It all started when the Gorran School got the bright idea that a wind turbine would solve all their electrical bills while doing some feel good environmentalism. The BBC was ecstatic when they reported on it back in 2008:
A Cornish primary school could soon be almost completely powered by a single wind turbine.
The turbine should be up and running by the end of March
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Gorran Primary School on the Roseland, has secured more than £50,000 from different agencies to carry out the work on the 15m (49ft) high turbine.
It should be up and running at the end of March at the school made famous by Anne Treneer’s autobiography The Schoolhouse in the Wind.
The head teacher Matthew Oakley says it should save the school £5,000 a year.
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And then, reality came crashing down to Earth:
Wind brings down turbine 02/12/2009 The Newquay Voice
THE eco-dream of a village school turned into a Friday 13th nightmare when high winds destroyed their wind turbine.
Two blades flew off from the 15m tall turbine in Gorran School’s playing field during the bad weather earlier this month. The turbine was part of the school’s £53,000 plan to generate its own electricity,
On the afternoon of Friday, November 13, the school was advised to turn on the brakes to stop the turbine, but the brakes failed, causing two blades to detach in the early hours of Saturday morning.
A concerned parent said: “Thank God it happened when the children were not out on the field. Looking at the size and weight of those rotor blades, I dread to think what would have happened if they had snapped off while they were there.”
…
This is not the first problem Gorran School have experienced with their wind turbine. Only seven months after it was erected in July 2008 it went on the blink. It was repaired by the manufacturers at the time at no cost to the school, and they were reimbursed for the lost generation while the turbine was not working.
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Now today, the company has walked away from the mess according to the Telegraph, and the school has a pile of scrap:
Eco-friendly school left out of pocket after ‘unproven’ wind turbine breaks
An eco-friendly school has been left £55,000 out of pocket after its wind turbine broke – with governors admitting that it was based on “completely unproven technology”.
The company that installed the turbine has gone bust leaving the school with a pile of scrap.
The Gorran School in Cornwall revealed its 15 metre turbine in 2008 which was designed to provide it with free electricity – and sell any surplus power to the National Grid.
The system was seen as a green blueprint for clean, sustainable energy for schools nationwide and received grants from various bodies including the EDF power firm.
But soon after being installed the wind turbine became faulty and after a few months seized up – showering the school’s playing field with debris.
Since then the school has been locked in a battle with suppliers Proven Energy which has now gone into administration leaving the school with little hope of any money being returned – and a pile of scrap in their field.
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Having learned nothing in Gorran, they are still at it, from the BBC on August 19th:
19 August 2011 Last updated at 03:31 ET
Wind energy for Gorran community
The turbines at Gorran may be generating power within a matter of weeks
The small community of Gorran in south Cornwall will soon be generating its own energy and exporting surplus to the national grid.
Work to erect two community wind turbines at a cost of £500,000 is well under way.
Community Power Cornwall, a local co-operative, is behind the project.
The organisation has helped the villagers in Gorran to look at its energy needs and developed a renewable energy scheme.
‘Big symbol’
Villager Ella Westland, from Transition Gorran, said clean energy production and low carbon living were “things many villagers have been working towards for a long time”.
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Yeah ‘Big Symbol’ alright – of FAIL. Just look at all the FAIL in California.
Only 659 names on the Repeal Climate Change Act.
Get signing!!
[Reply: Posting a hotlink would be helpful. ~dbs, mod.]
>>RA Cook
>>Solar hot water for heating water for household heat and pools can work
>>IF you are patient .
But it may have unintended consequences.
Friend of mine installed solar heating, and rather stupidly (and idealisticly) removed the gas heater. Result? Three years of no heat in the winter, a thumping electric bill three times the size of the original gas bill, and a divorce to boot.
Thus his solar heating actually cost some £450,000, when the divorce was factored in.
.
Dave Springer says:
October 7, 2011 at 7:59 am
Studies I actually believe (US Department of Energy) peg it at 4 times the cost of the lowest cost alternative (combined cycle natural gas).
LCOE cost analysis is a simplistic starting point in evaluating the relative costs of various energy sources needs to accommodate not only base-load, but seasonal and time of day generating mixes.
The cost that the ‘consumer’ pay is what is the cost going to be to deliver reliable on demand electricity generation 24 hours a day/365 days a year.
While solar has some ‘seasonal’ value for the summer ‘peak load’, it has zero value for winter ‘peak load’. DOE Generating statistics show January Solar power to be 1/6th of June Solar Power.
http://205.254.135.24/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_5.pdf
So in determining the cost of any intermittent energy source one must also determine the costs of the sources that will be delivering reliable power and whether the intermittants are ‘complementary’ or not.
Exelon, one of the US’s largest electric utilities , in 2008 and again in 2010 made a hypothetical plan to ZERO their carbon foot print and what technologies would be employed in what quantities and at what costs to achieve a reliable, carbon free energy mix.
You can see the results on page 8 and 9 of this presentation.
http://www.exeloncorp.com/assets/newsroom/speeches/docs/spch_Rowe_ANS_110815.pdf
A person would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.
>>Septic
>>The city government of Austin TX gets all of its power from a wind farm.
>>There is nothing “Luddite” like in a modern wind turbine.
And what do they do when there is too little or too much wind – close down the entire government??
Don’t try to fool us that they are running on wind power, we are not naive wet-behind-the-ears Greenies here, you know.
.
Peter H says:
October 7, 2011 at 9:48 am
“I think they generate electricity when we need it.”
Not during the coldest part of the last 2 winters in the UK, they didn’t… Have you not seen the BM Reports website { http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm } and the numerous screen captures posted showing wind contributing less than 0.1% of the demand. This lasted for several days due to an anticyclone covering the whole of the country.
harrywr2: While solar has some ‘seasonal’ value for the summer ‘peak load’, it has zero value for winter ‘peak load’. DOE Generating statistics show January Solar power to be 1/6th of June Solar Power.
Solar power right now is a niche product, in the U.S., basically to offset summer air conditioning. As far as I can tell, it is not cost-effective for other uses. Since I don’t use A/C, I have not bought the solar panels.
But to supplement your point: solar power in places that have sunny winters can be used through a heat pump to offset winter-time gas consumption. For my neighbors who do use air conditioning, they could cut costs in summer (full cost, not just net after tax rebates), and winter heating would be a bonus.
There is a heavy irony (if not duplicity) for Californians who support both “equity” and solar subsidies. The solar subsidy is a tax credit: reduced state and federal income tax for installing solar power. So it is only cost-effective for people who have high tax bills and high electricity bills. Rich People, what we sometimes call “limousine liberals” mostly back this plan. (Unless it’s changed — sometimes I am behind.)
Ralph: And what do they do when there is too little or too much wind – close down the entire government??
Well, last winter the wind farms kept generating electricity when a bunch of coal-fired and gas-fired power plants shut down due to unexpected cold. It was a thread here at WUWT. Gas-fired plants everywhere have trouble in cold weather because it becomes hard to maintain the gas pressure in the lines. Albuquerque had a power crisis of sort when the pressure fell in the gas lines from Texas.
In San Diego and southern Riverside Counties there was a 16-hour or so electrical shut-down caused by a small problem in a generator in Yuma AZ. People who had roof-mounted PV power had a few more hours of electricity than others. My neighbors had a back-up generator, so they were set. In another neighborhood there was a fight and an injury because one neighbor objected somewhat too strenuously to the noise of a generator.
In the summertime, nuclear power plants in the U.S.often have to reduce power output when the cooling water runs low.
On the whole, solar, biofuels and wind are not ready for open competition in the U.S. market. But you need to abandon the idea that the fossil fuels are without serious problems.
TimTheToolMan says:
October 6, 2011 at 5:43 pm
£53,000 worth of PV solar panels on thr school’s roof would have been a better investment IMO. Wind is too high maintenance, too many moving parts to go wrong.
Brilliant idea! We could then give hands on experience of Victorian times as an educational tool and instead of sending little children up chimneys to clean them we could sent them onto the roof to clean the panels.
Oh my dear! How Dickensian! Dress them as Smike and rename the school Dotheboys Hall!
Dave Springer says:
October 7, 2011 at 4:29 am
The article describes one isolated failure in wind systems. This is hardly representative of wind power everywhere……
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“Summary of Wind Turbine Incidents (December 2008
• 41 Worker Fatalities, 16 Public- Includes falling from turbine towers and transporting turbines on the highway.
• 39 Incidents of Blade Failure- Failed blades have been known to travel over a quarter mile, killing any unfortunate bystanders within its path of destruction.
• 110 Incidents of Fire- When a wind turbine fire occurs, local fire departments can do little but watch due to the 30-story height of these turbine units. The falling debris are then carried across the distance and cause new fires.
• 60 Incidents of Structural Failure- As turbines become more prevalent, these breakages will become more common in public areas, thereby causing more deaths and dismemberment’s from falling debris.
• 24 incidents of “hurling ice”- Ice forms on these giant blades and is reportedly hurled at deathly speeds in all directions. Author reports that some 880 ice incidents of this nature have occurred over Germany’s 13-years of harnessing wind power.
Source: http://www.inquisitr.com/18588/wind-power-causes-more-deaths-than-nuclear-power/
Original Source: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/wind-vs-nuclear-energy-wind-power-deemed-far-more-dangerous.php“>Treehugger
This article may describe one failure in wind systems but it is not isolated and Worst these are relatively new systems. What is going to happen to these expensive monstrosities as they age? WHO is going to take them down before some one is hurt? WHO is going to pay for it?
The “investors” are going to grab the money, declare bankruptcy and run.
I and my neighbors prevented the same type of scam involving a GREEN refuse composting facility that was slated to be built on a swamp near me. We (the town) would have been left to clean up the mess not to mention the health hazard from the run-off leaking into our wells.
Unlike the idiots in this story we listened to the story and then did our homework and investigated not only the company but the investors. We were able to show the town council that the “Technology” was completely unproven. Everyone agreed to give the company thumbs down.
Kum Dollison says:
October 6, 2011 at 10:03 pm
That Kansas Wind Farm should churn out about 3 GWatt/Hrs/day or 1,000 Gigawatt hrs/Yr. (figuring about 30% of nameplate capacity.)
No Dead Coal Miners. No Coal Trains. No Pollution. No depending on a Depleting, and steadily more expensive resource. Money for the Local Farmers, and Municipalities/Counties.
And, at about $1.90/Watt, installed (before any subsidies,) not a bad price.
Looks pretty good to me.
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Kum, HOW do you think the wind mills are MADE????
I worked for a manufacturer of the ceramic molds used to make aircraft engine parts. You are talking about massive amounts of energy JUST to produce the ceramic molds! Heck the furnaces were so hot they were never shut down except for maintenance. And that does not include the mining and smelting of the various ores that goes into the steel. Or the transportation of the various sands and clays for the ceramics…..
How come everyone forgets just what goes into producing an ingot of pig iron much less a turbine blade.
Here is a forum with discussions on turbine blades: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=376471
Just as an example of the problems, we had to be very careful of the lead and bismuth content of the ceramics because they made the blades brittle and caused three airline crashes.
A Professional Engineer looked into what it takes to build a windmill vs the energy output: http://www.windpowerfraud.com/
hell_is_like_newark says:
October 7, 2011 at 5:59 am
There are plans to build one of these wind monsters on the waterfront of Bayonne, NJ. The local paper has been hailing it as something wonderful. I am dreading what it will do to the local wildlife. Since the Hudson and Hackensack rivers have cleaned up (modern sewage treatment), birds such as ospreys have come back. Now they will get pureed by the blades of a wind turbine.
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The statistics on what these monsters can do are out there. Gather them up get a bunch of other concerned citizens and form a “group” and PAY for ads in all the papers in the area.
It is necessary to form a “Group” since only “Groups” have clout. Something like the Bayonne “save the birds” foundation or what ever. (A concerned lawyer would be very helpful)
You really find the article A Cornish primary school could soon be almost completely powered by a single wind turbine to be an expression overwhelming happiness or joyful excitement?
For a really ecstatic article, try ‘The Sunday Times’:
Stiff sea breeze blows away school’s electricity billOne of Britain’s most windswept schools has taken advantage of its position on an exposed Cornish headland to reduce its electricity bills by up to 90 per cent.
Gorran School, near St Austell, has attracted £55,000 in grants to install a 50ft (15m) wind turbine in a corner of its playing field. When the wind blows the turbine produces 3.5kW of power, enough to meet nearly all the 100-pupil primary school’s energy needs and to help to heat its outdoor swimming pool to a bath-like temperature.
When the school is closed at night, at weekends and during holidays, or if the turbine produces more power than it needs, the surplus electricity is sold to the national grid for 10p per unit.
Gush, gush, gush, …
And they are not really holding the bag for £53,000. They don’t have to pay the grants back. It’s we tax payers who should be suing those concerned for lack of due diligence in the selection of the wind turbine.
Still the Gorran High Lanes scheme have learnt a lesson, they. “chose a Canadian system that’s been tried and tested across the world”. They now have “two amazing Canadian-built turbines that work beautifully”.
Lex says:
October 7, 2011 at 9:42 am
I do work for a supplier to the windmill industry…..
They, the windmill industry are now pushing the “smaller” prospects, who don’t have much (financial and technical) experience to purchase a windmill and at the other hand they’re squeezing suppliers and prices and hence quality.
Well, the company I am working is reacting: what you want is what you get
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Gee, just what we wanted to hear after reading what Scottish Sceptic says. The quality is going to get even worse….
Ralph says:
October 7, 2011 at 11:46 am
>>Septic
>>The city government of Austin TX gets all of its power from a wind farm.
>>There is nothing “Luddite” like in a modern wind turbine.
And what do they do when there is too little or too much wind – close down the entire government??
Don’t try to fool us that they are running on wind power, we are not naive wet-behind-the-ears Greenies here, you know.
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Actually it is more a special case, Ralph and a bit of “Accounting”
The city is purchasing energy Austin Energy. Austin Energy purchases SOME of its energy from a wind farm which supplies 30% of the energy of the the whole city. http://www.austinenergy.com/About%20Us/Newsroom/Press%20Releases/2011/largestLocalGvtGreenPower.html
Also Texas is big flat and windy with no snow and therefore a very good place for solar or wind farms. My neck of the woods, Mid North Carolina is NFG for wind power. Too many people and not enough wind. See map: http://www.usasolarwind.com/USA%20Wind%20Maps/
Klem says
H’mmm. I have to disagree. The school did not build it. The UK taxpayer did. All of the finance came from taxpayer grants along the way. The school’s only role was to decide on which hare-brained ecoscheme the money should be wasted forever.
So as a UK taxpayer I am furious that our cash has been lost. This is compounded by the hapless schmucks now suggesting that they should replace the broken windmill with solar panels…no doubt wanting another £50K of public money to do so. And I guess they’ll discover the hard way that solar doesn’t work at night, that it’s often cloudy in Cornwall and that it’ll probably fill through the roof on a governor’s meeting, flattening all concerned. Good!
Gail Combs says:
October 7, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Dave Springer says:
October 7, 2011 at 4:29 am
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Gail,
We will shut down all the mines, smelters and refineries (and especially the hot furnaces that make ceramic moulds) and just use wind turbines (we’ll take them from the wind turbine tree).
Singing kumbaya my lord…
If we can find enough people to spend £55,000 for 3.5 kW of power than we’ll be rolling in dough. The taxpayer at work making you money.
More on pounds per kilowatt:
£55,000 to purchase 3.5 kW of peak power
£55,000 is $122,000 US dollars.
3.5 kW generator burns 0.75 gal/hr.
1 gallon costs $4.00
assume 8 hrs per day (of 3.5 kW use – note the 3.5 kW is peak supply so we assume 33% duty cycle)
assume 365 days per year
0.75 x 4 x 8 x 365 = $8,760 per year of fuel
add $250 in maintenance
buy a brand new unit each year for $1,750
$1,750+$250+$8,760=$10,760 total cost
$122,000/$10,760 = 11.3 years to break even (assuming wind turbine never needs servicing or replacing)
Unknowns:
1. What is the service cost of the wind turbine?
2. What is the replacement cost of the wind turbine?
3. How long will the wind turbine last (10, 15, 20 years)?
Steve from Rockwool says
and “
If only! Please rework with the more realistic $9.00 per gallon which is the prevailing UK price and at the exchange rate of £1 = $1.55 US
and also compare with just buying the juice off the National Grid at about 14p per KWh.
55,000 pounds buys a LOT of electricity readily available 24/7/365 through an electron hose already attached to their school.
A reasonable interpretation of the article is that the school did not pay 50000 pounds of it’s own money. It was given the money in the form of grants.
It seems most likely that the public purse and not the school is down 50000 pounds,
Industrial (red) diesel in the UK costs around £3 per Imperial Gallon or $3.70 per US Gallon.
Unfortunately you need to more than double that for road use.
“…Mueller acknowledged the turbine hasn’t cranked out a huge amount of electricity, averaging around 60 cents’ worth of power daily.
But the lessons learned by the students are worth far more than 60 cents, Mueller said. The project familiarizes students with wind energy and other forms of “green” power, Mueller said.”
Let’s give the kids some credit. They are learning. If they are anything like we were in school, they can do the math, and they surely realize that the turbine is nothing more than a stunt by overzealous “educators”. These students are getting a social studies lesson.
Apologies, forgot to factor in US still using wet ounces.
Industrial (red) diesel in the UK costs around £3 per Imperial Gallon or $3.87 per US Gallon.
1st: Aren’t there several tried & tested types of windmills on the marked where to choose the best offer from? (And by “best offer” I don’t mean the cheapest junk money can buy, but the best quality for a given sum of money!)
2nd. Haven’t they bought an insurance against failure?
The people responsible for this chaos on the sides of the school and administration ought to be fired due to proven lack of competence beyond doubt!