Taller Is Better: A Race for Windmills

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

Industrial-wind propellers work fine when set in a location where there is a steady, substantial wind flow.  The island of Aruba comes to mind, an interesting location as the only alternative is the import of expensive diesel oil for diesel generators.  The problem with the wind machines as currently configured is that they have evolved in one specific technical solution: a gigantic 3-bladed prop with a coupled generator, sitting on top of a long pole.  Who dreamed that configuration up?  Well, the guys who started doing this, decades ago.  So you have a situation that I call "the rust principle;"  It exists because it has been there for decades. The rust is there because it has always been there. 

But there is no valid technical reason for that configuration.  You would avoid a lot of technical complexity by not having the generator sitting attached to a complicated gearbox on a pole some 400 feet up in the air.  If you had the generator part down on the ground, then you are not constrained by weight considerations in the design and you don't have to build the tower itself to handle sway loads of that generator and gearbox.  There are tensile and rupture loads on that tower as a result of that gigantic propeller; you remove those loads by not going to the 3-bladed prop.  If you had a vertical spin collector then you get past all these problems.  But those are not being developed because of the Rust Principle. 

So:  why does the industry continue to push for these gigantic machines?  In a word: the subsidies, specifically, the 30% Investment Tax Credit.  As long as the government is ready to reward you with staggering sums to keep doing what you are doing, then developers will keep doing it over again, in order to pick off the staggering subsidy wealth.  

Edited October 26, 2018 by Jan van Eck
typing error

[DA? + 301]

One of my duties as a nuclear operative would take me near the viewing platform near the top of the reactor building, a fantastic view out over the North Sea. You could see the erection of the wind turbines been put into place. Those that I worked with often went off on a rant about them, how they were subsidised (not that it worried them we were as well) and that they would never be competitive. I got some anger directed my way on a number of occasions when I'd say maybe not today but soon. Well unsubsidised wind farms are in some places in the world coming out far cheaper than nuc or fossil generators and the price is still dropping fast.

As for they are a danger take a look at how many kw/hr's per death occur in the different sectors. It's easy to find some youtube of a failed wind turbine but that's not the overall fact of the situation.

As for stabilising the grid well the new player in town is kicking arse there, making money, saving customers money and reacting far quicker than anything else when coal plants fall over.  

Bigger is better for wind turbines, that's just physics and economics.

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, DA? said:

One of my duties as a nuclear operative would take me near the viewing platform near the top of the reactor building, a fantastic view out over the North Sea. You could see the erection of the wind turbines been put into place. Those that I worked with often went off on a rant about them, how they were subsidised (not that it worried them we were as well) and that they would never be competitive. I got some anger directed my way on a number of occasions when I'd say maybe not today but soon. Well unsubsidised wind farms are in some places in the world coming out far cheaper than nuc or fossil generators and the price is still dropping fast.

As for they are a danger take a look at how many kw/hr's per death occur in the different sectors. It's easy to find some youtube of a failed wind turbine but that's not the overall fact of the situation.

As for stabilising the grid well the new player in town is kicking arse there, making money, saving customers money and reacting far quicker than anything else when coal plants fall over.  

Bigger is better for wind turbines, that's just physics and economics.

I see GE have just launched a Turbine with a 5.3MW capacity and a two piece blade which will make installation in remote locations easier.

[DA? + 301]

5 hours ago, NickW said:

I see GE have just launched a Turbine with a 5.3MW capacity and a two piece blade which will make installation in remote locations easier.

Sure will, around us they are restricted in size due to the roads. Off shores up to 10MW available and even one been worked on 50 MW twin blade able to with stand cat 5 storms. 

[NickW + 2,714]

10 hours ago, mthebold said:

Tip speed is (rotational velocity)*(radius).  With a 200ft+ radius, it's entirely plausible to reach supersonic speeds. 

A little history: blade tip speed is why we switched from prop-driven aircraft to jets.  The upper limit on prop-driven aircraft speed is <500mph.  Anything more than that requires supersonic tip speed which, as Jan mentioned, destroys the blade.  

Cleanup is always a problem.  Renewables are worse for two reasons: 

1)  The quantity of material to clean up is orders of magnitude greater.

2)  The land mass consumed by renewables is orders of magnitude greater.  This is esp. bad for wind, which fails catastrophically, creating a danger for all present.

In other words, renewables make the cleanup problem demonstrably worse.  

Government is the main obstacle to nuke development.  When public sentiment turned against nukes, overbearing regulation effectively halted advanced reactor R&D.  It's ironic that, in their haste to protect themselves, the public left themselves with less-safe nukes, coal pollution, and higher electricity prices.  

Meanwhile in the real World.....

RE Supersonic speeds - turbines have feathering / braking systems to prevent this.

In regard to wind turbine disposal the steel, copper & aluminium - all easily recyclable.

The plastic nascelles and blades can be ground up. In Germany this is then burnt in WTE power stations or failing that sent to landfill.

The concrete foundation is basically sand and calcium Hydroxide. Best just to leave in the ground and let it degrade naturally.

A wind turbine does not take up the land you describe. Assuming it is based on farm land apart from the small quantity used as the tower site and service roads (often the same ones used by the farm) all the surrounding land remains farmable.

Solar panels are best placed on roof spaces but where land is used the land around the panels is often used for rough grazing - poultry, pigs or sheep so the area of land used still has some utility beyond energy production. Alternatively the solar farm is a novel way of putting the land to long term fallow.

 

On the subject of Nukes (I'm not anti nuclear BTW) can you detail some of that overbearing regulation?

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, mthebold said:

As Jan mentioned: Passive control is inherently safe; active control always has issues.  

If renewable infrastructure can be cleaned up, then so can conventional sites.  My point was that any infrastructure requires decommissioning/recycling, and renewables happen to have the greatest quantity of materials spread over the largest of areas.

Wind turbines leave the surrounding land open for grazing & whatnot, but as Jan mentioned, you don't want to be around when a turbine fails (1).  Sufficient age guarantees failure, so old wind turbines must be decommissioned to ensure that land's continued use.  Also, ask people who live next to turbines how they feel about living next to turbines (2).  They can affect quality of life and, therefore, property values (3).  

Roof-top solar is the most expensive solar, which is why it's only common in markets with high retail prices.  An exception would be commercial buildings with large, flat roofs that pay a premium for peak demand.  E.g. a Wal-Mart running refrigeration equipment in July heat would benefit from rooftop solar.  Ground-based solar farms are now the most common, and then only in select climates/locations where it makes financial sense.  This is fine where you have wide-open deserts.  As population, food demand, and alternative land uses increase, I'm not sure we'll be so keen on using productive land for solar.  We'll see though.  

The NRC requires nuke power plants to use their services and charges incredible fees for them.  If you want to make any sort of change or improvement to a nuke plant, you must first pay tribute to the NRC.  

There are also ridiculous safety regulations.  The most piquant example I've seen is anti-ninja disks installed on top of anti-VBIED pylons outside the 13ft, concertina-wire topped fence guarded 24/7 by automatic weapons.  This all assumed a would-be assailant made it past the concrete moat.  Let's talk about the anti-ninja disks.  This site hired consultants to evaluate their security measures.  Unable to imagine anything else, the consultants hypothesized that a sufficiently skilled parkour aficionado could launch himself off a concrete pylon, clear the 13ft fence, and not hurt himself upon landing.  They further assumed that the guards wouldn't have riddled him with bullets by this point, and that he could subsequently do any damage to the plant.  Such is the insanity of nuclear plant safety; it's beyond ridiculous.(4)  

A more costly example is our handling of nuclear waste.  It has always been understood that nuclear reactors breed some amount of new fuel.  It was also understood that this fuel could be reprocessed and used - which is what the rest of the world does.  Understanding this, nuclear plants were built with several years of spent fuel storage, and companies held the "spent" fuel on the books as assets. 

This changed when Jimmy Carter - in what appears to be a moment of well-intentioned idiocy - outlawed reprocessing.  The nuclear companies & NRC, forced to deal with long-term storage, decided that nuclear plants would pay a flat fee per kWh generated, which the NRC would use to build Yucca mountain.  Note that this flat fee made it difficult for nuke plants to regain their cost advantage. (5)

Things went downhill from there: when the senators from Nevada gained sufficient political clout, they were able to defund Yucca Mountain.  All of the money the nuclear plants handed to the NRC for long-term storage was wasted, and private companies were forced, once again, to spend on the long-term storage problem.  Today, nuclear plants store all of their waste on-site.  This costs them money for additional facilities, personnel, risk-management, and NRC fees.  

Government handling of nuclear power has been an absolute cluster.  Faced with that hostile quagmire, R&D on new nuclear technologies effectively stopped.  This is why companies pursuing new reactor designs prefer to start in Canada or Great Britain.  

1. To date - how many people have been killed by wind turbine blades flying off or a turbine catching fire? 

2. Resolved by stipulating minimum distances from residential houses

3. Other power generation / transmission has a similar effect.  

4. Any evidence these are actually regulatory requirements?

5. Jimmy Carter was voted out of Office in 1980. surely there have been opportunities to overturn this law since then?

[DA? + 301]

19 hours ago, mthebold said:

As Jan mentioned: Passive control is inherently safe; active control always has issues.  

If renewable infrastructure can be cleaned up, then so can conventional sites.  My point was that any infrastructure requires decommissioning/recycling, and renewables happen to have the greatest quantity of materials spread over the largest of areas.

Wind turbines leave the surrounding land open for grazing & whatnot, but as Jan mentioned, you don't want to be around when a turbine fails.  Sufficient age guarantees failure, so old wind turbines must be decommissioned to ensure that land's continued use.  Also, ask people who live next to turbines how they feel about living next to turbines.  They can affect quality of life and, therefore, property values.  

Roof-top solar is the most expensive solar, which is why it's only common in markets with high retail prices.  An exception would be commercial buildings with large, flat roofs that pay a premium for peak demand.  E.g. a Wal-Mart running refrigeration equipment in July heat would benefit from rooftop solar.  Ground-based solar farms are now the most common, and then only in select climates/locations where it makes financial sense.  This is fine where you have wide-open deserts.  As population, food demand, and alternative land uses increase, I'm not sure we'll be so keen on using productive land for solar.  We'll see though.  

The NRC requires nuke power plants to use their services and charges incredible fees for them.  If you want to make any sort of change or improvement to a nuke plant, you must first pay tribute to the NRC.  

There are also ridiculous safety regulations.  The most piquant example I've seen is anti-ninja disks installed on top of anti-VBIED pylons outside the 13ft, concertina-wire topped fence guarded 24/7 by automatic weapons.  This all assumed a would-be assailant made it past the concrete moat.  Let's talk about the anti-ninja disks.  This site hired consultants to evaluate their security measures.  Unable to imagine anything else, the consultants hypothesized that a sufficiently skilled parkour aficionado could launch himself off a concrete pylon, clear the 13ft fence, and not hurt himself upon landing.  They further assumed that the guards wouldn't have riddled him with bullets by this point, and that he could subsequently do any damage to the plant.  Such is the insanity of nuclear plant safety; it's beyond ridiculous.  

A more costly example is our handling of nuclear waste.  It has always been understood that nuclear reactors breed some amount of new fuel.  It was also understood that this fuel could be reprocessed and used - which is what the rest of the world does.  Understanding this, nuclear plants were built with several years of spent fuel storage, and companies held the "spent" fuel on the books as assets. 

This changed when Jimmy Carter - in what appears to be a moment of well-intentioned idiocy - outlawed reprocessing.  The nuclear companies & NRC, forced to deal with long-term storage, decided that nuclear plants would pay a flat fee per kWh generated, which the NRC would use to build Yucca mountain.  Note that this flat fee made it difficult for nuke plants to regain their cost advantage.  

Things went downhill from there: when the senators from Nevada gained sufficient political clout, they were able to defund Yucca Mountain.  All of the money the nuclear plants handed to the NRC for long-term storage was wasted, and private companies were forced, once again, to spend on the long-term storage problem.  Today, nuclear plants store all of their waste on-site.  This costs them money for additional facilities, personnel, risk-management, and NRC fees.  

Government handling of nuclear power has been an absolute cluster.  Faced with that hostile quagmire, R&D on new nuclear technologies effectively stopped.  This is why companies pursuing new reactor designs prefer to start in Canada or Great Britain.  

The pollution from renewables and conventional are in many ways very different, for example coal fired plants waste (did you see the pictures of the waste being washed away in the last hurricanes) this contains many environmentally extremely harmful products and it's on a massive scale. I would say fossil fuels have the greatest quantities of materials spread over the largest areas with all it's pollutants.

I live around many wind turbines, they are fantastic, as for the dangers of one failing, well with all my training in risk management I'm very happy to be around them.

Solar, theres plenty of second/third grade agricultural land that won't be missed and possibly improved with solar (shading by panels can reduce evaporation and heat stress). Also with solar a great way to use excess electricity at peak production is to pump water to a height then use it in desalination, cheap water for agriculture.

Can only talk about nuclear power in the UK as that's where I used to be a nuclear operative. There is a reason for the regulations and that is people are stupid and can not be trusted. I've actually had to do a presentation on safety in the nuclear industry and it's a soft underbelly of any country with it. Of course I can't go into details but what I found out was scary.

Reprocessing in the UK has been a joke, a rather expensive and dirty one. Massive amounts of nuclear material sits around waiting to be processed  in unsafe conditions.

Nuclear power isn't economical, it's expensive even with all the help it gets.

Great Britain is a  absolute cluster as well.

[Govapor + 1]

It seems to be that wind power has its removal costs. But 25,000 dollars to get rid of a broken wind turbine is cheap compared to tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to decommission a conventional power plant.  Better more powerful ones can replace them or if you are down on wind turbines the land is easily returned to its former use.  Wind turbines go up quickly come down fast if need be and you don't have to bet the company to set them up. Wind turbines go up in bunches which means only a small portion of name plate power is lost when repairs and maintenance needs to be performed.  Storage technologies such as flow batteries, compression of air, phase change materials, and flywheels among others will and can bring wind in line with hydro power for on demand availability.  In terms of life cycle cost and giving the incentive to implement storage technologies the grid needs any way wind power is the way to go!

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, Govapor said:

It seems to be that wind power has its removal costs. But 25,000 dollars to get rid of a broken wind turbine is cheap compared to tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to decommission a conventional power plant.  Better more powerful ones can replace them or if you are down on wind turbines the land is easily returned to its former use.  Wind turbines go up quickly come down fast if need be and you don't have to bet the company to set them up. Wind turbines go up in bunches which means only a small portion of name plate power is lost when repairs and maintenance needs to be performed.  Storage technologies such as flow batteries, compression of air, phase change materials, and flywheels among others will and can bring wind in line with hydro power for on demand availability.  In terms of life cycle cost and giving the incentive to implement storage technologies the grid needs any way wind power is the way to go!

I bought into a community wind farm scheme (5 x  2.3MW turbines) about 10 years ago. The bond the scheme placed with the Local Authority for disposal if the scheme went bust was £50,000. The bond accumulated interest at the Councils average borrowing cost rate