Who would have thunk? Maybe it had something to do with this video of a Vestas wind turbine:
I wonder if it used “Lucas” electronic parts? I owned an Austin Healy Sprite and a Triumph TR6 at one time, and the failure above looks familiar.
Excerpts from an article in the Guardian:
Vestas is to shut down its Isle of Wight factory in the face of collapsing demand from a wind-farming industry hobbled by the recession and red tape.
The group had planned to convert the factory in Newport so it could make blades for the British market, but said this morning that the paralysis gripping the industry meant that orders had ground to a halt. Such low demand could not justify the investment, Ditlev Engel, the chief executive, told the Guardian.
The UK’s only wind turbine manufacturing plant is to close, dealing a humiliating blow to the government’s promise to support low-carbon industries.”
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/28/vestas-wind-turbine-factory-close
See Vestas Wind Power Solutions here
Of course, windmills produce clean emissions free power, they don’t pollute.
Just to be fair, anyone have video or photos of a coal fired power plant exploding or uncontrollably catching fire?
h/t to David Segesta
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BCH (10:17:40) :
“Basically because wind is only about 20% efficient i.e. you need to install 5 MW of generating capacity for every 1 MW of sustained power. Further, it is intermittent so you need a natural gas turbine or a coal (horrors!) fired plant running on standby for those times when the wind doesn’t blow at all.”
Absolutely…and the key point here is that to have a gas turbine or coal fired plant running on standby (essentially acting as a buffer to the wind generation) is about the MOST inefficient thing you can do. You just can’t switch on a gas turbine or coal fired plant – it takes hours to come up to capacity – it has to be running (essentially idling) all the time to act as a true buffer.
So to “prop up” a wind farm or multiple wind farms you actually waste almost as much energy from the buffering mechanism as you generate from the wind. But because some power is being generated by the wind it is seen as “green” power. The whole thing is a scam as big as AGW itself.
Now add an increase in off-peak demand to that unstable grid from the charging of electric vehicles and you have 1 of several recipes for disaster for our kids to enjoy in the future. Thanks green lobby … you idiots.
Have a look at this very cool site providing all factual data about the US Electric Grid,
the power plants, the fuels etc.
http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2009/apr/electric-grid/
’64 Cambridge A60 2 speed automatic. Best car in the snow I ever had… Had to re-lap the valves every 1000 miles or she would bark and fart! I never had much trouble with the electrics believe it or not. Man I miss that car… Wish I’d never sold it. Low beam was simply dimmer lights! Hand crank etc. Trunk slept 6.
sigh… Guess I miss that ’79 211 type II as well. 2litre F.I. Porsche engine.
AAAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!
OMG I got the answer!!! Use those windmills to MILL WHEAT or PUMPING WATER, those are really NEW IDEAS!!
Those comparing the energy issue to the horseless carriage missed their history – government didn’t subsidize the invention or implementation of autos. The creepiness of wind et. al. is it has no economic viability without Uncle Sam’s (taxpayers) money.
Here is the problem with wind. In a coal plant, one generator will give you 100 MW. If it is a 1,000 MW plant, you have 10 generators, maybe a few spare. To replace this, you need 1,000 turbines. So you have 100 times the number of bearings that need to be maintained. The bearings are also a few hundred feet in the air. How do you lubricate them? Furthermore, you have to run a ton of copper to link these 1000 generators together. Hundreds of miles. The maintenance headaches are astonomical. And finally, the wind farm will be far away from the populations centers that need the power. How are you going to get it to market?
My buildings environmental coordinator just got back from a meeting and they are going to start installing wind generators on top of buildings at my facility. I have read WUWT long enough to know the troubles with wind mills. Sitting on remote ridges or off the coast, maybe but on top of buildings???? They would have to be very short not to interfere with a local airfield or tear the roofs off in strong winds, and my location is not exceptionally windy. I have no idea what the benefit would be.
Where can I buy one of these wonderful Bird Beaters?
These really look like something I would like to have in my backyard. [/sarcoff]
Wally (18:33:22),
That reminded me of when the Empire State Building was built. They put a blimp docking pole on top [blimps were high tech in the ’30’s], but it turned out blimps couldn’t use it, because the surrounding buildings made wind gusts come from all directions. You’d better tell your enviro coordinator to start with one building. Then you can ask him, “How’d that work out?”
Here’s hoping thermoelectric gets the bugs out
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2008/03/24/from_heat_to_electricity_and_back_again/
then we can use our air conditioners to power our laptops
or maybe just dig a hole in the ground a few hundred feet
where it’s always warm and stick a heat/electricity
generator down there… Hey, who would have guessed
that bread mold would cure pneumonia?
I was thinking of “nano-rectifiers” when I mentioned
air conditioners above — not technically the same
thing as thermoelectric
http://www.nanopaprika.eu/profiles/blogs/1612324:BlogPost:25349
my layman’s understanding is that they would generate
electricity and cooling too… probably wrong.
DCH, realitycheck: It is just not true, that a gas turbine takes hours to bring up to power. A steam plant that burns gas does require hours. A gas turbine requires roughly half an hour.
Wind power is not 20 percent of nameplate capacity in the U.S.,it is much better in most places.
Have a look at Table 7 on pg 24 of the DOE reference I gave above.
The worst, in 2006, was 22.1 pct in New England. The best was 45 pct in Hawaii. The Heartland, which is where most of the wind is, has better than 40 percent.
Dan, I don’t think anyone here is opposed to “viable” new forms of energy, but “wind energy” is not “viable”. It costs more, does not produce these “millions of green jobs” as purported. They are ugly, dangerous and inefficient. They cost far more per kilowatt hour to operate than many other forms of energy production. They have grievous side effects that are either not well known, or are well known but covered up. They can pose dangers to humans, animals and may even now be linked to changes in migratory bird patterns and their populations. They have to be subsidized through taxes and still maintain a much higher consumer cost. You would have to build millions upon millions of them in order to have any positive effect on overall power generation. Simply said, wind power is absolutely useless. Now, bring up a topic of an alternative energy source that is
If you can do this, then I think you will find a whole lot of friends in the speak about alternative energies. Until then, keep it away from me, I’m not interested!
You know, if environmentalists and alternative energy freaks would just take a deep breath, have a little patience and put their money where their mouths are, utilize those funds into research of “viable” solutions (not things like corn ethanol) but like Fusion, better Fission, and “real” alternative energy, it would not take long for the free market system to grab a hold of this and find something that can really work. But unfortunately, everybody has this insatiable appetite for quick and dirty money, the very same things that have gotten us into the financial situation we are in now and are about to get us even deeper through the AGW hogwash and “green engergy” hogwash. Stupid is as stupid does…
http://www.northyorksfire.gov.uk/news/photo_galleries/incidents1/drax_power_station_fire/index.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/05/japan-nuclear-power-fire
http://www.gov.im/lib/news/mea/peelpowerstation.xml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/6668657.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1422474/Ball-of-fire-killed-three-at-power-station.html
http://www.banthebomb.org/archives/news/970127.htm
http://www.fire.org.uk/BBC_News/news/bbc020500a.htm
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1005/1005039_fire_at_power_station.html
etc.
Cost of windpower comparisons and other related things:
http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/2009-01_Wind_Power_Report.pdf
bird deaths
http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/7838/birdfatalitieswindturbi.jpg
Costs compared
http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/9468/electcostsfullcompared.jpg
US wind power costs
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/9996/uswindpowerfullcosts.jpg
BCH, although the 20% you cite here may be what the wind energy industry is boasting, I believe the the more recent studies of actual “realized” efficiency are more in the neighborhood of 5% at best. I do not have any handy links to this, but I recall reading this several times over the past year, and I am sure one could scare up some credible information rather quickly.
Alan, you are absolutely correct! California has been running these things since the mid 70’s!!! They haven’t worked well in over 35 years! There are continuously massive complaints by locals, and they have cost Californian’s a tremendous amount of money. They have failed in every way possible, and they have not been able to improve upon them in over 35 years! How long does it take before one figures out “hey, this crap doesn’t work!” ..?
doug (18:22:08) :
government didn’t subsidize the invention or implementation of autos. The creepiness of wind et. al. is it has no economic viability without Uncle Sam’s (taxpayers) money.
Bit out of date isn’t it – how much has the auto industry been given now?
Some wind turbines use no gears:
http://www.enercon.de/www/en/broschueren.nsf/vwwebAnzeige/EF467F8AE23F96D4C12571940023E1BF/$FILE/ENERCON_Technology+Service_eng.pdf
And are designed to integrate with the grid:
http://www.enercon.de/www/en/broschueren.nsf/vwwebAnzeige/A1F46D4783166914C125747B002DD858/$FILE/Netzintegration_Windpark_eng.pdf
jon (12:40:35) said :
Why don’t you guys stick to the science rather than picking on everything you think is related or even partially related to the AGW argument … it would make this site more interesting … and credible!
I myself “stick to the science” every day; have done for the last 28 years, trying to make it cheaper to produce oil & gas. So far, only 17 US Patents to show for it, but lots more in application and I’m working as fast as I can.
I do like to think I am pretty credible.
BTW 6 or 7 of those issued patents are for composite materials manufacturing apparati and methods, so I guess I know some about windmill manufacture, too.
Unfortunately, every single week during that time I have been subjected to some juvenile, ignorant diatribe from one of the Coasts about my profession “killing” something or another, whether polar bears or shore birds or Nigerians or babies or now “the planet”. No coverage about the stunning improvements that my generation has wrought in oil & gas production, or the huge technical and economic successes we’ve had; only the KILLING. Oh, and half-baked theories from social scientists like “Global Peak Oil”
I thought about dropping the NYT after reading it daily (even when overseas) for 40 years, but now the AGW idiocy seems to have spread, like a fungus, into the lingua franca; just ask a six year old about “the planet”. I guess my only recourse, in my dotage, is to follow T. Jefferson’s advice and only associate with folks I find agreeable.
So perhaps you’ll forgive me if I sometimes “stray” away from the science which I practice. Or at least, maybe, hold the AGW crowd to the same standard. Good luck with that. And think of me and my colleagues when you buy gasoline for a price lower than milk.
Oh, and a bit of oilfield engineering for the earlier post which favored “pumping hydrogen” in a pipeline. What the technical nimrods in the AGW movement won’t tell you (perhaps because they don’t know) is that handling hydrogen at high pressures (as would be required for use as a fuel, for example) is that (a) sealing hydrogen is VERY difficult (very small pesky molecule); elastomeric seals generally don’t work well, generally need to use metal-to-metal seals, which are technically difficult and a couple of orders of magnitude more expensive (e.g an o-ring versus CNC lathe time and materials) and (b) carbon and most alloy steels REALLY don’t like elemental hydrogen, particularly if it’s wet; it EMBRITTLES the steel (hence, hydrogen embrittlement). Brittle failures of a pressure vessel (pipeline, tank, etc) are generally sudden and catastrophic. H2 generally requires a liner of a corrosion resistant alloy (with chrome and/or nickel alloying elements). Tres cher, mon amie.
Yes, H2 allows you to “eliminate carbon”, but WHY? The whole concept of H2 as a fuel is WAY past the point of diminishing returns, and, uh, pretty soon we’ll likely be BEGGING for some added soot and CO2 in the atmosphere.
See http://www.solarcycle24.com/ The recent SC23 low-latitude spotlette has faded, and we’re spotless again.
Meanwhile, domestic natural gas (methane has FOUR nasty disgusting baby-killing carbon atoms per molecule, but then you knew that) at the wellhead is below $4 per thousand cubic feet (due mainly to technical advances in tight shale drilling), roughly equivalent to $24/barrel oil. Folks are stacking drilling rigs because the price is too low to justify more drilling. You’re welcome.
Squidly,
have you read the reference I gave? Your statements are ludicrous. Wind power generation works quite well, and has done so for decades. 7,000 GWH in one year in California is not trivial. The previous year, 2006, had almost the same amount of wind power generation.
A great number of sound businessmen are building these at an ever-increasing rate, and are financed by additional sound businessmen. Wind energy is tried, true, proven, and here to stay.
No amount of denial will change those facts.
I agree and can see this coming. France is also where they are building the first full-scale fusion reactor. If they stay on this road, they are going to be light years ahead of the rest of the world in energy! Me thinks perhaps the French aren’t so dumb after all? (no disrespect to French intended…)
Here here! John, you are one of the sane ones of the bunch! Fusion is not that far off! What was once a pipe dream is not that far from potential reality. However, I often wonder just how quickly it would be implemented given the probable “cheapness” of it, when there are other energy sources that may afford greater corporate profits. Precisely why GE is on the wind bandwagon. GE stands to make billions from this wind garbage (Bird Beaters) while we all pay unreasonable prices for our energy both directly and indirectly through subsidies. It’s all a profiteering scam!
Great link! And I think one of the most important parts to take away from this (in the context of this site, and besides the other enormous list)
That does seem like such a good deal to me if you are worried about CO2 production…
Roger Sowell (19:10:00) :
“DCH, realitycheck: It is just not true, that a gas turbine takes hours to bring up to power. A steam plant that burns gas does require hours. A gas turbine requires roughly half an hour. ”
I agree that a gas turbine requires a very short time to put on line and a cold start of either a gas or coal fired power plant can take hours but I worked on a program that developed hot starts for a coal fired power plant that only required about 2 hours to put on line as I recall. Of course these were just overnight shutdowns to avoid the higher generating costs at minimum load.
Coupled with base load of coal or nuclear and offset with hydro reservoirs that are used purely for storage, wind can make sense.
Otherwise they are monuments in stupidity. You have to leave it to regions with the intelligence to deregulate electricity successfully and extract hydrocarbons from the oil sands with increasing efficiency to do it properly. That jurisdiction is not California.
hotrod (15:18:57) :
A cogent analysis.
Wind and Solar are currently used by some RV people to stay off the grid for longer periods. They use low-voltage DC and in relatively small quantities, and the parts for the installation are spendy. Batteries are the storage. And RVs are power sippers, minimizing electric use unless they run the micro or the air.