Wind turbines maybe not so great?

[Steve McMahon]

Chip Skiff & Garret: It is great what you guys are doing. As soon as I sell the house I am in I will be building an "off grid ready passive and active solar thermal mass house. I Can't wait.

I would like to add a couple of points to help clarify the reality for anyone interested. (This is what I try to get across to my students at the college I teach some night classes at. The course is Energy Sustainability Engineering Technology)
Housing:
1. Near net zero housing is attainable now for a small premium. The building envelope and structure / site design are the key.
2. The biggest impediment to #1 above are our old building codes and local bylaws - things like requiring that building be lined up with the street, etc.
3. Building codes are to a large extent driven by the building material industry. Innovation is discouraged.

On the bigger picture regarding energy (Electricity) use:
1. Electric motors in industry account for between 75-80% of NA electricty use!
2. Most NA industries could cut their electricity use by up to 20-30% by correct sizing of motors. Our tendency is to oversize motors for their application by at least 25% - most 3 phase motors have their worst efficiency and power factor at 75% load.
3. A large number of motors are driving either fans or pumps, ie: centrifugal loads = Variable torque loads. The biggest potential energy savings is the application of variable speed drives on these loads. A fan or pump slowed down to 50% speed to meet the process need instead of throttling the valve or dampers used 13% of the energy while still giving 50% flow. This is where we can make some differance.
4. AC Variable speed motor control is now available and reliable to very large HP sizes - like 10,000hp. And yes, there are a lot of fans and pumps running out their in the thousands of HP. The compressors on all new gas pipelines have these multi thousand HP drives on them for this reason.
5. A big wind turbine is about 2.2Mw = around 3,000hp
6. A typical sawmill has about 2000 - 5,000HP, a pulp mill or mine upwards to 60,000HP

Just some thoughts.

[Garret]

Thanks. I must admit that in my case it also saved me $ as I was $35,000 away from power. A new line has been built so I can now do it for less & will hook up.

About houses. Very good points! Actually all of yours are & I was not aware of how much electricity is used by motors. I am currently in a place that's really more of a camp, but the last house I built was passive solar & earth sheltered. It was about 1600 sq ft. (just under 150 sq. meters) with 9 to 10 ft. ceilings & I heated that with under 2 cords of wood - in the hills of northern Vermont. The other (often overlooked) advantage to passive solar is how light the house is. Loved it. Note to people who have not really looked into passive solar: a bunch of south-facing windows does not a passive solar house make! For one to work correctly, careful calculations of area vs. glazed area vs. thermal mass must be made. The toughest part is the thermal mass to store heat during the day & release it at night. Too little mass & you get temps of 95 during the day & 45 at night. Get it right (usually many tons of masonry/concrete/gravel, and/or sometimes dyed water) & the temps are gentle swings of low 70's during the day & low 60's by morning. I once left my house (with no heat other than wood & solar & the wood was unused while I was gone) for 3 1/2 weeks in late January to early February - where the outside temp ranged from 0 to 15 F. Coldest the house got was 52 degrees.

Not everyone can do passive solar - but if you have a site for it - do it! Free heat + a nicer house. Oh - the greater Burlington area where I live is the 4th cloudiest area in the US (Seattle, Portland, Somewhere else, then Burlington) - don't let people tell you it's too cloudy to do passive solar. Even on partially overcast days you still get gain.

[John Smith]

When my friend's health prevented him from working on the home he was building, he was pleased to find when he entered it in the spring that there were no signs of anything having frozen in it over the winter, which he attributed to the effort he had put into insulating it. I got to thinking the fact that no one opened a door all winter may have also contributed, and I started counting the number of times our front door opened during the course of the day. Just the normal going to work and back, the tenant walking her dog three times a day, going out to get the mail, the kids going out to play, etc. was a lot of door opening, which got me to thinking a set of double doors would probably be the most effective form of insulation

The more often the door opens for people going in and out, the less effective better insulation elsewhere is. Just a thought.

[Donn]

Can't you just picture John Smith sitting there, by the front door, with one of these in one hand:



...while fact-checking political spam emails with the other hand?

[Garret]

When my friend's health prevented him from working on the home he was building, he was pleased to find when he entered it in the spring that there were no signs of anything having frozen in it over the winter, which he attributed to the effort he had put into insulating it. I got to thinking the fact that no one opened a door all winter may have also contributed, and I started counting the number of times our front door opened during the course of the day. Just the normal going to work and back, the tenant walking her dog three times a day, going out to get the mail, the kids going out to play, etc. was a lot of door opening, which got me to thinking a set of double doors would probably be the most effective form of insulation

The more often the door opens for people going in and out, the less effective better insulation elsewhere is. Just a thought.

Here in VT, it's a rare house that isn't built with a "mudroom" - basically a small room that is at the door most often used. Leave your coats, boots, etc. there & then go through a 2nd door (often an insulated door) to the house. Makes a huge difference not only in mess, but in heating costs as well.

[LeeG]

from BP latest expectation for distribution of energy supplies.

While non-fossil supplies are increasing for electricity they don't really address the greatest shortfall which is oil.

[Durnik]

Here in VT, it's a rare house that isn't built with a "mudroom" - basically a small room that is at the door most often used. Leave your coats, boots, etc. there & then go through a 2nd door (often an insulated door) to the house. Makes a huge difference not only in mess, but in heating costs as well.

Little things, like mud rooms, sweeping porches, kitchens to the s.e. & 'great' rooms to the west seem to have been sacrificed to the gods of 'cutting costs' & 'carbon_copy, build it square to the street, housing'..

Code seems less about 'doing it well' & more about 'doing it all the same'.

Malvina Reynolds said it well.. Pete Seeger singing "Little Boxes"

[CWSmith]

Our energy needs are tremendous and growing. There is no solution that does not impact some people some place. Some people think they can say no to any local generation and still have all the energy that they want. They are putting their heads in the sand. There is no perfect solution.

[LeeG]

Little things, like mud rooms, sweeping porches, kitchens to the s.e. & 'great' rooms to the west seem to have been sacrificed to the gods of 'cutting costs' & 'carbon_copy, build it square to the street, housing'..

Code seems less about 'doing it well' & more about 'doing it all the same'.

Malvina Reynolds said it well.. Pete Seeger singing "Little Boxes"

except Seeger wasnt talking about $500,000 mini-mansions in the 80's but $30,000 boxes in the 60's. Daly City's little boxes were a lot more energy efficient.

[Dan McCosh]

Just noted that Ontario is planning to put radioactive waste from its nuclear power complex on Lake Huron in a storage well under the lake. It's surrounded by windmill farms.

[Ron Williamson]

Ahem....low and medium level waste(for now),beside the Lake....so it's okay,nothing to see here.
'Sides,don't the turbines blow all the badness away?
R

[Mad Scientist]

A quick question: How is coal, or natural gas, or nuclear energy converted into electricity?

Since your question doesn't appear to have been answered yet, here goes...

All three are used to boil water for steam turbines. Natural gas can be used for gas turbines, obviously, but I'm not sure if this is beng done for electric generation (except for some cruise ships). Natural gas can drive a piston engine hooked to a generator, too.

I'm sure that I could come up with a better way to get electricity from nuclear energy, but they don't sell Uranium at Home Depot!

Tom

[Waddie]

Free lunch? Not all of us live like you do.

My power needs have decreased over the last five years, owing to quite a lot of work and expense on my part. We now use about 1/3 the gasoline and 1/4 the propane we did, and with a solar PV system have become net producers of electricity.

The impacts of your energy use are concentrated where I live: strip mines for coal, oil and gas fields, powerline corridors, etc. If you don't think they spoil the land, kill wildlife, and ruin the view, come have a look. We can also take a turn through the state government offices in Cheyenne while I tell you about how financing our state government through coal, oil, and gas severance taxes has corrupted it in nearly every part.

After the tour is done, you can apologise. And I'll buy you lunch.

It's good that you have become more energy efficient, and so have I. But the fact remains that our energy needs will be increasing dramatically over the next thirty years, that energy is going to be ever more expensive and that we will tap every source of energy we can think up. Every citizen in every emerging nation wants the level of energy usage that we have, and they will pay to have it. Seven billion people living like Americans will stress things to the max.

It has been a free lunch. Cheap energy has made the huge increase in world population possible and dramatically raised the standard of living for the average person. It has also poisoned the environment and corrupted our system further.

So all this "discussion" about which sources we should use and which we should stay away from is irrelevant.; We WILL use them all!! The only choice we have is where and when, and what kind of balance we can achieve.

And yes, power generation is polluting and corrupting. It's a dirty business all 'round, but we keep wanting to drive our vehicles, play on boats, heat our homes and manufacture products.

regards,
Waddie

[Durnik]

>I'm sure that I could come up with a better way to get electricity from nuclear energy, but they don't sell Uranium at Home Depot!

Excitation of electrons by radiation?? What are you thinking? Keeping in mind that the plants not only produce electricity, but it must be of the same voltage & frequency as other plants.. plus the generating sub systems must be (relatively) inexpensive, simple & reliable. Hence, steam powered turbines.. like other 'heat' powered plants.


>except Seeger wasnt talking about $500,000 mini-mansions in the 80's but $30,000 boxes in the 60's. Daly City's little boxes were a lot more energy efficient.

Tho the previous posts in the mini-thread were about eff.. My point was concerning why certain concepts were no longer the norm. As for the half million dollar McMansions, I'd guess they are fairly thermally efficient.. 6" insulated walls, double pane windows.. & way too air tight - but still mud room-less.. ;-)

You figure the 60's boxes were more thermally efficient? Why is that? Most 60's boxes I've known (north east & mid south west u.s.) were more comfortable (more wood, less plastic) than McMansions, but not as near 'heat tight'. Were Daly City's better than the 'norm'?

enjoy
bobby

[Blowtorch]

Good Article on Wind Mills

Turbines make Electricity which then gets Used by industry. Why not just power Industry Mechanically?

[Steve McMahon]

Good Article on Wind Mills

Turbines make Electricity which then gets Used by industry. Why not just power Industry Mechanically?

Because their is such a wide gap between the amount of energy that can be realized by a wind turbine, water turbine, etc.. vrs. the amount of power required to run any large scale industry.

[Blowtorch]

Yeah but what about Cottage Industry? Why not have a Wind mill drive a Line Shaft? Get rid of the Belts and use Drive shafts and Clutches. No its not a Perfect Solution but every little bit Helps.

[Garret]

And only work when the wind blows?

I can't speak to precise losses, but alternators are pretty high efficiency these days + inverters that turn the stored DC voltage (in batteries) back to 110 AC (in an off grid system) are also in the high 80's - some in the low 90's.

Belts & pulleys (or driveshafts & clutches) are not very efficient - so I bet the losses mechanical vs. electric are pretty similar & going all electrical means you can work when you want to & supplement with a generator if needed.

If hooked up to the grid, you personally (though possibly not the grid) are better off feeding into the grid when the wind blows & drawing from it when you need it.

[Blowtorch]

REad the Article in the Link above, its Surprising how efficent the Wind Mills can be.

DOnt heat the whole house just heat your Self.

[Chip-skiff]

If hooked up to the grid, you personally (though possibly not the grid) are better off feeding into the grid when the wind blows & drawing from it when you need it.

Zactly. In both Germany and Spain, a large increase in distributed generation, mostly PV but also some wind, has helped supply power during peaks without any great alterations to the powerline infrastructure.

Our system adds electricity to the grid during the day (when demand is higher) and we draw from the grid at night, when demand is lower. Over the calendar year, our net production should exceed our use. So we're cottage power producers.

Some of us are able to change our patterns of energy consumption. Those who can't will soon be paying a lot more to maintain their bad habits.

[Garret]

REad the Article in the Link above, its Surprising how efficent the Wind Mills can be.

DOnt heat the whole house just heat your Self.

I did & it was very interesting. Mechanical still has the issue of only working when the wind blows (hence the Sunday exemption for millers).

Heating is certainly consumes a lot of power in a home - but refrigerators are often worse. Modern fridges are built with large motors & compressors to cool food fast + low insulation (to increase interior space). Older propane fridges are amazingly efficient. I ran my old Servel for 6 months during the spring summer & fall on one 5 gal. barbecue tank.

The home heating link author's studies are interesting - but I'd still rather have the whole house warmed for free by the sun.

[Blowtorch]

Smart design goes a Long Way.

[Dan McCosh]

Good Article on Wind Mills

Turbines make Electricity which then gets Used by industry. Why not just power Industry Mechanically?

That was pretty popular in the 17th century.

[varadero]

Current problems in Germany reported on link below, scroll down for extract. It seems that the same greens that support the offshore wind farms are blocking the infrastructure required to supply the industrial regions.

http://www.eike-klima-energie.eu/news-cache/germanys-green-energy-supply-transformation-has-already-failed/

Offshore wind parks, but no transmission lines to industrial regions!

Now that the damage is spreading, Germany’s utilities are now struggling to keep the grid stable and to fill in the power gap left by the shut-down of nuclear reactors. To do this the German government has ordered the installation of large-scale wind parks in the North and Baltic seas, in addition to the re-commissioning of mothballed, inefficient coal-fired plants. This overall energy production transition from nuclear and fossils over to “renewables” is dubbed by German officials as the Energy Supply Transformation. Construction of the offshore wind parks is now progressing rapidly. But there’s just one problem: the huge high voltage power transmission lines needed to bring their power to Germany’s industrial heartland to the south are missing! More than 3000 km of these lines are needed, but are nowhere near in sight. The government forgot about those too!

Activists groups blocking grid expansion

Building the power transmission lines quickly across the landscape will be a virtually impossible task. Activist groups have long since organized and are effectively blocking their approval and construction. So far only a measly 214 km have been built. As a result, surplus wind power cannot be delivered to the markets, and thus either has to be destroyed, dumped on the market at “negative prices”, or wind park owners are simply ordered to stop generating. No problem though - paragraph 12 of Germany’s Energy Feed-In Act requires electric utilities to pay for the electricity that they ask not to have produced! Technically, there is an incentive for wind parks to destabilize the grid.
Eventually all these costs add up and in the end they get passed along to the consumer. Under the bottom line, consumers have to pay more and more, and for a lower and lower quality supply. German industry is getting nervous and surveys show that many are leaving Germany, or are planning to do so. They no longer view Germany’s power supply as reliable.

[Garret]

I guess I should be pleased that it's not just my area that has NIMBY's, but it's rather depressing. I would think that the wind farm & necessary lines to get its power to market would be all one project?

[varadero]

I guess I should be pleased that it's not just my area that has NIMBY's, but it's rather depressing. I would think that the wind farm & necessary lines to get its power to market would be all one project?

"As a result, surplus wind power cannot be delivered to the markets, and thus either has to be destroyed, dumped on the market at “negative prices”, or wind park owners are simply ordered to stop generating. No problem though - paragraph 12 of Germany’s Energy Feed-In Act requires electric utilities to pay for the electricity that they ask not to have produced! Technically, there is an incentive for wind parks to destabilize the grid."

And this is the punch in the face for the poorer more vulnerable part of the population who simply cannot afford the price hikes to cover the subsidies. They are dying of cold at worse, or living freezing at best.

[Y Bar Ranch]

I guess I should be pleased that it's not just my area that has NIMBY's, but it's rather depressing. I would think that the wind farm & necessary lines to get its power to market would be all one project?

We separated energy production from energy transmission in order to allow for competitive energy markets. So now you can buy green energy if so inclined, for example. Transmission is a separate business.

One place the government could play a serious role is in technology for the grid. Its a tech area that tends to fall between the cracks with none of the energy providers directly addressing it, kind of like how manufacturers don't build roads but depend on them.

[Garret]

But - it doesn't make sense to build a power plant (which is what a wind farm effectively is) without a way to get the power to market!

[Soundbounder]

I knew about the Nantucket and Block Island proposals, but I wasn't aware of this one south of Martha's Vineyard:

Federal officials today designated a large swath of ocean about 14 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard where they hope to see a massive wind farm built that could dwarf the size of Cape Wind, the long-stalled wind project planned for Nantucket Sound.

After 2 years of meetings with local and state officials, environmental groups, Native Americans, and others, officials at the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Managementsaid they are launching an environmental assessment of about 1,300 square miles that could give rise within several years to hundreds of towering wind turbines.

http://boatinglocal.com/news/feds-cl...-vineyard.html


http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrode...03L/index.html

[CK 17]

The poor and working class have been living in the shadows of dirty coal plants for years. Their compliants have fallen on deaf ears for decades. I wonder how many birds have been killed by the oil/coal/natural gas industry? Now we have a power source that works best on high value real estate and listen to the howls of protest. . . . i find it amusing. I will not be seeing the movie

[Y Bar Ranch]

But - it doesn't make sense to build a power plant (which is what a wind farm effectively is) without a way to get the power to market!

Yea, but the ratio of transmission to production is so much higher with wind farming. It brings the issue up front and center.

I work on superconductors a little, nothing to do with energy industry. While sitting around, we'll talk about the benefits that would arise with the use of DC superconducting power lines. Much much smaller and less visible. Expensive for now and unproven, though.

[Garret]

On the wind projects here, the transmission lines are all part of the package. I realize that they can sometimes be long, but I just don't get separating the "plant" & the transmission lines. What good is a power plant without hooking it up to the grid?

Superconductors would let us "mine" a whole lot of material from existing lines.

[Concordia 33]

The poor and working class have been living in the shadows of dirty coal plants for years. Their compliants have fallen on deaf ears for decades. I wonder how many birds have been killed by the oil/coal/natural gas industry? Now we have a power source that works best on high value real estate and listen to the howls of protest. . . . i find it amusing. I will not be seeing the movie

It's not (for me) about the location. I am perfectly fine with the siting of one on Horseshoe shoals in Nantucket, or the one planned off Block Island. For me it is an economic issue - it is closer, but not yet financially viable. All the projects in my area require a rate hike for the power, and unlike steam generated power, you only get the power when the wind is blowing and it only generates as much as the wind allows. Modern power grids have peak load times, and the generators need to be able to produce when the load demands, not when the wind does. I am fully confident that all these issues will be resolved in the near future, at which point I will look forward to windmills popping up everywhere.

[Steve McMahon]

My opinion only is that we are at the "Model T" stage of wind turbines today. There will be dramatic increases in output and reliabilty coupled with dramatic decreases in noise and potential harm to birds. I expect what will evolve will be a structure that looks something like those dysen whisper fans with the rotor floating on magnetic or air type bearings.

Not just my opinion, but fact is that we are rapidly developing a smart grid that easily accepts small scale production and storage coupled with demand side management. I am working on a demand side management system now that will be used as a model for larger scale projects. In other words, as well as using less energy, we will be using much smarter. The result will be increased efficiency.

[Chip-skiff]

There are not many places in the US where one can see coal strip mines, oil fields, deep natural gas fields, coalbed methane fields, and large wind turbines, within a half-day's drive. But that's where I live. Soon there will be still more dubious (and dirty, and heavily-subsidized) projects such as coal-to-liquid petroleum.

All these types of energy production mess up the view (although wind turbines are at least interesting to watch). They all require networks of roads, powerlines, pipelines, etc. They all kill wildlife, either directly (strikes, toxic waste, poaching by workers) or by destroying habitat.

But only wind energy is renewable. And that, to my mind, is a very significant difference. The wind is not dug up, piped, burned, or shipped out of state. And I think it can be depended on to blow for quite some time.

Is this a difficult concept?

[Garret]

Is this a difficult concept?

For many, it seems so.

[Ron Williamson]

I'm curious about real bird strike statistics for modern wind turbines,not the high rpm ones in the passes in California.
The local windfarm is piggybacking on the power lines for the local nuke.
Lots of people hate the idea of it as much as anything.
They complain that it won't do baseload and it won't work when there's no wind,but they don't mention the way overbudget nuke units that were mothballed,because they cost too much to repair.
BTW, those mothballed units are currently being repaired at a very great expense and another bunch of powerlines are being built to handle the new megawatts.
R

[Garret]

Plus as the Planet Heats up, Average wind speed goes up too.

Dontcha know??? OMG, all those windmills will slowly stop the earth from turning!

[Actually heard - by me - at a hearing for a 12 turbine installation here in VT]

[Steve McMahon]

I'm curious about real bird strike statistics for modern wind turbines,not the high rpm ones in the passes in California.
The local windfarm is piggybacking on the power lines for the local nuke.
Lots of people hate the idea of it as much as anything.
They complain that it won't do baseload and it won't work when there's no wind,but they don't mention the way overbudget nuke units that were mothballed,because they cost too much to repair.
BTW, those mothballed units are currently being repaired at a very great expense and another bunch of powerlines are being built to handle the new megawatts.
R

Even turning at under 20RPM the tips speeds on some models exceed 200mph.

Some data on current models here:
http://www.aweo.org/windmodels.html

[Chip-skiff]

Wind turbines do kill birds. The large ones seem particularly tough on eagles.

But no worse on the whole, I suspect, than the toxic waste pits found in oilfields (eagles try to scavenge carcasses and are poisoned) plus the gun-happy habits of the oilfield workers (both drill-rig crews and field service people), who will blast away for fun at virtually any furred or feathered thing that moves.

[Y Bar Ranch]

Wind turbines do kill birds. The large ones seem particularly tough on eagles.

But no worse on the whole, I suspect, than the toxic waste pits found in oilfields...

There's a good ad campaign slogan

"Wind Turbines! They're not as bad as toxic waste pits!"

This is a picture from the documentary I referenced. That's a little close to the house, even with the foreshortening from the telephoto lens.

[Durnik]

There's a good ad campaign slogan

"Wind Turbines! They're not as bad as toxic waste pits!"

I like it!

enjoy
bobby

[Chip-skiff]

This is a picture from the documentary I referenced. That's a little close to the house, even with the foreshortening from the telephoto lens.

Is it a still or a video? It looks faked— the light on the turbines is different than the light on the foreground and the depth of focus is likewise odd.

But in any event, I'd suspect that the owner of the place leased the land for the turbines and is getting income from that. Out here, quite a few ranchers with overgrazed land are making good money leasing to wind power outfits. You wouldn't want the government to interfere with property rights and the free-enterprise system.

[Fitz]

Here's another one. This part of Maine was very wild. I think it is a high price to pay for what amounts to a fart in the grid. Maybe if we all turned off the lights we weren't using, like grandma told us to do, we wouldn't need turbines.

Penobscot Nation receives $1M federal grant toward wind development project
By Nick McCrea, BDN Staff
Posted Feb. 16, 2012, at 8:28 p.m.

INDIAN ISLAND, Maine — The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $1 million to the Penobscot Indian Nation that will help the tribe move forward in its attempt to install a 227-megawatt wind project in Alder Stream Township in Franklin County.
More: http://bangordailynews.com/2012/02/1...ct/?ref=latest

This takes awhile to load, but shows the Kibby Mountain "farm" and the region in question.

http://www.stone-env.com/docs/Stone_...edAnalysis.pdf

[Chip-skiff]

Maybe if we all turned off the lights we weren't using, like grandma told us to do, we wouldn't need turbines.

Are you volunteering?

[PeterSibley]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...iggest-cumbria

http://www.gizmag.com/worlds-largest-wind-farm/21415/

[Chip-skiff]

If you think wind turbines are ugly, how about this?



A tar sands plant in Canada. Go ahead and register your opinion.

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthre...nd-devastation

[Dan McCosh]

I just finished a drive across southern Ontario, where they have installed maybe 1,000 wind turbines in the past couple of years. It's the largest installation I've seen anywhere. The turbines do dominate the landscape for miles, giving it a kind of Road Runner appearance. Seems odd it seems to get relatively little attention.

[Chip-skiff]

Quite a few of the large turbines here are on private land, and they provide an income stream for farmers whose marginal dryfarm lands weren't worth a great deal otherwise. Local wisdom is that to ranch or farm and make a profit these days, you need oil & gas leases or wind turbines.

[usemorewind]

My first post on the Wooden Boat Forum...and I pick the Bilge!

For those concerned with the cost of subsidies for wind and solar, it should be noted that all energy generation in the US is subsidized...all...either directly or indirectly...all. The subsidy for wind might be in the form of reduced tax liability for a project owner, while the subsidy for coal might be in the health-care costs passed on to those folks unfortunate enough to live downwind....did anybody mention this study yet?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...71F4X820110216

It is a good example of how energy costs are distorted in favor of burning stuff without taking a full accounting of the net results.