By Roger Harrabin BBC environment analyst, Norway
- 23 July 2017
The world’s first full-scale floating wind farm has started to take shape off the north-east coast of Scotland.
The revolutionary technology will allow wind power to be harvested in waters too deep for the current conventional bottom-standing turbines.
The Peterhead wind farm, known as Hywind, is a trial which will bring power to 20,000 homes.
Manufacturer Statoil says output from the turbines is expected to equal or surpass generation from current ones.
It hopes to cash in on a boom in the technology, especially in Japan and the west coast of the US, where waters are deep.
“This is a tech development project to ensure it’s working in open sea conditions. It’s a game-changer for floating wind power and we are sure it will help bring costs down,” said Leif Delp, project director for Hywind.
So far, one giant turbine has already been moved into place, while four more wait in readiness in a Norwegian fjord.
By the end of the month they’ll all have been towed to 15 miles (25km) off Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, where they’ll float upright like giant fishing floats.
While the turbines are currently very expensive to make, Statoil believes that in the future it will be able to dramatically reduce costs in the same way that manufacturers already have for conventional offshore turbines.
“I think eventually we will see floating wind farms compete without subsidy – but to do that we need to get building at scale,” said Mr Delp.
How big? The jaw-dropping dimensions of the technology used:
- The tower, including the blades, stretches to 175m (575ft), dwarfing Big Ben
- Each tower weighs 11,500 tonnes
- The box behind the blades – the nacelle – could hold two double-decker buses
- Each blade is 75m – almost the wing span of an Airbus
- The turbines can operate in water up to a kilometre deep
- The blades on the towers have been a particular focus for innovation.
- Statoil says the blades harness breakthrough software – which holds the tower upright by twisting the blades to dampen motions from wind, waves and currents.
The operation to begin shifting the first of the 11,500 tonne giants happened dramatically in the half-light of a Norwegian summer night.
Crews secured thick cables to tug boats and used remote-controlled submarines to check for obstacles.
Finally the giant was on the move, floating on a sealed vase-like tube 78m deep, its bottom filled with iron ore to weight the base and keep it upright in the water.
The price of energy from bottom-standing offshore wind farms has plummeted 32% since 2012 – far faster that anyone predicted.
The price is now four years ahead of the government’s expected target, and another big price drop is expected, taking offshore wind to a much lower price than new nuclear power.
HT/Auto
The part of me that loves big machines is delighted. The part of me that thinks this is a potential huge white elephant not so much.
I am equally twisted.
I rotate 360 deg between liking the engineering and disliking the applications its used for.
Well maybe the technological advances they are making will have actual practical uses.
“I think eventually we will see floating wind farms compete without subsidy – but to do that we need to get building at scale,” said Mr Delp.
Not a chance ever that this is going to competitive with any energy without subsidies. Imagine the constant motion of the infrastructure that connects these to the shore. And sending this power is costly in the first place. Maintenance is going to be hellish. They might as well have it manned 24/7 with a crew.
Translation: Yes, we lose money on every kilowatt produced, but we will make it up on volume. Sheer idiocy.
Wow, I wonder how that top-heavy machinery will stand up to a really good gale. No doubt it’s well anchored to the sea bed (one hopes), but that’s a lot of weight up top, with lovely big blades to catch the wind even if feathered, and it looks to be on a pretty small pontoon. Lots of lovely salt air, lots of movement, lots of metal fatigue, lots of big wind……..
Reply to Bushkid:
“Finally the giant was on the move, floating on a sealed vase-like tube 78m deep, its bottom filled with iron ore to weight the base and keep it upright in the water.”
So these have ballast to keep them upright. That makes sense. What I wonder about is hiring someone who is crazy enough to climb up inside a bobbing and tilting tower to perform maintenance.
Hi Janice
You can winch the head down to sea level. Maybe.
Actually, every time I see a wind turbine I think how many MRI scanners you could buy with the money. Around half a dozen each.
Such a pessimist. Think of them more as grant harvesters.
Davy Jones is eagerly rubbing his hands together, saying “Welcome to me locker, lads, I got plenty of room for ye!”
You don’t give Davy a challenge like this and just expect him to ignore it.
Hi Bushkid,
Indeed these are anchored, aside from the ballasted end of the shaft that’s submerged, there are three tension legs (steel cables) moored to the seabed with suction anchors. What’s not mentioned in this article/excerpt is that Hywind was already tested, a single unit being moored off the western coast of Norway for two years and unfortunately the gales and waves of the Norwegian North Sea weren’t able to sink it.
The next step will be to connect the Hywinds up to batteries (no doubt Elon Musk is hovering in the wings like a vulture waiting for his next victim) and the result will be called ‘batwind’; not sure whether this means that Noggies are fans of batman or unaware that down under at least ‘a bat’ is one of many euphemisms for ‘hand to gland combat’.
Batteries, that’s the ticket. Right now you fire up the diesels and tow the thing, like Cap’n Ahab rowing the becalmed Pequod to fresher winds. With batteries charged up from the good times, you can just flip the blades around and propeller yourself to where you want.
Good luck to them. I’d be happy to see one of these schemes actually work out sans subsidies.
Bushkid, the world’s first offshore windfarm was retired and dismantled this year, after 25 years and had no failure from corrosion (etc)
The designs can cope with it… it isn’t a factor.
http://decomnorthsea.com/news/dong-energy-retiring-worlds-first-offshore-wind-farm
The article I found on this some months ago when this was announced at WUWT had some numbers in it. Total cost per kW-hr was some $0.30 or so, but there was no information on maintenance costs, so probably higher. Also didn’t include the infrastructure as I recall.
Griff, if the windfarm is not being affected by “corrosion (etc)” … then why did they take it down and scrap it after only 25 years? I mean, we certainly don’t throw away our coal or gas-fired power plants after 25 years … the average coal plant lifespan is 42 years, and the oldest one in the US is 70 years old.
But these turbines, which you claim have no problems from “corrosion (etc)” are being recycled after only 25 years.
w.
The problem with comparing the lifespan of a wind turbine with a coal plant is that there is not enough of an experience base to make the comparison. For example if the “oldest” operating plant in the US is 70 years, the “oldest” operating wind turbine is 40 ( https://cleantechnica.com/2015/05/21/oldest-operating-wind-turbine-world-turning-40/ ) So the in about 20-30 years we will have enough operating experience with wind turbines to make a valid comparison between the two.
Griff,
the factor is it has been over engineered cope with the marine environment to start with, has cost a relative motza to build and put in situ and will cost a motza to service. You can go to a land based turbine in a small motor vehicle you need a significant workboat plus crew just to get to one of these contraptions.
The energy should not just be free, Gaia should be paying us but the stingy old bat just won’t.
@Mark S Johnson
There are hundreds of coal-fired power plants in the US over the past hundred year or so. There are 10’s of thousands of wind turbines. The cumulative life times are comparable, allowing a more apples to apples comparison today, not later.
It’s not anchored to the seabed. That’s the whole point of the article.
It is not standing on the seabed, it is anchored, which is why there is a 1,000 meter depth limit. Normal wind turbines are stuck on big towers, either sitting on land or in relatively shallow water
scraft, don’t bother believing everything written in the lying press; today’s excuse for a journalist can’t be trusted to research diarrhoea without missing the minor detail that the disease involves raw liquid sewage frequently passing through one’s rear iris.
If Harrabin had claimed that floating turbines aren’t moored, he’d be an even bigger waste of space than being an environment correspondent at the BBC implies, but in fairness to him I don’t see in the excerpt any claim to the effect that they aren’t anchored to the seabed; the point of the article is that the turbine towers aren’t standing on the seafloor, they’re floating.
Statoil NES has a page on Hywind – https://www.statoil.com/en/what-we-do/hywind-where-the-wind-takes-us.html – about a third of the way down the page in the ‘Hywind Scotland—the world’s first floating offshore wind park’ paragraph there’s a schematic of five Hywind turbines captioned “This is how the wind turbines will be positioned in the water offshore Peterhead. They are anchored up with three suction anchors each, and linked together to send the electricity produced onshore”. Even the thickipedia page on Hywind shows the moorings.
The sexy software that alters the blade pitch to dampen motions from wind, waves and currents is intended to reduce the loads imparted on the tower by the interaction of met/ocean motions and the forces imparted on the tower by the wind acting on the turbine itself; it’s not intended to be a poor man’s dynamic positioning system that can do away with anchors.
It has to be anchored because it is connected to a stout electrical cable conducting the power back to shore.
More global warming alarmist bunk. build more coal and natural gas plants.
Now, if we only had Tesla’s achievements to get the electricity to land without cables. Of course, he would have no use for that puny, unreliable power source…
Nikola, I presume.
Tesla’s scheme would have generated so much ozone we would never have had the ozone holes endangering all those penguins.
Oh dear. Why would we want to build a high frequency dual air cored series resonant induction transformer, whose reactive field decreases much faster than the inverse square law? What actual benefit would that give, bar the potential for spectacular high voltage zero current lightshow?
I’ve really come to detest wind turbines for many reasons.
If it stays up long enough to get a count, I want to see a published comparison score for number of birds killed.
The problem might be Whales as well as seabirds. Infrasound would be more effective emitted from a floating vessel than from a tower on a pier foundation.
John, agree. And now they after the sea birds after slaughtering rapt0prs, other birds, and bats.
Pop you are right, these may end up beaching and otherwise harming untold numbers of whales. To bad a little wildlife research couldn’t be done before they start these intermittent and unreliable schemes.
Are you equally worried about the effects of the explosions used for seismic surveys for oil and gas?
“Are you equally worried about the effects of the explosions used for seismic surveys for oil and gas?”
No. Because those are sporadic and short lived. Once they are complete operations move elsewhere. I would like to see proper research conducted by scientists on the potential effects of offshore wind farm rotor noise on cetaceans before proceeding with these installations. If indeed it is even possible these days to have any honest unbiased research carried out in this general area.
What “explosions”?
Marine airguns are no louder than many other naturally occurring and anthropogenic “sounds in the marine environment”…
http://www.ogp.org.uk/pubs/358.pdf%5B/caption%5D
[caption id="attachment_161923" align="alignnone" width="646"]
Despite this total lack of evidence that marine air guns are harmful to marine mammals, marine geophysical contractors take extreme precautions in order to avoid disturbing marine mammals.
http://www.iagc.org/marine-environment.html
http://internationalgeophysicaltxprod.weblinkconnect.com/uploads/4/5/0/7/45074397/seismic-survey-factsheet_final_iagc.pdf
Birds generally hug the coasts or use shallower areas for feeding… wind farms around the UK have to survey for birds and are put up where there isn’t a bird risk… the RSPB has successfully stopped a number where there would have been a problem.
Additionally the Danes did a long running study using observers and lidar on two of their offshore wind farms, which is actually near a migration route…
They found very low casualties… 40 in 235,000 passing birds.
http://www.folkecenter.net/mediafiles/folkecenter/pdf/final_results_of_bird_studies_at_the_offshore_wind_farms_at_nysted_and_horns_rev_denmark.pdf
offshore wind, properly sited, is not a problem for birds
Have you apologised to Dr. Crockford for maliciously lying about her professional qualifications yet Skanky?
Griff July 29, 2017 at 1:14 am
I do love blind optimists.
and
Gosh … they THOUGHT they were siting them where there were no bats … oopsie …
and
Sorry, griff, but once again the facts don’t bear out your claims.
w.
I’ll repost this for anyone who hasn’t seen it
SUSTAINABLE REALITY
If you like your energy sustainable,
You must first make the climate trainable.
With sun day and night,
And the wind always right…
I think it just might be attainable!
Solar and wind are renewable,
But only on small scales prove doable
They can kill birds and bats
And displace habitats…
True ecologists find that eschew-able.
We would, likely, employ keener vision
Funding hydro and nuclear fission.
(The molten salt kind,
For our peace of mind)
And solar storm-proofed grids of transmission.
Affordable energy, for the third world poor
Will unlock that vital, virtual door
To an affluent life,
A job and a wife
With less children than folks raised before.
So, curtailing overpopulation
Is not about “limiting nations
On what they can do
Which emits CO2”…
It relies on industrialization!
Sustainability has ALWAYS been about sustaining revenue streams. Once you got your grip on a commodity like energy, you control the supply and thus price. Now that so many people are “addicted” to smart phone apps and instant access, messaging, tweeting, blah blah blah…even in rural parts of Africa, you are hooked for life. It’s the heroin for life. Once you have everyone hooked, you have control. Mobile phone networks grea very fast in the early 2000’s in Ethiopia so much so that the “authorities” blocked txt msgs.
It’s like in the corporate world, moving from locally installed copies of Office 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 to Office 365, once you do that you are on an “addict’s” path. For your corporation to operate, or for you to “operate”, you have to keep paying your supplier.
Maintenance costs are going to eat this efforts lunch. How much you want to bet these were all designed for 85% of possible weather conditions with some safety factor that will prove inadequate?
Not so sure of that. I used to work in the North Sea and Statoil kinda know what they’re doing by now with giant floating and freestanding structures. If you’ll forgive the unforgivable pun this little toy should be a breeze for them.
Fine, lots of reliability on floating and anchoring. I think the concern is the windmill, blades and generator, which have been maintenance hogs onshore.
Any movement in the tower being swaying or oscillating with those multi tonne rotor blades turning at speed will probably lead to extreme precessional forces being placed on the rotor shaft and bearings which in the land and fixed base turbines already have enough problems due to bearing failures.
Major breakups of structures of an entire turbine with the consequent drifting wreckage will then be the outcome of such a severe precessional inducing event and scenario.
Plus invariably there will be breakaways of floating turbines from wind farms during severe storms which might make a right royal mess of the good number of the other turbines in a farm/s due to collisions withn other turbines.
And then for some further excitement, imagine the scenario of a massive wind turbine drifting at speed downwind and colliding with a fully manned North Sea oil platform.
Plus a few breakaway turbines floating willy nilly across some of the busiest shipping routes in the world is going to create further problems.
The North Sea shipping lanes are already compromised by the wind farm turbines enroaching into some of the most heavily travelled shipping lanes in any case without having the prospects of basically uncontrolled exploitation of the deeper North Sea shipping routes by wind turbine scammers and being further restricted by floating and occasionally drifting turbines weighing as much as a freighter but with no control at all of direction and speed of drift.
Seems that a major requirement for any floating ocean based turbine farm ownership is insurance policies that will cover mega millions of dollars worth of potential damage to other ocean users and their equipment and lives.
And a lengthy goal term for the directors and executives of those turbine owning corporations if they fail to cover every potential damaging contogency that might and invariably will affect other ocean user, ocean wild life and national governments and people.
How’s it deal with a eighty foot wave ?
Hilarious – marine structure (accelerated corrosion / wear and tear) combined with wind technology (heavy wear and tear on the bearings) towed out into the North Sea. I wonder how much money they’re going to waste keeping it going?
Have you not understood this yet? These monstrous mills are just a way of Statoil gaining a stamp of reusable energy. They are polishing their medal of sustainability. The mills have not started turning yet, and may actually work for 10 – 15 years, perhaps even producing some money. But it’s more likely that they will not be working after 15 years and 5 or 10 normal storms from the NW, than they will be working.
Either it can compete and supply reliable energy without subsidies or it can’t. If it can, then it will succeed. If it can’t, then it will be yet another huge waste of our precious tax dollars.
I am guessing…it can’t. But I hope I am wrong.
Read this. They have already decided its success and it hasn’t even gotten out to sea yet.
If it can compete with subsidies it will succeed as long as it gets the subsidies. If it can’t, without, then it still can with.
The real world doesn’t intrude while the subsidies flow.
I question their “cheaper” claim. Maybe nameplate vs total $$, but show me actual $/kW-hr sold over 25 years…
Data from the ‘end justifies the means’ progressives? At a mine, costs include everything including final decommissioning and reclamation,for which a bond must be purchased and updated at regular intervals. See if you can get a copy of their technical-economic feasibility study – even it should be audited.
Notice that the cost comparison is with nuclear not conventional gas.
Like others I would love to see the life expectancy of off shore wind turbines.
… and the gales of November came early.
How does the electricity get to shore? That little detail is not detailed here…..I’d hate to be nearby when the first one breaks free….
That was my first thought, too. It would require long power cables to get the electricity 15 miles back to shore. What would keep the cables from getting tangled up in fishing equipment or being beaten about by currents in a storm?
Louis, I’m expecting they will trench it. Submarine pipelines and cables aren’t new in the world you know.
After reading several articles on this, I finally found one from last November that briefly mentions how they plan to get the generated power back to shore:
“Unlike land-based wind turbines, the Hywind turbines will be anchored in the seabed and will transport their generated electricity via undersea cables to the shore.”
https://www.sciencealert.com/scotland-to-build-world-s-largest-floating-wind-farm
The boat is upside down. That’s the propeller.
Good one.
Me, I’m a sailor. I’ve been at sea in forty foot waves and fifty-knot winds … and that’s because I’ve never been to sea in a serious storm. Both numbers can get a whole lot bigger than that.
Man has claimed mechanical dominion over the ocean ever since the unsinkable Titanic … and generally with the same results. A combination of wind, wave, corrosion, and human error have put paid to the biggest structures we’ve entrusted to the bosom of the sea.
The bizarre part to me is the scale of this test. Wouldn’t it make much more sense to start with something a bit smaller?
In any case, I’d offer reasonable money that a) maintenance costs will be well above estimates, b) blades will tend to shear off, and c) overall lifetime will be less than expected.
As long as I’m not the poor sod who has to go out in a small boat, make a dangerous transittion from the boat to the floating nightmare, climb up a hundred metres (330 feet) inside the tower, oil the bearings and check the gauges, climb down a hundred metres, make the transfer back to the boat, and head to shore.
And don’t even think about what might be involved in say replacing the gearbox or the generator rotor …
w.
“A combination of wind, wave, corrosion, and human error have put paid to the biggest structures we’ve entrusted to the bosom of the sea.”
Er no. Nice Shakespearean imagery but have a look at the Condeep platforms in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. These are the largest structures ever built and no, they have not been “put paid to”. Nor have any of the structures floating, tethered, free standing gravity based or piled in the North Sea.
“The bizarre part to me is the scale of this test. Wouldn’t it make much more sense to start with something a bit smaller?”
I would trust Statoil engineers to work out what is the appropriate scale – even if I doubt the sanity of the whole enterprise but I’m pretty confident that plenty of Statoil engineers will likewise doubt but nevertheless be capable of working out the appropriate scale.
“b) blades will tend to shear off, “
What do you mean by this? Are you suggesting it is beyond current technology to design a turbine blade fit for North Sea conditions? You know these Norwegians have been operating out there for a long time and have quite a lot of environmental and engineering data.
And now oodles of other people’s money too!
cephus0 July 29, 2017 at 2:12 am Edit
Er yes. Regarding Condeep, I find this:
So your claim of no Condeep failures is not true in the slightest … and I note that the platform was built for Statoil, the same folks doing the wind farm.
And regarding failures in the North Sea platforms, it seem you’ve never heard of the Piper Alpha North Sea disaster that killed 167, or the capsize of the Alexander L. Kielland in the North Sea that killed 123.
But why are you limiting this to the North Sea? We also have:
• the Seacrest Drillship disaster, South China Sea, Thailand
• the Ocean Ranger oil rig disaster, Canada
• the Glomar Java Sea Drillship disaster, South China Sea
• the Bohai 2 oil rig disaster, China
• the Enchova Central Platform disaster, Brazil
• the Mumbai High North disaster, Indian Ocean
• the Usumacinta Jack-up disaster, Gulf of Mexico
• the C.P. Baker Drilling Barge disaster, Gulf of Mexico
Perhaps … it seems you have more trust in the genius of engineers than I do. I figure they are fallible, and the world has borne out my judgement over and over.
Huh? I am suggesting that engineers, Norwegian or not, know a whole lot more about building wind turbines on stable land platforms than they do about building them to float at sea … and there have been LOTS of sheared off blades on land based turbines.
Why on earth do you think it would not happen at sea? Davy Jones is NOT the engineer’s friend …
Gotta say … you trust engineers a whole lot more than you should. The Condeep structure I discussed above, you know, the Condeep style of construction that you said never failed but actually did fail, went down because of BAD NORWEGIAN ENGINEERING.
Regards,
w.
Willis Eschenbach is spreading false information regarding Condeep and Sleipner. Sleipner sunk during testing in Stavanger and long before the top deck was put on place. No lifes were lost.
Eschenbach is painting a picture that me and others asserts that off shore wind mill operations are risk free, and that Norwegian offshore oil production is a series of catastrophes. This is bullshit, compared to American Coal Production – a fare more simple operation – offshore oil operations in the North Sea are far safer. Just look at the numbers;
https://arlweb.msha.gov/stats/centurystats/coalstats.asp
From 1990 to date, there has been 54 fatalities in Norwegian sector, there are approximately 35.000 individuals involved in offshore operations. Compared to this mortality rate, American Coal Industry is a killing field.
Willis, are you trolling me? That is an inexplicably silly post. You said “A combination of wind, wave, corrosion, and human error have put paid to the biggest structures we’ve entrusted to the bosom of the sea.” I replied that this simply isn’t true. Because it isn’t. And you raise Sleipner A, Piper Alpha and Alexander L. Kielland as support for your bizarre assertions. Sleipner A failed and sank in a fjord while still under construction, Piper Alpha was a tragic and fatal gas fire and Alexander L. Kielland failed in service owing to a fatigue crack caused be entirely metallurgically related defects.
All three of these were engineering issues unrelated to ‘wind, wave, corrosion or any bosoms of the sea’ Your last point about ‘human error’ is of course obviously true but is trivially so for each and every area of human engineering endeavour ever essayed. If we were to take your point seriously no one would build anything ever again.
The rest of the post is too depressingly silly to even address.
Statoil is not exactly a novice at this sort of thing. In any event, time will tell.
I’d love to know whose capital is at risk in this venture.
“John W. Garrett July 29, 2017 at 4:11 am
I’d love to know whose capital is at risk in this venture.”
Scottish taxpayers.
I expect the turbines working lifetimes will be significantly reduced and so will their power output. Once those towers and blades are coated in ice a foot thick they could conceivably be frozen immovable until spring.
In reality their power output is irrelevant, I think everyone understands now that wind farms are really just for show.
Really?
11% of UK electricity came from wind power in 2016.
That’s just for show?
The concept has been tested with a 2,3 MW mill since 2009 at the west coast of Norway with good results;
Hywind Demo Produksjon [GWh] Kapasitetsfaktor
2010 7,4 GWh 36,7 %
2011 10,1 GWh 50,1 %
2012 7,5 GWh 37,2 %
2013 8,3 GWh 41,2 %
2014 7,7 GWh 38,2 %
Mean 8,2 GWh 40,7 %
The Karmøy test mill has produced electric power for the Norwegian grid who don’t need it since we have a surplus of hydropower. The owner, Statoil, will move the mill to produce electricity for offshore oil installations in order to reduce power production by gas. The problems You are addressing is solved, we have already developed a series of vessels that can do all types of maintenance.
Here’s i video that illustrates the dimensions;
Thanks, Valaker, that’s interesting. I find it ironic that it is being used to provide electricity to power offshore oil platforms …
They also claim that the capacity factor is 40%, which seems unlikely.
As to whether “The problems You are addressing is solved …”, only time will tell if that is true. The operation of one small test mill certainly doesn’t prove your claim.
w.
“I find it ironic that it is being used to provide electricity to power offshore oil platforms …”
So do I, but the Norwegian CO2 budget includes what we emit when we are producing oil, but not what the oil or gas we are producing will emit when it’s burned in Germany. A very silly consequence of this policy, is that the new fields that are under development now, has all it’s prosess power from electric kabels from the coast. They could produce cheap electrical power from surplus gas onboard the platforms, but that will charge the national carbon budget. So we are building extremely costly power supply from the coast, a power supply that at times come from coal burning plants in Poland.
That said, the 40 % “kapasitetsfaktor” is true and will probably be higher in time. This “kapasitetsfaktor” is from the first test mill that was installed in 2009. The new direct drive Siemens generator – and i believe all the Peterhead mills has that technology – will do better.
And when it comes to maintenance and operation, that’s peanuts. We have been doing far more complex stuff than this for 50 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ATmD1iXkH8
Valaker July 29, 2017 at 3:56 pm
You mean more complex stuff like this?
or maybe this …
Ooops … a Norwegian design flaw plus faulty Norwegian analysis destroyed the Sleipner A, and Norwegian inadequate routine examination of the welding on the Alexander L. Keilland KILLED 123 PEOPLE …
Or perhaps you are basing your “we know maintenance” claim on this:
Ooops … Norwegian “faulty maintenance” …
Look, I’m not busting Norway. Every nation that goes down to the sea in numbers and makes their living there has similar stories. Between storms, salt, and corrosion, the ocean is the worst possible environment for machinery, so it’s no surprise that machines die all the time at sea.
I’m just highlighting the unthinking confidence of those that may have never been through a serious storm at sea … Valaker, given the tiniest opportunity the sea will bite you in the differential, and hubris doesn’t help.
w.
The Kielland disaster was 37 years ago, and that was even a French design. The Sleipner was 25 years ago, and these designs are long gone, and no life were lost. In the past 27 years there has been 54 fatalities in Norwegian sector and that includes all operations including shipping and transport, 28 of these fatalities was due to two helicopter accidents with of the shelf helicopters.
https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katastrofer_og_store_ulykker_i_norsk_petroleumsvirksomhet
And than You can take a look at this statistics;
https://arlweb.msha.gov/stats/centurystats/coalstats.asp
No body has claimed that our North Sea operations are risk free, but we for sure knows these risks, and has by time learned how to handle them. And these wind mills is easy compared to other operations.
Valaker July 30, 2017 at 12:44 am
YOU claimed they were basically risk-free and had been for fifty years, viz:
Thanks for the reply, Valaker. Sorry, but when you make a claim about the last fifty years like that, you can’t complain when I bring things up from 37 years ago. YOU set the fifty-year time frame, not me.
And perhaps for you close to 200 deaths in maritime disasters is “peanuts” … me, I take the deaths of my fellow seamen a bit more seriously.
Regards,
w.
Valaker, good points that you made.
Pay no mind to Eschenbach. He’s a know-it-all that refuses to learn. He thinks he’s an expert on all subjects, especially the ocean. Apparently, he spent a summer in the tropics once. On or near an island, so that makes him an expert. In his own mind, of course.
Roger Sowell July 30, 2017 at 9:18 am
I started sailing when I was 10. I built my own boat at 28 and sailed it around Hawaii. I lived for 20 years on a variety of tropical islands, including three years on a houseboat in Fiji and three years on a very remote coral atoll up near the equator, and I have also worked in the continental tropics. I singlehanded a sailboat from Seattle to San Francisco, not my brightest plan. I’ve fished commercially from California to the Bering Sea, home of the Deadliest Catch—I fished for pompano out of Santa Cruz, for anchovies out of Moss Landing, for albacore off of the southern coast, for salmon out of San Francisco, for crabs out of Eureka, for silvers in Bristol Bay, and for herring up by Nome.
I have a Coast Guard Licence for sport salmon guiding. Among other blue-water voyages I was First Mate on a 50-foot sailboat going from Hong Kong to the US. I have Openwater I, Openwater II, and Rescue Diver scuba certification, and have dived extensively in the ocean. Plus I’m a surfer, so I’ve spent endless hours looking at tropical reefs and watching the ocean.
Does that make me an “expert on the ocean”? … well, maybe so, maybe no. When I almost died at sea one time through my own stupidity, I swore that I’d never claim to be a master seaman, and I think I’ve kept to that.
But my guess is, my life around, on and under the tropical ocean makes your experience in these matters look pretty pathetic … as the old swabbies used to tell me when I was a kid, “Son, I’ve worn our more sea bags than you’ve worn out socks” …
In any case, you’ve not pointed out one single claim that I’ve made with Valaker that was wrong. All you’ve done is vainly try to throw mud at my good name … which once again has validated my rule of thumb that says:
w.
Roger Sowell,
Normally I ignore trolls like you who have never demonstrated any knowledge of math or engineering. But when you slander a good man like Willis Eschenbach, I take exception. I don’t know Mr. Eschenbach personally, and I don’t always agree with what he says, but he has earned my respect. He did this by being thoughtful, courteous, and willing to share some of his insights gained from a lifetime of working and following his curiosity. When you attack someone like Willis Eschenbach, you simply show what a petty, small person you are. Grow up.
Ah, Eschenbach is angry. Good. As one should be, when he has himself “run out of ammunition.” You comments to Valaker prove that point. If you knew the first thing about Statoil, the North Sea oil fields, and the history of producing oil and gas there, you would refrain from commenting. But, you didn’t. Even after Valaker politely corrected you, you continued with your idiocy.
Your choice. It makes for amusing reading.
For Paul Penrose:
Normally I ignore trolls like you who have never demonstrated any knowledge of math or engineering.
I don’t need to demonstrate anything to you, or anybody else. My lifetime of experience around the world, consulting to the biggest names in the energy industries speaks for itself. When you can show a major oil company how they’ve been doing it wrong for decades, and show them how to make hundreds of millions more in profits, get back to me. Or when the national oil and refining company of China calls you to consult on their refineries, (after conducting a world-wide competitive search), call me. Until then, well, go add two and two and see if you get a reasonable number.
But when you slander a good man like Willis Eschenbach, I take exception.
A good man? Clearly, you don’t know his self-confessed sins right here on WUWT.
I don’t know Mr. Eschenbach personally, and I don’t always agree with what he says, but he has earned my respect.
Well, good for you. You clearly have a low standard for issuing respect. I’ve read far too much of his untrained, mostly ridiculous writings. And, his vicious replies to comments.
He did this by being thoughtful, courteous, and willing to share some of his insights gained from a lifetime of working and following his curiosity. When you attack someone like Willis Eschenbach, you simply show what a petty, small person you are. Grow up.
Clearly, you don’t know the man at all. There are few who attack with more venom.
But then, this in fact WUWT, where the willis worshipers stand in awe.
The real engineers get a good laugh at all this. I certainly do!
For Eschenbach,
Does that make me an “expert on the ocean”? … well, maybe so, maybe no. When I almost died at sea one time through my own stupidity, I swore that I’d never claim to be a master seaman, and I think I’ve kept to that. But my guess is, my life around, on and under the tropical ocean makes your experience in these matters look pretty pathetic … as the old swabbies used to tell me when I was a kid, “Son, I’ve worn our more sea bags than you’ve worn out socks” …
Reminds me of the old question, does a man have 40 years of experience, or one year 40 times? In your case, I cannot say.
My experience is sufficient for my purposes, and I strive mightily to remain within my expertise. Others apparently see no reason to do so. If this fits you, then that’s your problem.
But for the record, I have been sailing lakes, bays, gulfs, and blue oceans for more than 50 years myself. Not nearly as much as I would like, nor as often, either. I manage quite well with both power, sail, and motor-sailers. And navigate just fine with the simplest of devices. But, that’s all beside the point.
In any case, you’ve not pointed out one single claim that I’ve made with Valaker that was wrong. All you’ve done is vainly try to throw mud at my good name … which once again has validated my rule of thumb that says: yada yada yada.
One thing in your credit, in my book. You keep on plugging. Even when you are absolutely wrong, and many people point that out, you keep coming back for more correction. I read some of your more-or-less autobiographical articles earlier on this blog. It’s not your fault, I suppose, that you have no formal engineering education. You may have at this time, I don’t know. But, you admitted you had none back then. Yet, you still would write on and on about technical subjects, math analysis, and conclusions that just made the engineers laugh.
And as odd as this may seem, that’s perfectly ok. In my opinion, the world needs an outsider’s view of things. Maybe, just maybe something will occur to an uneducated, untrained person that escaped all of those with the degrees. I’ve seen it happen before. I have personally benefited more times than I can count from the experience and advice of non-engineers in the chemical plants and refineries around the world. I make it a point to spend time with those fellows, until they relax and tell me how their plant really works. That’s when I can usually find the problem that escaped all the other engineers. Not always, but enough to have earned my own reputation in that field.
So, even if we do both sail the blue seas and see the clouds and feel the winds, you with your eyes and me with all the physics and chemistry and engineering equations of fluid flow and fluid dynamics, who knows. You keep at it, and maybe find something important.
Roger Sowell July 30, 2017 at 2:27 pm
Angry? That’s hilarious. Roger, if I were to get angry you’d know it. All I’ve been doing with you is pointing and laughing at your ludicrous claims.
I do find it interesting that in your fantasies, me getting angry is “good” … dude, that is the mark of one sick puppy.
Regards,
w.
Of course they have tested a smaller version of it, since 2009, in the open sea off the coast of Norway. That worked fine. Only problem with these structures is the long term maintenence costs, IMO. How soon will they need a new generator / nacelle, 25 years? Don’t know if this expense is in the budget for the power production.
Actually, there are reasons to believe maintenance for a floating wind turbine will be in better shape than for one permanently anchored. For light maintenance work it would be the same — get crew out to platform in a boat, offload crew + tools, then return to pick them up when work is completed. For heavier work you’d detach the entire platform and tow it back to a protected anchorage where you have a suitable crane permanently installed. Do what needs doing then tow the repaired platform back out to the anchorage. This is similar to what has already been done with lightships.
I still don’t like wind turbines, but I think there may be advantages in being able to move the entire turbine to a maintenance facility instead of trying to perform major maintenance onsite.
Alan, perhaps you are correct that they’ll unmoor the ship and tow it ashore to do maintenance.
However, you are making the wrong comparison of floating to moored wind turbines. The proper comparison is to a fossil-fired power plant. There, you go in at 8 AM and the job is done by noon … and at sea, the boat is just catching the outgoing tide to take you out to the place to make the dangerous jump to the turbine at which point you need to carry your tools and materials up 300 feet of vertical stairs.
And don’t even think about the comparison of forgotten items. Forgot something in the fossil fuel plant? Walk over to the mechanical stores, get the specialty tool and the part, go back and go to work. But on the offshore rig? Climb down 300 feet, make the dangerous jump to get back in the boat, go to shore, get in your car, drive to the mechanical stores, get the specialty tool and the part, get in your car, drive back to the port, get in the boat, spend an hour going offshore again, take the dangerous jump off the boat, climb the stairs up 300 feet again …
w.
One of the experiences of my life was leaping (yes, leaping) from a support boat to the “dock” of the FLIP, already in vertical position. It was sea state 2-3, not a big deal normally but trying to transfer from a 30′ boat to a basically immovable object like the FLIP wasn’t easy, since the boat was surging 4 – 6 feet and crashing against the FLIP. Now, I consider myself a man of action, but I know danger when I see it. I had to submerge my fear and when the boat captain said leap, I leaped. So did the other 3 riders and we all made it.
I spent a few fun but squalid days days on it and gladly left in far more gentle conditions. I regret I didn’t earn my FLIP diploma by being on it when it transitioned from horizontal to vertical to horizontal, but I couldn’t justify being on it for a month.
Statoil have already tested the concept at full scale with Hywind 1. This cost about £45M for a single 2.3MW turbine off the coast of Norway. It has demonstrated that the concept works very well as the turbines can be placed in very exposed areas. Hywind 1 is the best performing wind turbine installed with production close to 50% of the full capacity. The Hywind Park project is to demonstrate that the concept works with larger turbines and smaller spare (the towers that float and support the turbines) in order to bring the costs down. It is still totally dependent on subsidies and back-up.
Hi,
It’s been tested in small scale off the coast of Norway for some years now i a pretty rough area.
Believe me: Statoil build things to last in rough conditions, using all their excellent offshore and subsea experience on this.
https://youtu.be/GAyPpQ4gnjg
Bjorn July 29, 2017 at 3:11 pm
Here’s a tip for you, Bjorn. Whenever someone starts a sentence with “Believe me” … I don’t. If you have to add that, far too often it means you don’t believe it yourself.
Here’s an example of why:
So obviously, in this case, Statoil did NOT “build things to last”
Yes, I know that people do their best to engineer things for ocean conditions, and Statoil is among them.
But I also know the old Breton sailor’s prayer:
Well, actually they said “boat” instead of “wind turbine”, but still …
Best to you,
w.
Mr. Eschenbach, where has I stated that 299 fatalities is “peanuts?” Your dishonesty is out of order.
What’s peanuts is the complexity of wind farm operations, compared to other operations that we have been doing the last 50 years.
And Your “sailor” credentials and concern for “fellow seamen” don’t impress me, it’s called leisure. And for Your information, You are now discussing with a real seaman, You know that type of seamen that is at the helm of Panamax size ships, not 50 foot yachts.
With luck a good sized North Sea Stormwill put psaid to this abberation.
My gut tells me that these monsters are a bad idea.
They just seem awkward. I’ll be interested to see a progress report in a year or so.
I’ve just got a baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad feeling about them.
Hack them to pieces! The pieces will disappear in the sea. No more evidence of mass slaughter. Giant blades better than machete in hacking birds. Let’s welcome the floating butcher! (applause)
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/07/article-0-1923299A000005DC-754_634x377.jpg
..and after a blade came loose and sheared off leaving the whole assembly canted over at a 60 degree angle, engineers sent to repair the turbine discovered another problem “it’s all the sharks around the thing! ” explains Noddy McTwit, chief engineer overseeing repairs. “We don’t know why, but the congregate in great numbers around the turbine, it’s strange as other floating structures don’t have this issue”
I still have to say I do not understand the need for vast, towering fans when a squirrel-cage design lying on a broad barge close to the surface seems a lot more controllable and less likely to kill anything going near it. Heck you could even have a regulatory controller to partially sink such a thing in high winds to use the water it’s self as a governor – allowing it to continue producing in high winds, these also work better in low winds as well. Maintenance on swapping out 20 foot high blades would be a lot cheaper and easier too.
Sharks like sliced seabirds (except for feather getting stuck in their teeth)
Boundary Layer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundary_layer
“Sharks like sliced seabirds.”
Actually, there’s a good chance that’s the reason. Food.
Could also be something like smaller fish feeding around there, but I don’t know why that wouldn’t happen on other structures.
Also, “Noddy McTwit?”
Hmmm…imagine trying to design a high-power, waterproof, flexible, transmission cable that will withstand salt water for years. Uh, yeah no.
Charles, the oil indistry had been doing it for decades. Indeed, most technology used for these types of offshore turbines, floatinf or bottom founded, was developed as spin off from offshore oil industry.
Ok, I still think It will not be a trivial problem.
The technology is the easy bit. At $8.4 million per MW, this project would probably require a wholesale electricity price of > $1/kWh to have a positive NPV… particularly if they used the same discount rate applied to revenue from proved oil & gas reserves.
The transmission cable is actually older than that, John. Think telegraph wires. The cable is expensive, but this is one case where the transmission is not going to be an issue.
The latest power cables being used in the North Sea are surprisingly light in construction. About the diameter of a soccer ball, they have three cores of Aluminium (copper is too expensive, though it was used on the earlier cables). Each current carrying core is about the diameter of a tennis ball. I do find myself wondering about the efficiency of using Aluminium even though it is apparently a good conductor, especially over the distances involved. Harrabin’s silly claims about the competitiveness of this technology gets really laughable when you find out about the horrendous maintenance expenditure involved in the continuing sea wind farm fiasco in the North Sea.
Charles, there are dozens of offshore wind farms, some of which have been in use for 25 years… in addition there are numerous HVDC interconnectors across the North Sea and Baltic. All those undersea cables have no problems.
There is no problem from corrosion – though a ship’s anchor did sever one in the English channel last winter.
You mean like the ones used to connect the UK to France, Netherlands and Ireland?
Undersea cables for high power are well known and understood.
That’s true. But those stationary trenched cables aren’t in constant motion. Understanding the never ending angry North Sea bobbing and flexing is a book that has yet to be written.
This site has a long list of subsea power cables:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_power_cable
“Hmmm…imagine trying to design a high-power, waterproof, flexible, transmission cable that will withstand salt water for years. Uh, yeah no”.
High-power cables have been in existence for about 50 years. They are often used to connect island to continental grids. They are very reliable and don’t need be very flexible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_power_cable
Have they found a solution to the “unreliable” supply issue?
So is that 20,000 homes 24/7/365?
…….. 24/7/52.
An objective and honest comparison of costs between wind (of any kind) and nuclear, is impossible.
Wind is awash with subsidies, some explicit, many more hidden. Nuclear is awash with the opposite of subsidies, or with anti-subsidies and crippling financial punishments; some explicit, many more hidden.
In the charming English country pastime of “badger-baiting”, a wild-caught badger (or previously, a bear) is put in a pit with one or more dogs, where they fight to the death. To ensure victory of the dogs, the badger has its canine teeth and claws pulled out before the fight.
This is the best metaphor I can think of for cost comparisons painting nuclear as super-expensive; both in terms of the fairness and objectivity of the comparison, and in terms of the kind of human beings engaging in them for the profit of themselves or their cause.
The latest nuclear station in the UK is awash with subsidies. Not least the fact that the UK government has
promised to pay over twice the current price for its electricity for the next 25 years. Even unsubsidised wind power is cheaper than what the UK government has promised to pay.
How very useful for those wanting to compare costs with wind. Think about it.
This is a handy comparison.
UK CfD prices.
By applying the same subsidy mechanism to all the discrepancies became apparent.
http://www.templar.co.uk/itzman/RenewablePoliciesAndCosts.html
EDF are prepared to build the nuke at £95 a MWh.
Onshore wind is more.
Offshore wind is around £150MWh.
Don’t even think about solar.
note Germany just accepted tender for its first subsidy free offshore wind farm…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-13/germany-gets-bids-for-first-subsidy-free-offshore-wind-farms
This study by engineering firm Arup shows offshore wind is now competitive with (natural) gas in the UK
https://www.energymanagertoday.com/cost-onshore-wind-energy-development-now-competitive-gas-uk-0171193/
It depends on who is writing the article….
“The tower, including the blades, stretches to 175m (575ft), dwarfing Big Ben
Each tower weighs 11,500 tonnes
The box behind the blades – the nacelle – could hold two double-decker buses
Each blade is 75m – almost the wing span of an Airbus
The turbines can operate in water up to a kilometre deep
The blades on the towers have been a particular focus for innovation.
Statoil says the blades harness breakthrough software – which holds the tower upright by twisting the blades to dampen motions from wind, waves and currents.”
What could go wrong?
And now, the things so sure to go wrong the article dare not even speak their name…
“…a high-power, waterproof, flexible, transmission cable that will withstand salt water for years…”
“…a) maintenance costs will be well above estimates, b) blades will tend to shear off, and c) overall lifetime will be less than expected….
And don’t even think about what might be involved in say replacing the gearbox or the generator rotor …”
“…How’s it deal with a eighty foot wave?…”
A prime example of weapons-grade stupidity (stolen from a comment in a different thread).
Wow! Is that you Nostradamus? You already know these things are going to happen. If only they could have contacted you first, you could have told them all of this because I’m sure they wouldn’t have thought of these.
Cyrus, there are multiple offshore wind farms in the North Sea and Baltic and multiple HVDC interconnectors, some of which have been in use for up to 25 years, with no problems (except the odd ship’s anchor).
The world’s first offshore windfarm was decommissioned this year after operating, successfully, without excessive maintenance, for 25 years.
This is not new technology – thousands of offshore turbines in hundreds of wind farms with miles of cable have been operating for decades….
Why should a perfectly good operating windfarm be decommisioned? Aren’t they supposed to be sustainable?
A normal gas power station runs at leats 50 years,,