Story by Eric Worrall –
![wind_turbine_bearings[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/wind_turbine_bearings1.jpg?quality=83)
A few years ago, I used to know a senior wind turbine engineer. One evening, over a few beers, he told me the dirty secret of his profession:
“The problem is the bearings. If we make the bearings bigger, the bearings last longer, but making the bearings larger increases friction, which kills turbine efficiency. But we can’t keep using the current bearings – replacing them is sending us broke. What we need is a quantum leap in bearing technology – bearing materials which are at least ten times tougher than current materials.”
At the time there was very little corroborating online material available to support this intriguing comment – but evidence seems to be accumulating that bearings are a serious problem for the wind industry.
Siemens citing bearing failures as part of the reason for a substantial fall in profit;
http://www.offshorewind.biz/2014/05/07/siemens-energy-division-profit-down-54-pct/
In the announcement of the opening of a new Siemens research facility;
http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2013/03/19/siemens-wind-turbine-research/
“… The Brande test center would evaluate the main parts of their wind turbines such as main bearings …”
http://www.geartechnology.com/newsletter/0112/drives.htm (an attempt to make direct drive turbines, to reduce bearing wear)
“… More accurately, it is typically the bearings within the gearbox that fail, in turn gumming up the gearbox, but that’s a story for another time. …”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burbo_Bank_Offshore_Wind_Farm
“… During summer 2010 Siemens decided to change the blade bearings on all 25 turbines as a pre-emptive measure after corrosion was found in blade bearings found on other sites. …”
Of course, there is the occasional video of catastrophic turbine failure;
Suggestions the industry is trying to conceal the scale of the turbine fire problem;
All of which creates an interesting question – just how much of our money is the government prepared to waste, to keep their wind dream afloat? If the costs are far greater than the industry admits, how long is the wind industry going to carry that additional hidden cost, before they try to push the costs onto taxpayers, or abandon wind technology altogether?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2116877/Is-future-Britains-wind-rush.html
Ric Werme August 26, 2014 at 5:20 am
In some sense, all energy is free, however the cost of converting it to something useful is expensive.
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So is petrol ‘free’ it is just sitting there in the ground. But I seem to have to pay a great deal for it.
So is water ‘free’ it just falls from the sky. But I seem to have to pay a great deal for it.
So are fish ‘free’ they are just swimming around. But I seem to have to pay a great deal for them.
So is nuclear power ‘free’ the raw material is just sitting there in the ground. But I seem to have to pay a great deal for it.
Ralph
ConfusedPhoton
The huge subsidies being pumped into renewables is not “market forces”. Most people are here are not against renewables but their inefficiencies and their massive subsidies! Without long term sudsidies they was remain a minor blip in world energy production.
Even with these subsidies they are hardly an impressive method of power generation. Also wind power isn’t “new” it is literally “prehistoric”. Could be a better idea to use the money for nuclear research.
Worked for the local Electric Uitlity for almost 20 years. 7 years into working there, they knuckled under to the enviros and “co-financed” (i.e., paid part and thru the rest on the tax-payers, SUCKERS!!) 100, 1 mega watt Wind Turbines. They put them up IN A LINE (making even more costly maintenance) along 7 to 10 miles of a “ridge” on the western side of the state.
Problem is, all us engineering types had access to the “over all system operations” log book (active and historical) on our PC’s. By the time I left, there was 11 years out of 14 year of operation logged, including the total (average) output.
That was 8.7 MW out of 100 MW capacity. Now to be fair, the windiest days had 45 to 58 MW, so we think the devices were over rated.
BUT titularily the “capacity factor” was 8.7%. And with the 100 million PLUS (Installed cost also…more like 150 million) the end result with standard “amortization”, would be a cost of about $1.25 per KWHr. Raising a $100 a month electric bill to $1500 a month.
OUCH! Can we say massive economic fraud???
Tilo asked
” I wonder why this is not a problem in things like steam generators? Is it the weight of the blades on the wind turbin?”
Steam turbines have several advantages over Wind Turbines.
1) Weight is not a problem, The tteam turbine can have massive bearings with a complex lubrication and filtering system.
2) The diameter of the turbine rotor is a couple of orders of magnitude smaller than that of a large wind turbine.
3) The steam turbine typically operates at a fixed speed in a controlled environment
4) The steam turbine has been in use for around 120 years and is a mature technology.
That said if a turbine does have aproblem the results can be dramatic and even lethal.
usually casualties are confined to the power station itself but the failure of one early turbine in London killed a man on a passing bus.
LeeHarvey
August 26, 2014 at 7:52 am
But wind turbines are not automobiles. They normally operate with no one around, with little risk of injury or death due to its failure. A catastrophic failure rate of 0.06 percent adds an expected cost of $6,000 per million dollars invested. That is not a large cost in a large project.
David L. Hagen August 26, 2014 at 7:27 am
The Billion-Dollar Bet On Jet Tech That’s Making Flying More Efficient.
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The geared fan concept for jet engines….
Alternatively, you could buy a Rolls Royce Trent. Rolls have been making a twin-shaft aero-engine design for decades, which more accurately match the fan-speed with turbine-speed.
Nevertheless a fully geared fan, with a much larger fan-size, can indeed give additional fuel efficiencies. But if you make such a design, you will need to give it a catchy name. Let’s think, what could we call it??
I know – a turboprop……. 😉
Ralph
Spin all you like but very, very little wind made electricty gets to the meters, all used up getting down the lines but not to a metered use ever, in fact they keep workers doing busy work on them when the real electric power grid needs the work done as it carries the real metered load total.
@Jeff at 8:02 am
I tried searching the web for descriptions of these “subsidies”…. it would seem like someone would publish a credible list?
Here is a link to a post of mine on ClimateEct, (Rasey: 10/22/12 11:14am It is a summary of a comment thread to a Wall Street Journal piece, The Energy Subsidy Tally, WSJ Aug. 17, 2012
Of the claim that $4 billion/yr subsidies go to the oil companies, from government documents it breaks down as:
– 65% is in ethanol blending subsidy to refiners to PAY them to blend ethanol into gasoline.
– – – (is this an a) oil subsidy, b) agricultural subsidy, c) green energy subsidy, d) other, e) a combination of any or all the above?)
– 30% is in the difference between percentage and cost depletion
– – – (a fiction. If you eliminated percentage depletion, you would financially force mineral rights holders to sell their rights to people who can then take cost depletion. TANSTAAFL).
– 1 % tax loss carry forward.
– 4 % US DOE research programs.
fobdangerclose
August 26, 2014 at 8:41 am
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Is 10 Gigawatts of power “very little?”
http://www.ercot.com/news/press_releases/show/26611
nargun
August 26, 2014 at 6:59 am
> I don’t know why they are still using blade technology when the barrel system is more efficient
No, it usually isn’t, especially as you scale up. Some aspects of last HAWT (Horizontal Axis…) machines are much easier to deal with, e.g. blade pitch which is how they rotate at constant speed and do most of the braking when they need to stop. Many of the VAWT designs can’t do pitch control, or have to continuously change it like a helicopter.
http://barnardonwind.com/2013/02/23/why-arent-vertical-axis-wind-turbines-more-popular/ has some really good points.
Many others have taken @bj Hanssen to task with his post. I agree with his critics. I add my three cents.
as is the case with a lot of technological development right now, is in energy storage. As a non-constant producer of energy, ways of storing excess energy production will be required over time. This is coming.
Poppycock. You will sooner reach the “End of the Rainbow”. Batteries are old technology. Their chemistry is not only well known, but has been known for over a century. Manufacturing development is in making batteries more portable or more powerful, not cheaper. The materials requirements to store one day’s worth of the USA’s electricity needs is mindboggling and every environmentalist worth the label would object to the mining necessary. The cheapest and most efficient way of storing a GigaWatt-day of dispatachable electricity today will still be the cheapest a century from now: A unit-train of Black-Thunder Coal.
Dismissing the entire technology on the basis of one technological limitation – one that isn’t even of fatal importance, even – is not a good thing.
Oh! were that it was only ONE thing! There are few technological matters that doesn’t limit wind power!
1. They are bird killers – a death rate unacceptable to any other industry.
2. Non-dispatchable with no foreseeable means of storage.
3. A Decentralized Maintenance headache.
4. What are the death rates of workers per GWhr produced?
5. Optimistic operational life times, particularly offshore.
6. Subsidies, Subsidies, Subsidies!
7. Uneven, non-constant power from wind farms makes all other power sources run at less efficient levels.
8. Optimistic maintenance estimates.
9. Eye-sores, blights on the landscape even when they are working. Are you looking forward to the days they are rusting hulks on the horizon when operators go bankrupt?
10. Noise, especially ultra low frequency, unsuitable for urban or residential areas.
11. Visual scrubbing of sunlight, unsuitable for urban or residential areas.
12. Safety. Shrapnel hazard. (Google: Houston Discovery Tower.) unsuitable for urban or residential areas.
13. Economics. The full life cost in $/MWhr is high even before you put in storage and backup power.
I’ll give wind power one advantage over solar — it works at night (sometimes).
In the end, limiting ourselves to single venues of energy production is just a way to set us up for failure
Tell it to the EPA with it’s War on Coal, regulatory torture of the Nuclear, and endangerment of the Hydroelectric industries. The “All of the Above” energy policy that our current government supports is really an “All of the Above-Ground” policy. The EPA is openly hostile to Below Ground or In-Ground Energy sources. The EPA is setting the country up for failure.
The arguments for wind power remind me of the laughs I get when someone tells me he rides a motorcycle to save money. The little money you save in gas goes down the tubes in the chains, sprockets and carburetors.
@Edward Richardson 8/26 8:46 am
Is 10 Gigawatts of power “very little?”
That all depends upon how much you spent to get it and how often you get it.
Below is a link to ERCOT, 24 hour Forecast and Actual wind power production.
As of 8/26/14 10:20 am CDT, actual power = 0.482 GW. (about 0.300 GW less than forecast)
Peak rate in the past 24 hours was 3.4 GW at 8/26 03:00.
http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/CURRENT_DAYCOP_HSL.html
David Wells
August 26, 2014 at 7:43 am
What cost? For an extra $0.023 per kw-hr above wholesale price for the first 10 years, we know that it can be done very profitably. (Here that is on the order of 25% of the retail price). Through his holdings in Mid-American Energy, Mr Buffet is developing all the wind power he can. It is undoubted that the economic viability is skewed by that subsidy. Someone else would have to do the analysis as to whether it would be economically feasible without it. I suspect Mid-American already has a good idea but I doubt they’ll say.
Why have coal plus natural gas plus nuclear plus hydro? Why not just choose one? Each one has to be taken down for days or weeks for repairs. Nuclear can be out of service for months at the seeming whim of the NRC. I wonder how hydro on the west coast is faring in the drought there? Each plant of whatever type of fuel has to be backed up somehow. That wind has to be backed up is not of major importance.
Every utility has to have extra capacity available. When it doesn’t, the next expansion better be under way or it is already in trouble. Back up is not a particular plant: back up is somewhere in the system. When the wind varies, it is the system that responds, not one particular plant, all plants. Matching a varying demand 24/7 is something that is done every day by every electric utility.
I do not advocate Germany’s approach, putting all their eggs in one basket, nor do I care at all about their CO2 emissions. I don’t particularly care about wind energy, but as an engineering problem it is well in the realm of industrial design and economic analysis that is done all the time. There is nothing particularly daunting about it’s technical issues.
Edward Richardson,
Meters tell the tale.
Your 10 Gigawatts never gets to the meters. Used up getting to the meter loop.
Reblogged this on Concrete Bunker and commented:
Other problems of course are chopping up birds, noise and very little electricity!
@Edward Richardson 8/26 8:46 am
Is 10 Gigawatts of power “very little?”
…
“how often you get it.”
…
Read my link.
Especially the part that says:
“Wind power comprised 9.9 percent of the total energy used in the ERCOT region in 2013, compared to 9.2 percent in 2012.”
This book has an interesting chapter on wind:
http://www.amazon.com/Green-Illusions-Secrets-Environmentalism-Sustainable/dp/0803237758/ref=cm_cr-mr-title
It investigates how a report on wind was overhyped and I have not been able to find a good summary online.
fobdangerclose
August 26, 2014 at 9:08 am
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Did you read the part of my link that said”
“At the time the new record was set, wind generation was providing nearly 29 percent of the 35,768 MW of electricity being used on the ERCOT grid”
…
29% !!! The wind turbines were carrying almost a third of the total load.
“All the technical problems can be overcome.”
No they can’t, some technical problems are impossible to overcome. Others can be overcome but at a cost that makes the technology non-viable.
“Maintenance is part of the cost of the project, known in advance.”
Well unless they lie about the failure rate or there are failure modes that don’t show up until the system starts operating or failure modes that turn out to be much worse than projected, then the actual maintenance costs can make the project non-profitable.
“An increase in maintenance cost will not be of great importance.”
Depends on how much the increase is and what the profit margin is. With a large increase in cost and/or a slim profit margin, an increase in any cost can quickly drive the project to bankruptcy.
“The article cited says there are 120 wind turbine fires annually”
And of course lets ignore the bearing failure issue that is the main point of the article. What is the bearing failure rate Chris4692?
“A catastrophic failure rate of 0.06 percent adds an expected cost of $6,000 per million dollars invested. That is not a large cost in a large project.”
But that is a catastrophic FIRE failure rate. What about all the other potential failure modes? If the only failure mode I analysed for my car was a catastrophic fire then my maintenance cost would be microscopic. But unfortunately there are lots of other failure modes.
I appreciate that cherry-picking one failure mode and acting like it is the only one makes the numbers seem to support wind turbines, but in the real world there isn’t just the one mode.
Edward Richardson says:
The wind turbines were carrying almost a third of the total load.
When the wind is blowing at the right velocity, those turbines are churning out power and chopping up raptors.
The end justifies the means, no?
“Each plant of whatever type of fuel has to be backed up somehow.”
Yes it does, but not 100% like the case with wind.
If there were 20 1000MW coal plants, there is not a need for 20,000MW of back-up because the probablity of all of them being offline at once is so small as to effectively be zero. But if there were 1000 20MW wind turbines, there is a need for 20,000MW of back-up because there is a fair probablity of the wind being too slow or too fast at all (or most) of the turbines.
Every working metal part has a “productive” lifespan. I remember trying to switch a bearing from heat treatment to chemical treatment and the engineers insisted it had to be tested to 4000 hours productive life before possibly failing and the product was fitted to a dump truck. It worked and we saved some money. There is basically not a problem with the bearing as such but with the costing of the product. If the bearing technology currently available cannot support the costs even when subsidies are included, the product is not “fit for purpose”. The logical thing would be to increase the size (if different heat treatment and/or metal composition is not available) but it is a failure of the product if this reduces efficiency below a profitable level. It should be withdrawn until the problem has been resolved. I would suggest until the energy storage problem is resolved as well to get away from the peaks that unsettle the grid and a need for costly back-up from conventional sources.
I need to correct myself.
In a small system wind would need essentially 100% back-up. But in a larger system spread over a wider area and with other baseload plants, wind would not need to be 100% backed-up. But it would require a much higher rate of back-up than coal, hydro, nuclear or gas.
So although my earlier example isn’t realistic, the basic situation is correct. Wind requires more back-up than just about any other system. This cost needs to be factored into the economics of wind power.
Stephen Rasey August 26, 2014 at 9:01 am
Below is a link to ERCOT, 24 hour Forecast and Actual wind power production.
As of 8/26/14 10:20 am CDT, actual power = 0.482 GW. (about 0.300 GW less than forecast)
Peak rate in the past 24 hours was 3.4 GW at 8/26 03:00.
http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/CURRENT_DAYCOP_HSL.html
Peak Rate at 3:00 AM in the morning? By noon the power generated by wind had dropped to 600 MW, meanwhile the actual demand is forecasted to be 55,000 MW.
http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/loadForecastVsActualCurrentDay.html
What’s your point exactly? That wind is poorly suited to actual on-time demand?