channel now.

The "big picture" is that the world can absorb a certain amount of Carbon Dioxide. It tries to make itself carbon neutral. Plants are really good at taking CO2 out of the air! And everybody likes plants! Some of it becomes wood. If we just stuck to burning wood, well, the only good thing about burning wood is that every stick burned is a litre of fossil fuel NOT being burned. It is the excess, above the carbon neutral point which is the problem...it comes down as acid rain (which does its own damage...the Parthenon in Greece is now damaged more by its own acid rain than by the Ottoman Occupation (and thats saying a lot!) and is eventually neutralized by limestone. Large excesses get taken up by seaweeds and algaes, which get eaten by fish in the sea. These blooms are pretty big and eventually they die and sink to the bottom, where they rot and form toxic sewer gas. These toxic upwellings of hydrogen sulphide kill off a lot of sea wildlife, which in turn sink down to rot.

The last time this happened big time was at the end of the Permian period. This toxic gas effect managed to kill off 95 percent of all species on earth. I think this is a significant event, and I for one, would like to know more about it. Like, for one thing, are we creating the conditions by our burning fossil fuel which will set up another event like that one? Might be nice to know! This wikipedia article suggests it. The fact that there are upwellings of toxic Hydrogen Sulphide off the coast of Namibia is troubling...these events are not supposed to happen, and have not happened for millenia. Why are they happening now? Is it a one off, maybe nothing...natures way of taking pressure off? Or is it something more ominous?

So what did cause it then? The scientists in the link above don't think it is carbon dioxide, except indirectly...they note that there is a sudden rise in the level of the ocean simultaneous to that event, which contributes to the problem, and of course CO2 causes the rise of the oceans, and the well documented blooms of algae which may well be a direct result of more CO2. Is it a co-incidence that the South Atlantic is where the smoke from the burning over of the Amazon blows over to? Its not fossil fuel, true, but it is a sudden rise of CO2. I dunno, and I don't think anybody really does. I just know that if I was a fisherman in Namibia, I can't feed my family this year! To that guy, it is fairly significant! Correlation does not equal causation. There might have been something else causing it....a blast of arsenic from gold mining, or an oil spill....or something else. Shrug. Just speculating.

Maybe people ARE causing it. I hope so, because if people with their wasteful fossil fuel burning ways caused, it, we can fix it. If it is just "the sun is getting hotter", then there is nothing we can do. Except wonder if we are going to be part of the 95 percent this time!

In real terms, we can attempt to reduce our carbon footprint. Individually and collectively. Thats what the carbon footprint thing is all about.

Hey, maybe I am completely wrong! Nobody would be happier to be wrong than me! But even if I am wrong, the less smoke in the air has GOT to be a good thing!

We can do so much. Could we make cars out of wood? We used to make ships out of wood! Why not car bodies? Hmmm. maybe not. How about roads being made with bacillium pasturii instead of concrete? Now we are talking! Could we make a car last a million miles? We are engineers, it should be possible!

(now to drag these morning coffee musings kicking and screaming back on topic...)

I keep thinking we can do more. Will wind turbines reduce our carbon footprint, or will it simply make us even more dependant upon electricity? If I saw a single coal burning plant shut down in favor of wind turbine farms, I would probably applaud, however, I don't see that. I would wonder how much carbon went into the air to make all those turbines. I wonder how much diesel and copper goes into maintenance, lubrication and transmission. What do we do with them when they become old and hazardous? Can the metals be recycled out of them? Should they be? We know that recycled metals often are not as reliable as new materials, and so will they need to be replaced with new materials? How much carbon would have to be expended to replace the turbines when they become old and start to fail. How much carbon will be expended to re-cyle those metals?

So. Are these bad questions? I know a lot of established interests are squirming in their seats at these questions. But if the answers are positive, then whats the problem?

If the answers are negative, I want to dig a little deeper. Find out who the culprits are.

At the very least, in the future, when I express my opinion, it will have some sort of basis for it.

I hope.

No seriously....I can actually DO that?

Of course you can. Wind turbines produce electricity, and from electricity, you can get to anything you need, energy-wise. Including production of hydrogen and synthesis of liquid hydrocarbon fuels, if you insist. What's your point?

I suspect that this sort of closed minded like questioning comes from the anti wind power group by means of their not being willing or able to follow the logic that wind turbines for all their worth are simply just electrical power generators and whats done with that electrical power is entirely up to the user to determine what function it will serve.

In freezing winter cold will it function properly?.

OK, but in some areas, the terrain is pretty flat. This means at least some local terra-forming to create a high reservoir and a low reservoir. Surely you do not mean to "wheel" the wind turbine output over 100 miles to the nearest mountain range. Oh, and did I mention you must have access to a water resource that allows pumped storage?

Some tidbit info from my nephew in law that works for XCel (formerly Northern States Power Company). 1 Billion Dollars buys 68 wind turbines, they have a major overhaul every 5 years, and take 9 years to recover the original investment. These are installed in southern Minnesota and Northern Iowa. This was info I got from him ~2011. Don't shoot me for bad memory, but this is I think fairly accurate.

ignator

The Minnesota wind farm is on the Buffalo Ridge about 7 miles south of our place in Hendricks.

I drive out there sometimes when I'm there, and just sit and listen. In the summertime, of course.

REALLY good answer. How do I give you more than one thumbs up!

I'll give that a GA too.

I am actually flying down to work on a Vestas wind farm this month. Small world.

The comparison, in the link provided, should raise some eyebrows.... . I believe that currently, the average cost to produce electricity from a Wind turbine is not as lpw than for Coal fired plants or Nuclear. Costs for Coal and Nuclear electricity production are at least no higher than Wind turbine electricity production cost. . In light of wind turbines having no fuel costs, the following graphs would suggest nuclear and coal would be far more costly to produce. .. . . If wind turbines created a return on energy 100x greater than coal, coal wouldn't be competitive. . The only way I see this graph could be made to look like this is by considering not just the KWhr to build the plant and mine transport the fuel etc....but also the energy value of the coal itself. . The comparison is not equivolent in that case since both windmills and coal plants are merely converters of energy and charging coal with the energy of the input while not doing the same for wind turbines is hardly reasonable. . . Please understand, I think coal is a horrible power source. My point is the arguments need to be made in a straight forward honest manner...doing otherwise will make some people believe that without tricks, the argument could not be supported.

If it pays for about 25 to 50% half of its purchase price (without subsidies) over its life, it will have produced more energy than it took to produce it.

Rationale: In a competitive economy, large mature products sell for two to four times their material cost. Since the material cost has to cover the energy needed to mine and transform it, and I assume that the cost of energy is about the same as what you sell it for. I left out all the mining rights but they are not such a small part of the material price. Labor may be a 50% of the material cost that could be removed but it would not affect the final number that much (10-20%).

Of course, government subsidies distort the picture but this give you a basic evaluation for the energy side. It is not a precise evaluation but it is better than a Stetson number. You can certainly improve on its precision.

You are probably significantly underestimating the labor cost to build a large turbine.

.

Also, significant energy is used after the raw materials are acquired. So while the raw material price may account for the energy necessary up to that point, much energy is used in the value adding processes.

.

On whole I agree with your implication. While there can be wide variation depending on what exactly you include as energy cost, I think in most cases, a windmill is very likely to generate more energy that it took to build it.

Gotta tell ya, I was delighted to read your post. AND the, uh, commentary thereunto.

A while back I wanted to code a Snake Oil Detector Kit. Which I did. You put in -> average <- wind speed and a few other things (26 to be precise), it does a Weibull probability distribution on it, and voila, instant $/kW and IRR. It's on rev 1.08 now and has been in the app store for pushing a year. (Hint: if your site doesn't sport 10-12 mph winds, don't even think about it. And please honor set-back by an order of magnitude or so when you do.)

I never DREAMED that a wind turbine app would also have to cost-justify every item in the supply chain. Silly me; I thought all of that was embedded in the vendor's purchase price of concrete, steel, etc.

But you bring up a less-than-reality-based objection I've heard many, many times yet never truly heard. My bad. Thanks. Really.

There's a classic study about contempt prior to investigation. The key portion is: "A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." Leon Festinger, When Prophecy Fails, Martino Fine Books, Mansfield Center, CT, 2009, p. 3

It would be foolish for anyone to think wind turbines work and could have a short ROI unless they are owned by a power company. We had wind generators here in the midwest USA that worked in the 50s that were real masterpieces of engineering but I was told as child that the owners of those private generators had to destroy their units by using them for target practice before they could get on the grid. If that's true
what a sad day that must have been for some that were pro-wind
After a few rounds from a hunting rifle yes we then had no wind generators that worked but they no longer had to haul their batteries to town to be charged during low winds so they could listen to the radio

I was told as child that the owners of those private generators had to destroy their units by using them for target practice before they could get on the grid.

That may possibly have had more to do with problems of synchronising an independent customer's islanded generator supply to the grid and/or the inability to meter and refund the customer for energy they put in to the grid than anything else. It is much easier today with solid-state controllers and grid regulation changes, but back then.........

<...a windmill will never produce as much energy as it takes to build....>

Folly. If that were the case, then there wouldn't be any incentive to build them.

There is always other people's money...

That what Govs and lobby groups are for...

KWs and ROIs mean absolutely nothing on wind gens
How many CCs (Carbon Credits) per dollar does it generate is the priority

"How many CCs (Carbon Credits) per dollar does it generate is the priority"

Priority for whom?

To Doorman,
Priority for whom?
Priority for anyone in the world needing Carbon Credit offsets as per Kyoto Protocol
Search carbon credits and you can see why CCs are driving the wind & green industry Wikipedia carbon credits
Why are coal, oil and gas burning power companies building wind gens? CCs
Why are oil companies building wind gens and planting trees or building parks? CCs

Why are power companies now allowing grid feeding from customer's small wind gens and solar? CCs again. Before Kyoto I never thought back feeding the grid would be allowed for any reason.

This is why I feel carbon credits take priority over KWs and ROIs and with that bit of information and a $1 dollar bill you might be able to buy a cup of coffee.
If my theory is found to be so much BS I welcome any comments that might shed a different light on the subject. Flame away

Just one old man's theories

By the same line of (narrow beam) reasoning, cars never produce as much energy as it takes to make them and keep them running either. I bet you still drive one.

Rendering woodchucks to power a stirling engine might also take more energy to do than it produces, who knows?

All I know is if I ever need a wind turbine, I know how to make one, and how to generate and store energy with it for my own evil purposes. Hwa ha ha ha ha.

No need wind turbine or any wind to produce electricity. With the equipment I have built, I get 2,500 W (2.5 KW) from 30 W. When constructing to an industrial scale, its potential is impredictable. Anyone interested in its exploitaition?

Start a new thread and include schematics, diagrams and parts lists that a engineer would understand.

Be prepaid though. Your dealing with real educated and knowledgeable people here that play rough with over the unity bunch specifically when they make big claim but cant produce a single viable shred of evidence to support themselves such as documented proof of concept and function.

That is you have to prove it works and to have actually have built one that works as proposed.

You have been invited and warned.

OK I stand, or maybe have beaten down, corrected. One of the advantages of this forum is that I can get informed on subjects by people who know what they are talking about. Thank you all for your input, especially Lyn.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer me.

I know I'm dealing with a comunity of technicians, engineers and scientists and I would never make such a statement if it were not true.

I have no patent and, therefore, I can not make it known to all the details such as schematics, diagrams and details of its components. I can only say that it is an electromagnetic device governed by an electronic circuit. But I already have one built that attests to my statement. An engineer can see it in operation and corroborate my words.

If so, have it verified by a credible (preferably accredited)3rd party and submit the data; then be prepared for a barrage of questions on your scheme, the results and the credibility of the witnesses.

Be aware that a number of those questions will be technically oriented and saying "I can't reveal the details" at that point will be like waving a chicken in front of a hungry alligator. Mention the possibility of looking for investors and you can change that to a crowd of hungry alligators. Be prepared to state why you are even posting this statement on this forum.

I see that in general, the reaction is skepticism. I do not critizice you for that, it really sounds like fable but it is not.

I'll get in touch with someone who can advise me properly because I am not versed in these matters. I just ask a reasonable time to resolve this issue and I hope soon to hear from me again.

Thanks.

So basically like all the rest of the OU folks when it all comes down to it you got nothing.

So how does that work exactly that you can be intelligent enough to crack over unity power production yet not have the basic communication skills to write a description or draw a basic schematic or be even be able to explain what you used for parts and materials to build such a device?

Prove me wrong. Send me a PM here at this site if you need someone open minded and willing to help write up the technical descriptions in a form that a engineer will follow and agree with and can cross check for its validity.

Trust me I am not going to steal your idea being just maybe I have my own OU device that does work and I don't have any need for more money than I have now.

'...and I hope soon to hear from me again....'

.

I doubt you'll have to wait long for your hopes to become reality. I suspect you'll even be warmly received.

"I have no patent and, therefore, I can not make it known to all the details..."

Well, you're in luck:

From this site: The USPTO will not knowingly issue a patent for a perpetual motion machine and the American Physical Society states that they deplore attempts to mislead and defraud the public based on claims of perpetual motion machines or sources of unlimited useful free energy, unsubstantiated by tested established physical principles.

So, you may as well spill the beans, we would love to hear about it.

Relating to you people who supposedly want to save the world and solve all of its energy needs and prove that over unity power generation is real I suggest that just one of you step up and prove it simply as I had suggested and give out the blue prints schematics design specs and parts lists for any such device even if its only a few percent over unity.

That's it that all there is to it. Save the world by proof. All the talk and secretive gobbledy gook so far has done nothing for your peoples causes, creditably, credentials, reputations, betterment of humanity, or anything else.

Heck if you can even provide a workable design for a device with a 1:1 self sustaining power ratio we would be impressed!

So you going to start that thread or what?

Carlos,

To put this in non-technical terms, so that you can understand it, I'd say your claim is laughable and sad at the same time.

And to put it another non-technical way, I think you are full of it.

Delusions are a great way to escape reality, so keep on keepin' on.

No we are not interested in your scam over unity device.

_{Jack - And I'm the nice one.}

Does it involve using a cattle prod on slaves? If so, you can count me out.

"The question however, in my mind is fairly simple.... "If you had no coal, no oil, just wind turbines, could you make the wind tubine's replacement?" I think you stated an unequivocal YES. But I don't know if anybody has ever actually tried to do that."

Seems like a pretty far reaching "what if" to me. What place in the world has a developed industrial infrastructure that can mine iron ore and the materials for making concrete yet does not have access to coal, oil, natural gas, or any form of large scale power generation by any reasonable means?

The entire premise is chicken and egg in nature. IF is a mighty word for its size.

For example of wind technology, how much petroleum (or large smelting) infrastucture did the Dutch have when they began to make windmills to drive water pumps? What came before pumping? Grist mills? What was the technology? I suspect it was pretty low tech, wood, cloth sails, typical of the technology of the day. The Romans had plenty of skill with concrete, even submerged setting concrete (port of Caesarea) even before the Dutch and their windmills, but I suspect there was not much of a knowlege base linking the two.

Therefore I say not only can it be done, it has been done before, we must learn to do it all better.

um, ours in about fifty years.... 165 days tops IF enough people get so annoyed with the US that they won't sell 'em oil. Or if it falls off the fiscal cliff.. Coal is only good for 155 years to 245 years providing we don't ramp up consumption in that time. (hmmmmm I'm not makin' this stuff up!)

But way to bypass the question. No, seriously, if you don't know, you can say so. I will understand, but of course you can always lift up another straw man to shoot down. (The far-fetched-what-if straw man this time....smile) Keep putting them up! The idea was to remove the variables from the question. Judging by the rate which fossil fuels will be used up in the forseeable future, it looks like they will be forcibly removed from the question sooner rather than later.

I guess I could put it another way, "can bird grinders actually cover the energy to replicate themselves or do they need an input from fossil fuels?" How hard a question can that be to answer?

Clearly if they can cover the energy for building them for themselves, they are a Martha Stewart grade "good thing". If they can't do that for themselves, they are some form of government subsidised snipe hunt.

A lot of conspiracy theorists feel that they are just such a boondoggle. I have not seen much literature to shut them up. I don't want to become such a conspiracy theorist because as I pointed out, I rather like them, so I figured I would ask the pros. Clearly the pros (at least the ones here) don't know either. Its okay. I will continue to google and research.

There have been some remarkable rants on the subject on the interwebs in past years. Supporting both positions! I wasn't trying to start yet another one.

(Oh, you asked about shaft slump. I personally have no experience with shaft slump, however I have heard that it is one of several reasons why wind turbines are kept spinning, using "grid" power even when there is no wind. Such power useage tends to act as a dead loss of course, but it must be done or they would not do it.) (Like I said, I have been googling this stuff! So much verbiage, so little knowledge. The internet on this subject is like listening to grade school kids!)

"The internet on this subject is like listening to grade school kids!"

And that's different from CR4?

I rather doubt that we will run out in 165 days in the US being that my home state and souther Canada alone are sitting on what is estimated to be reserves of 1 trillion+ Bbls. Partially discussed here rather recently too. http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/82590

Which by the way the combined daily oil consumption right now is around 25 million Bbbls and we are shipping just over 1 million Bbls a day out on rail alone. ( know that for a fact being I put fuel in those frigging outbound oil tanker trains for 12 hours a day 60 hours a week now.) 15 - 20 trains every 24 hours and each carrying around 3 million gallons. (Sorry but I have been a bit over worked this last few months now.)

As far as covering the energy for building themselves I don't see the point of the whole argument really. No manufacturing business I know of would bother with the concept of trying to run Sly off of wind generators in order to build more when there is a whole world of other power sources and systems in place that make the manufacturing far cheaper and quicker.

Now regarding bird grinders? Oh please, that argument has been disproved so many times now its sad. Vehicle strikes and house cats each alone kill birds at a rate of something close to half a million to one over what wind turbines are doing every year. If anyone is that worried about bird deaths they would be further ahead lobbying against vehicles or people who own cats than worrying about the wind turbine farms.

Relating to shaft slump have a large wind farm a few miles from my house and they don't seem to have any problems with letting them sit and not turn for extended periods of time.

As far as the shaft slump theory goes I find that extremely unlikely being that the blade assembly weighs in at less than 20 tons but the main shaft they ride on is around 20+ inches thick hardened steel!

BTW a typical semi truck axle shaft that easily supports 10+ tons by itself is only around 5 inches in diameter at the bearings and thats still a hollow 5 inches at that!

"Re? I rather doubt..." Not my theory. It was in that link. You DID read the link didn't you? Its not the only one which suggests that the US could potentially be in a bind if there was an economic collapse (fiscal cliff) or if oil imports were to be curtailed into the US through military threats to your suppliers or ideological forces.

The 165 days was the high estimate in that link. You DID read that link didn't you? Your estimate differs then? What is it...double? Triple? A hundred? And what gives you a claim on Canada's oil? We might not want to sell it, maybe keep it for our own children's future. (no wait, belay that, our present government is even worse than yours in that they are willing to sell our kid's legacy to the highest bidder.) (Oh, and do you think a nation which heads over the fiscal cliff will BE the highest bidder? Just askin')

Don't see the point? Really. Well, I explained why I thought an answer would be useful. You don't have to see why I think it is important. Its a question. Science is full of questions. They don't need a reason.

Bird grinders? Again, not MY invention. Cute phrase though. And accurate enough....did you REALLY say that they are not so bad because other forces like cats and motorcars are worse? Like it matters what "other" forces do? Again with the straw men! These things really DO kill birds, as any walk in their area will prove, so I rather like the cute name. Not that I am worried about a few birds....remember, I rather like the idea of having the big things around. Maybe not overlooking stonehenge, or mounted on top of Niagara Falls or in National Forests.

I'll keep looking for an answer. I have found several sites, but the problem with hard numbers is that they are boring to read. And I have found more documentation that bird grinders avian hazards put out less than it takes to make 'em. But it is suspect. I'll keep looking.