From the “it’s OK, we used other people’s money” department and Andrew Follet at The Daily Caller:
Lake Land College recently announced plans to tear down broken wind turbines on campus, after the school got $987,697.20 in taxpayer support for wind power.
The turbines were funded by a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, but the turbines lasted for less than four years and were incredibly costly to maintain.
“Since the installation in 2012, the college has spent $240,000 in parts and labor to maintain the turbines,” Kelly Allee, Director of Public Relations at Lake Land College, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
The college estimates it would take another $100,000 in repairs to make the turbines function again after one of them was struck by lightning and likely suffered electrical damage last summer. School officials’ original estimates found the turbine would save it $44,000 in electricity annually, far more than the $8,500 they actually generated. Under the original optimistic scenario, the turbines would have to last for 22.5 years just to recoup the costs, not accounting for inflation. If viewed as an investment, the turbines had a return of negative 99.14 percent.
“While they have been an excellent teaching tool for students, they have only generated $8,500 in power in their lifetime,” she said. “One of the reasons for the lower than expected energy power is that the turbines often need to be repaired. They are not a good teaching tool if they are not working.”
The college estimates it would take another $100,000 in repairs to make the turbines function again after one of them was struck by lightning and likely suffered electrical damage last summer.
Even though the college wants to tear down one of the turbines, they are federal assets and “there is a process that has to be followed” according to Allee.
The turbines became operational in 2012 after a 5-year long building campaign intended to reduce the college’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to fight global warming. Even though the turbines cost almost $1 million, but the college repeatedly claimed they’d save money in the long run.
“It is becoming more and more difficult for us financially to maintain the turbines,” Josh Bullock, the college’s president, told the Journal Gazette and Times-Courier last week. “I think it was an extremely worthy experiment when they were installed, but they just have not performed to our expectations to this point.”
Bullock states that the turbines simply haven’t been able to power the campus’ buildings and that most of the electricity wasn’t effectively used.
Lake Land plans to replace the two failed turbines with a solar power system paid for by a government grant. “[T]he photovoltaic panels are expected to save the college between $50,000 and $60,000 this year,”Allee told the DCNF.
Globally, less than 30 percent of total power wind capacity is actually utilized as the intermittent and irregular nature of wind power makes it hard to use.Power demand is relatively predictable, but the output of a wind turbine is quite variable over time and generally doesn’t coincide with the times when power is most needed. Thus, wind power systems require conventional backups to provide power during outages. Since the output of wind turbines cannot be predicted with high accuracy by forecasts, grid operators need to keep excess conventional power systems running.
Wind power accounted for only 4.4 percent of electricity generated in America in 2014, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Edgar County Watchdog adds:
Lake Land College (LLC) wind turbine history can be seen here:
2007-2010 COST BREAKDOWN:
2007: Wind feasibility study completed for $30,000
2010: LLC provided $500,000 from Illinois DCEO to “build one turbine.”
2010: LLC provided 18% of $2,542,762 from US Dept of Labor for “green job training program and related equipment including a 100 kW turbine.” (The turbine portion of this US DoL grant calculates to $457,697.20 per the small print details.)
WHAT DO WE HAVE TO SHOW FOR TAXPAYER $987,697.20 spent to build these boondoggles?https://www.lakelandcollege.edu/as/tec/sustain/documents/Sustainability%20Media%20Guide%202012.pdf
Operation date: 2012
(read the comments from “gringa”in 2012……totally good point about it never paying for themselves)
“No mention of payback periods in this article. Seems like LLC would include the economic effectiveness of this investment in any discussion of it. After all, isn’t this all about return on investment? Maybe not. Wind is free, but the land and equipment and maintenance to that equipment is NOT free. “
in 2014, another article was written touting the “savings”:
LLC should update their college website “infomercial” found here since the turbines no longer (if ever) actually saved $44,000 per year per the over-optimistic claims:
https://www.lakeland.cc.il.us/as/tec/green_jobs/documents/EAR%20INSERT%20LLC%20May%202013.pdf
Just for fun, IF the turbines saved $44,000 per year, these two junkers would have to last 22.5 years, but they only lasted a shameful FOUR YEARS!!!!!
The Lake Land College Newsletter was full of praise in 2012:
Despite the bad weather, the first of the college’s two 100 kW wind turbines has been installed. This project is made possible by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding via the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity and a Community-Based Job Training Grant from the U. S. Department of Labor.
The new turbines will offer students advanced training for large-scale turbine maintenance and energy production. They will also power buildings on campus with alternative energy, further reducing the cost of utilities for Lake Land College. Because Lake Land College officials and experts worked with the manufacturer to create customized turbines, it is projected that there will be a significant return on this investment of Class Two wind speeds, making these turbines a very affordable option for the college.
The two turbines are estimated to produce more than 220,000 kilowatt hours each year, thereby reducing the number of kilowatt hours of electricity needed by 440,000. The college estimates that the initial energy savings will be around $44,000 annually.
What exactly does this mean? Here’s a real-world example: the average Illinois home consumes 1,100 kilowatt hours each month. The two turbines should produce 36,667 kilowatt hours each month. Based on this information, the two turbines could produce enough energy to power the average Illinois home for just over 33 months, or 2.8 years!
Source: Laker Low Down eNewsletter published January 26, 2012
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
They were credite with $85,000 in generated electricity. For everything it took to erect them, seems likely their production and decommissioning they must have consumed more energy than they ever generated. Ignoring costs you likely get more emissions than if they had never been conceived, It would be informative to know how much.
+1
Poor little babies! And how difficult it will be be, financially, I mean, to reimburse $1 million to taxpayers, already spent on a failed project. Or irresponsible and fraudulent use of taxpayer’s money is no longer a crime in the US of A?
“I think it was an extremely worthy experiment when they were installed”
It’s a “worthy experiment” to find out something that everyone else already knew?
This is a community college.
Good chance they really didn’t know.
Good chance they still don’t know.
“worthy experiment” means they used other people’s money.
Lake Land plans to replace the two failed turbines with a solar power system paid for by a government grant. “[T]he photovoltaic panels are expected to save the college between $50,000 and $60,000 this year,”
These guys are just suckers for punishment.
Nah.
They’re just suckers.
Sounds like Mr Haney is in the Wind Turbine and Solar Panel business over near Green Acres.
Leave them in place. Monuments to folly.
Tilt them a little. Drill holes. Use them Martin nests.
Tilting windmills?
No Tilting Zone
Tilting at windmills? Are you Don Quixote?
When we visited the Big Island of Hawaii a few years ago, there was a huge abandoned wind farm on the southern tip of the island. It was quite an eyesore on an otherwise spectacular island, and I’ve since wondered whether it is still there, in all its rusted glory.
Damage due to a lightning strike suggests bad grounding design to me, tho I understand no grounding system can be perfect.
One of Ben Franklin’s inventions from the 1750s could have come in handy too, The lightning rod!
Maybe they left that out of the procurement list or shaved expenses by skipping that part under the table. It works in Brazil.
Can make the situation worse as the added lightning rod makes the wind turbine taller?
There are videos online that show lightning striking wind turbines and at least one that shows a tornado hitting a wind turbine.
“2007: Wind feasibility study completed for $30,000”
A lawsuit should be able to get that money back at least.
…plan to install solar panels……HELLO….when your in a hole, stop digging!!!
If a lightning strike knocked the turbine out, it wasn’t properly grounded(i.e. it wasn’t properly installed to begin with). The grounding system for a structure like that should be pretty massive and able to dissipate even the largest of strikes.
Industrial size wind turbines installed in Ontario are not required to be government inspected. As far as is known the foundations are not inspected either.
There is one now leaning near Owen Sound, ON that is said to have been installed in 2002.
Wind turbines installed in Michigan’s Thumb area have already been damaged by weather related issues and one collapsed recently. Might have been heavy wet snow on the blades but cause of the collapse not known for sure.
Owen Sound Times, April 12, 2016
‘Wind turbine at Ferndale leaning’
Now secured by tethers.
Photo at:
http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/2016/04/12/wind-turbine-at-ferndale-leaning
Don’t panic, they’ll come up with a new and improved way to waste other peoples money!
Plastics……..renewable plastics
“…They are not a good teaching tool if they are not working.”
Oh they are a great teaching tool. You are just not teaching the right lesson.
A teacher of mine used to proclaim that we are always learning. It’s just that we aren’t always learning what we intended.
If windpower had ever been any good we’d never have needed to mine any coal.
First, they squander over $1 million (inculding maintenance costs) on a failed wind energy project. And now they want to….
“……….. replace the two failed turbines with a solar power system paid for by a government grant. “[T]he photovoltaic panels are expected to save the college between $50,000 and $60,000 this year,”Allee told the DCNF.”
Reminds me of Einstein’s definition of insanity (which this college apparently feels doesn’t apply to them): Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results each time.
It’s called Illinois, where they can’t even pay their bills.
Illinois s**cks. I pay over $500 a month in property tax on a dumpy little 60 year old two bedroom house. I pay 10% sales tax. I pay 3.75% income tax. I would move in a heartbeat if I could.
They’re teaching indoctrination and that the students should go to electrical maintenance school instead of college.
That’s much too practical. In case you haven’t noticed environmental and ecology degrees are everywhere in U.S. education offerings. It’s lower cost and high return credit hours. All you need is a bus for field trips and a climate preacher faculty member.
“Climate preacher”. That’s good. I’ll have to remember that.
Somebody saw these morons coming and sold them a bag full of magic beans and a gallon of snake oil.
+ 100
I can’t remember which publication it was Design News or Machine Design had an article in the last year or so about the rolling element bearing problems they were having with turbines. If it was feasible hydrodynamic bearings might have been the better choice.
Interestingly the main reason the Danes did so well early on was because they accidentally created a system whereby the got real mechanical engineering companies – like Vestas – who started by building agricultural machinery – so I mean REAL MECHANICAL ENGINEERING. And they managed to keep the academics out of the Danish wind industry.
I had the opportunity to meet one of the original 5 from Riso their “research institute”. I was interested, because at the time the UK were pushing to create a “research institute” for wave energy (run by academics). The first thing I noticed about him was his stubby fingers. The second was that unlike most Danes he was not fluent in English (although his English was far better than my Danish).
But I asked him “what kind of research did you do at Riso”. He looked at me quizzically. I repeated the question. Eventually after much pushing he eventually said: “we did go down to the scrap metal yard and select a few lorry gear boxes to test”.
That was the kind of guy who literally created the modern windmill – and note, in Denmark it is called a Windmill referring back to the past machinery. Whereas in the US and UK which failed appalling to produce any machine capable of being reliable …. they were called “wind turbines” … trying to suggest they were new an “innovative”.
And of course, I do not blame the guys at Riso for the current “wind scam” … which was largely I regret to say as a result of UK and US academics. So, the same US/UK academic culture that couldn’t build a reliable windmill, could produce a reliable climate model … I think that sums up the whole debacle very well.
Thanks so much for your reply. It put a smile on my face. I particularly liked your thought to keeping the academics away.
I my initial reply I should have stated hydrodynamic or hydrostatic bearings. I spent 35 years in rotating equipment design.
Actually the Vestas aren’t any good. The gearboxes fail quite frequently. It’s gotten so bad that in Sweden insurance companies now refuse to insure the gearboxes (the rest of the windmills seems to work OK).
If these fools want to use old technology to generate electricity, at the speeds they rotate at they need old technology bearings.Big old plain bearings with an oil feed, it will wear but not collapse.
Amateurs making electricity is on my list of stupid things people do. I do not care what your IQ is, if you do enough stupid things, you are stupid. Unfortunately, the inverse is not true. One awh sh#t, wipes out a 1000 atta boys.
First on my list is smoking, it is expensive. I did not need the government to tell me that smoking was bad for my health, my chain smoking parents and grandparents did. I would like the government to stop using scare tactics and adopt a cost/benefit approach.
Second is tatoos. It is a navy thing. Again I learned from my parents. When I was a young sailor I was told not to get any by my father who had none and my father-in-law who had them. The latter mentor lied about his age to get into the navy during WWII. Again, cost/benefit.
Third is having a phd and thinking you are all knowing. It tells me you were not able to get a good job with a bachelor’s degrees. If you are unsure of this, think of all of the phd’s who comment on making electricity with no experience in the field.
Amateurs making electricity is is way down on my list of stupid things people do because in the past they had good reasons. For examples, dairy farmers have backup generators. If they can not milk the cows during a power outage, they will lose their livelihood.
The biggest reason I am against amateurs like Lake Land College is safety. We do not put nuke plants is school parking lots. I would much prefer an alpha particle to be absorbed in a dead layer of skin that absorb the kinetic energy of a broken turbine blade.
As far as economics, why do amateurs think they can do it better than professionals? Claims of saving money is a code for a scam.
I have yet to see a case where amateurs actually protect the environment better than the professionals at a coal plant
Some northern countries have been experimenting with cogeneration. With cogeneration you heat your house with the waste heat from a generator. In theory this recovers waste heat from the generation process better than a large scale generator can do.
If cogeneration were truly viable, it would be much more common because people have been working on it for a long time.
On the other hand, there are places in the world where many people have their own generators. Local conditions can make it feasible or even necessary. If the government were to jack the price of electricity up to a buck per kWh, I would seriously consider it.
The problem with co-generation is that the houses have to be pretty close to the power station.
You can use it to heat buildings on the plant, but that’s about it.
Bob
I had this debate a few years back with Robert Rapier about a home VW system cogen system. Bob nailed it when he said you would see more if it were viable.
The primary reason heating with natural gas or propane is very efficient.
“buck per kWh, I would seriously consider it.”
I have two generators for my motorhome. With fuel cost at $2/gal, you break even on fuel costs.
Cogeneration is quite practicable. It is used on a large scale in Sweden. Economically it works OK and the energy efficiency can be very high, but there are two drawbacks:
1. Even when used on a very large scale (like in Sweden) it only produces a small part of the required electricity (in Sweden c. 8,5 %). This is because only a relatively small part of the energy comes out as electricity.
2. The amount of electricity thast can be produced is strongly constrained by the amount of heat needed. It is extremely uneconomical to operate a cogeneration plant for electricity only. On a short term basis (say over 24 hours) heat production and electricity production can be decoupled to some extent by storing hot water in storage tanks, but this is not possible for longer periods.
“You can use it to heat buildings on the plant, but that’s about it.”
Definitely not. If the hotwater lines are properly insulated the heat can be transported several kilometers without undue losses. A more serious constraint is that you have to have reserve plants in all large hotwater systems. You can’t let a whole city freeze because a single cogeneration plant is inoperable.
If they really want a lesson, they should try it without grid back-up. None of them ever seem confident enough for that. I wonder why. /sarc
A rule of thumb in project management is that, since estimates for projects on the drawing board are always done by optimists, the costs are underestimated by a factor of 2, and the benefits are overestimated by a factor of 2. In a typical ‘break-even’ project (which would never get started as project managers won’t touch projects that don’t show a reasonable chance for a profit), the ROI would be about -75%. Because of the expectation of profit a real-world PM looks for projects where double the anticipated cost is less than half the expected benefit.
The PM for this project must have been a tyro, but even an experienced PM would have been beaten by this project.
The calculations in the last paragraph are bogus. You can’t generate power for one month and then store it to supply a single house for 32 more months. The correct meaning is that the 2 turbines producing 36,667 kWh/ mo could supply 33 homes in that month – weather permitting.
Try working with software engineers as my company does. I use a factor of 7 for both of those estimates (Costs underestimated and benefits overestimated). I also apply an additional factor of 7 for testing and debugging of the original cost estimation because the majority of software engineers never include this in their numbers I also then add 50% of that test estimate again as I figure half of the testing time requires the original engineer(s) to debug and patch their original code for all the things the test team finds. I constantly am challenged by the stakeholders but time after time I have been proven to be right (at least for the past 39 years).
Of course, photovoltaics have their own problems including having to be kept very clean. And during winter months the hours of effective solar input (in Illinois) is drastically decreased, further diminishing output. It’s a sure thing that their projected savings with PV are very optimistic.
This is never a major concern.
Usually, in the subsidy rich western world solar panels work extremely well in almost all conditions and climates.
Inasmuch as you just put them on your roof and connect them to the grid – and then when the sun shines generous quantities of other people’s money flow directly into your bank account. (sarc.)
You gotta love the liberal mind set. “It’s not a learning experience if you have to keep fixing them”. Oh contraire, realizing you have to maintain stuff is a wonderful learning experience….Everything must be maintained! Before something is built, it must be able to provide real value, besides “being a learning experience”.
I’d agree. While they are being maintained, you can observe the inner workings and see how they work. While they are working, it’s not learning unless you are actively involved in its operation. Effectively, it’s art to be looked at.
That quote, “It’s not a learning experience if you have to keep fixing them”, seems remarkably backwards.
What the administrator really means is that there is only a single outcome that equates to “learning”, and that is that “renewable energy” is mighty swell and we should therefore dictate that result to society. If their experience with renewable energy fails to support that conclusion, then the experiment must be wrong, rather than the politically driven fore-ordained conclusion.
It really has been a wonderful learning opportunity for all the students.
They will hopefully have learned that the modern day so-called “grown ups” who pretend to be able to teach them, are a bunch of daydreaming retards who over-estimate their own competence.
Frank Zappa — ‘If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.’
So here is my estimate for the solar PV project they mention at the end of the article.
The College is near Mattoon, IL. Average solar irradiance is 4.74 kWhr/m^2/day, or 4.74 hrs/day of peak sun.
The plan is to replace the 1205 kWh/day that was supposed to be delivered by the two wind turbines.
That requires a solar PV system output power of 1205/4.74 = 254 kWAC.
A system typically has an all-in DCpanel-to-ACwallplug efficiency of 80%. So the PV system needs to be rated at 318 kWDC.
The California Solar Statistics website keeps track of solar project costs. Current costs for a system >10kW is $4.37/WDC.
The total project cost before all the extras for ‘training’ will be about $1.4M.
Double it and add 32 gives a predicted request for $2.8M.
Kelly Allee, Director of Public Relations at Lake Land College, told The Daily Caller News Foundation…
“They are not a good teaching tool if they are not working.”
————————
Director Allee,
In order to make that statement, you must still be operating within a framework of beliefs, instead of knowledge.
The best teaching tool is that which most closely resembles reality. Exchange your beliefs for knowledge of the reality of wind generators.
“They have been an excellent teaching tool for students….” Yeah? What lessons did they learn?
“Lake Land plans to replace the two failed turbines with a solar power system paid for by a government grant.” Apparently, only the wrong ones.