David Wojick
Okay, this is not about sucking whales into giant buckets to take them away from offshore wind harm. Would that it were but whales are way too big for that.
Instead it is about a technology that can go a long way in reducing the harm to whales and other protected marine species. Simply put, suction buckets are a wind turbine foundation design that eliminates the need for those incredibly loud giant monopiles. Of all the ways that offshore wind threatens whales monopiles are the worst, while suction buckets are benign.
CFACT is calling for the banning of monopiles in favor of suction buckets. Mind you CFACT has made clear that they oppose offshore wind as destructive, ridiculously expensive and completely unneeded. But if the Feds insist on having offshore wind it should sit on suction buckets not monopiles.
To begin its call for banning monopiles CFACT recently posted comments to BOEM and NOAA via a proposal from the Beacon Wind project. Beacon is considering using suction buckets and wants to run some test cases. CFACT not only endorses these tests it calls on this to be standard procedure on all offshore wind projects.
Suction bucket technology is simple and elegant. The bucket, less colorfully called a suction caisson, is a simple cylinder that is closed on one end. Installation is in two steps. First the cylinder is set on the ocean floor with the open end down so it settles into the ocean floor a little way, thus sealing off the interior.
Then some of the water in the cylinder is pumped (or sucked) out. This reduces the internal pressure such that the external water pressure presses the cylinder into the sea floor. Pumping continues until the cylinder is fully embedded, where it can then be used as a structural foundation.
Instead of manually driving a pile, the ocean itself supplies the force. Three or four buckets are typically used to support a framework that then holds up the turbine tower.
The suction bucket technology has been around for many years, often used for anchoring offshore oil rigs. Using it for offshore wind is relatively new but Ørsted, the world’s biggest developer, has a 900 MW project underway off Taiwan so it is clearly feasible at the scale of US offshore projects.
Here is their description of suction bucket technology: https://orstedcdn.azureedge.net/-/media/www/docs/corp/com/our-business/wind-power/bucket-jacket_long-version.pdf?
Here are some central excerpts from the CFACT comments calling for a ban on monopiles in favor of suction bucket technology:
“Suction buckets are the perfect acoustic mitigation technology as installing them makes very little noise, while installing monopiles is incredibly loud. Using them instead of monopiles will avoid the acoustic harassment of many thousands of marine mammals and other protected species.”
“This profound mitigation effect includes protecting the severely endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.”
“BOEM and NMFS should mandate that suction bucket technology be used for all fixed foundation offshore wind development, instead of piles, except where it is completely infeasible, which may be nowhere. At present it appears that all of the proposed and in process BOEM offshore wind projects with fixed foundations use deadly noisy monopiles. This use of monopiles must be replaced with suction bucket technology which is very quiet to install.”
“As part of this mandate NMFS should cease authorizing thousands of marine mammal acoustic harassments per project from monopiles. It should also rescind all those authorizations where construction is not largely completed. Projects under construction using monopiles can switch to suction bucket foundations for their remaining turbines and substations.”
I hope others will join CFACT in calling for the banning of dangerously loud monopiles in favor of suction bucket technology. Surely the Marine Mammal Protection Act requires this switch.
Read CFACT’s full submission here
Suction buckets?
That reminds me of…. No, Bob. Don’t write it. You’ll be banned from WUWT for life.
Yes much comes to mind. The name is so goofy I did not take them seriously at first. Finally they sucked me in.
You were thinking about Kamala weren’t you?
Pass the sick bucket when you’ve finished with it!
This is actually how I read the headline originally, it took me about four times through before I could read what was written. And then I came to this…
fixed.
To be fair, there does seem to be an almost monopoly on using monopiles!
Here are some simple suction bucket videos:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l52K67vyGVA&feature=youtu.be
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wrO0yXG7g9k&feature=youtu.be
Soil science not rocket science.
Neither of your links shows an actual suction bucket operation on the sea floor.
I have zero expertise on suction buckets, but I suspect sucking out the sea water will cause sediment plumes?
Also, what happens when the pile is inserted about half way and the frictional forces exceed the downward force at maximum achievable vacuum?
In some ways, I think soil science is MORE difficult than rocket science. The unknowns for the seabed are greater than the unknowns of the atmosphere and gravity.
I will happily take a small sediment plume over the authorized acoustic harassment of 10,000 marine mammals per project. Plus the switch will set them back years.
Of course there are ways they might not work in a given location. (My engineering specialty is soil mechanics.) A big rock might do it. Coarse sand would let the water in, etc. i would be happy to see them struggle with all that. But as said in the article Ørsted has a 900 MW project going off Taiwan so the technolofy is here.
Thanks for the actual expert reply David!
I agree that almost anything beats the current method as far as the whales are concerned. Also, I too would like to slow up the race to offshore wind madness.
There have been 4 or 5 companies testing suction bucket jacket technology around the UK since about 2017. Iirc Orsted has already installed a small wind farm off Scotland entirely using this technology and there may have been another (a different company) installed near the isle of Man. The technology is proven, is being used and, apparently, is cheaper than driving monopiles. I don’t really like them but if they are going to be built at least let them be a little more environmentally friendly.
Erm, as a legitimate rocket scientist I am please to inform you that the complexities of getting a vehicle into orbit is higher than the complexity of a vacuum pump pilon installation. Launches involve a great deal more than the unknowns of the atmosphere and gravity, although gravity is pretty well understood. Rocket launches are intrinsically much more dangerous as well.
I am not belittling soil science and, yes, there are complexities involved with the suction bucket of course.
I have seen some of the math involved for orbital physics. I totally agree that it is orders of magnitude higher than the math required for driving a suction bucket.
However, which process do you think has more “unknown unknowns”?
The ability of the suction cups to make a good, long term, vacuum seal on the ocean floor is the biggie.
That said, the math is complex, yes, but integrating, testing, and launching the rocket is something most people do not get visibility into.
Given I actually am a rocket scientist, should I be offended?
Humor is a difficult concept.
Don’t be offended, sarcasm often doesn’t travel well and there are people of many nationalities that post here, some with far more experience of sarcasm than others. Btw, as a rocket scientist, could you perhaps tell me what the correct spelling of pylon might be?
Depends where you are… In some sports… its a pile-on. 🙂
Ouch. Caught me in a typo, so I guess you will have to demand my paper be retracted.
(/sarc)
Did the Far Side cartoon about rocket scientists offend you? If not, then you can laugh–at yourself. It’s a useful trait when dealing with reality and politics.
You have contributed so much to this discussion. Wander off and get lost
I’m still waiting for an advanced knowledge of physics to appear in your comments. When can we expect that to happen?
Listen Ass-Hat,
Here is some physics for you: Put such a structure on the ocean floor, suck out some water, there is no force to push it lower other than the seepage of sand or clay in, permitting the weight of the structure to shove it down into the sand or clay.
Get a life, find someone else to harass with your ignorance.
Wow! You need to get out of bed on the right side every now and then.
As for advanced physics, I was expecting some orbital mechanics, Quantum Mechanics, or some GR laced with tensors.
Please note the second line:
Humor is a difficult concept. I had hoped that would clue people in.
So are Far Side cartoons not humorous?
It seems suction buckets are preferable to monopiles. Let us go the extra mile, fossil fuel and nuclear are preferable to wind and solar. Let the construction of fossil fuel and nuclear begin.
Yes by all means but there is no law requiring that. The MMPA should require sand buckets but a Court may have to say so.
I missed your informative comment on this post. But I did give homage to you.
Just ban those windmills….now isn’t that silence golden?
Trump might do that.
President D.J.Trump is really going to have his hands full, if ‘they’ don’t use (I’d say “god borbid”… but..) a syop? against him. Another ‘suicide’, this time, by a Boeing Whistleblower, just “occurred”.
My problem with offshore wind isn’t monopiles. It is economics. Correctly calculated, the (US) LCOE of onshore wind is about 2.5x CCGT. (We used the ERCOT grid at then 10% penetration for the estimate. Higher penetration means a higher onshore wind LCOE—because more intermittent backup is required.)
The ever biased EIA says offshore wind is ‘only’ 3x onshore wind. (It is probably more due to higher maintenance and lower expected life.) That makes them at least 7.5x CCGT.
An impossible economic burden.
Ridiculous but not impossible, alas. Time will tell. But for now my short term goal is disrupting the industry to protect God’s critters. Send them back to the drawing board (an ancient device for you young folks).
Good goal!
If the safe course for whales (suction buckets) is more expensive than driven piles, then the true cost differential for offshore wind becomes even worse.
It appears to be slightly cheaper I think but that’s from an offshore wind company spokesman so I don’t know for sure.
Relying on LCOE? Aren’t there more than just a few problems with using LCOE as a yardstick? Is there some variant of calculating LCOE that actually presents the true cost of unreliability?
Factually, it is both environmental damage and economic damage.
How nice that CFACT has fully diagnosed the entire cause and effect of environmental damage caused by these turbines, and traced it so efficiently to a single cause.
Offshore wind turbines, already 10 or more times as expensive to operate as the land based sort, will no doubt be improved by an additional increase in cost. Just so long as the deployment and initial operations subsidies and price controls also increase, only the consumers will suffer.
Ocean floor damage, infeasible site restoration and recycling, fishery damage, slaughter of seabirds, fish species, shellfish, and mammal species other than wales are surely so slight as to be completely unimportant compared to the immense benefits from unreliable, extravagantly wasteful, foreign manufactured wind energy.
No wonder suction is in the name.
What part of “Of all the ways that offshore wind threatens whales monopiles are the worst..” do you not understand? “all the ways” says there are others, and this is just for whales. So your point is way off the mark.
What part of “should mandate…for all development” passed you by? The right answer is to stop building them altogether. How are monopiles the worst? How do suck buckets stop low frequency sonics? Why use something much more expensive that somehow, mysteriously, might almost possibly fix a small part of the problem?
“this is just for whales” is exactly the point. How much of these harms would be stopped by not building offshore wind facilities at all?
Stop building them, offshore wind is a useless fraud and an environmental disaster.
Isn’t it curious that, no matter how much the costs go up by, these things are never ‘too expensive’ to build are they? You never hear of someone saying that they were going to build an offshore windfarm but, after looking at the costs, decided against it, do you?
It’s about time someone said Enough! These boondoggles are too costly to the environment and the people, let’s stop building them.
Didn’t essentially every company involved in the projects off the east coast say that the costs are too high? send more money
Exactly – ‘send more money’ not ‘these things are too expensive to build’.
Nothing is “too expensive” if someone else can pay for it.
The projects were too expensive for the profit promised to come from said projects.
Much like “Too Big To Fail” mentality. btw, The Great Taking book is a free download, and VERY sobering.
Nope, they just “renegotiate the price” and the Eco-Nazi fools in charge (cough New York cough) just bend (the taxpayers) over and pay it.
I am waiting for someone to recognize and calculate the UHI for these monstrosities.
Not curious at all. CFACT, deliberate or duped, is providing a distraction from the real issue. “Monopiles” are not the problem, and building them isn’t the greatest threat to wildlife. But while that fake fight goes on, there will be more windmills, more subsidies, more price manipulation, and more cash to the green energy cartels.
“But if the Feds insist on having offshore wind it should sit on suction buckets not monopiles.”
But if the Feds insist on having offshore wind, they should start at Martha’s Vinyard and other beach front where they hang out.
Oh, no!
They can’t have their view spoiled.
I like whales. I like all sea creatures. Fascinating they are and a shame any harm should come to them.
Except, of course, for the seafood course.
Or oysters on a half shell appetizer.
I agree with the principle that needless killing is needless, and anything killed by the installation of wind or solar IS NEEDLESSLY killed.
Sounds like putting lipstick on pigs has merit in this instance.
Quite possibly much more important for loudness are the very high energy, low frequency pulses generated every time one of the pinwheel blades passes in front of the pylon. These are not detected under the legislated standards, and the equipment used to measure those standards for “noise” based on human hearing but are readily measured with the right equipment.
If they were in the frequency range of human hearing, even one blast would be very painful and would likely destroy hearing, perhaps permanently. Whales and some other marine mammals communicate in these frequencies. If these pulses are transmitted down the pylons and into the water, which seems likely, they are a continuous assault any time the wind blows. For some reason unknown to me, even the most vociferous opponents of wind power seem eager to avoid acknowledging even the possibility of the problem. It certainly isn’t because anyone has provided any evidence what-so-ever against the possibilty.
I read a simple statement that the EU has finally officially recognized that wind turbines in the North Sea are responsible for a large number of marine mammal deaths and has begin an investigation into why. Whether or not it will investigate the noise outside human hearing frequencies aspect, I have no idea.
There are wind turbine designs that do not produce these extremely loud “sound” pulses but they seem to have achieved almost no market penetration. I can’t speak to why. Are they truly inferior in some important respect or is there a gatekeeper mentality, or gatekeeper profit margin support at work?
From what you described, they sound a bit like caissons used to build the Brooklyn Bridge.
Water tight compartments were constructed to dig down, manually, until they reached bedrock. Air was pumped down for the workers. (I think the first cases of “The Bends” were from workers returning to the surface?) One side never did reach bedrock but they went ahead with the rest of the bridge anyway.
Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge and Cincinnati’s Suspension Bridge have stood the test of time.
How much time needs to pass before we wake up to the fact that offshore and onshore wind just isn’t worth it even if it did deliver as proposed?
With or without ecosystem disruptions, it ain’t worth it except to the CEOs.
This article made no sense to me. What actually happens is, the sand or clay seeps, seeps, seeps, a word not found in the article, due to the vacuum, and fills the cavity of the caisson, and by getting out of the way, permits the weight of the caisson to descend. You guys need a physics editor.
Wow, that is an hour I will not get back.
Moon
“Lifting Forces,” did that make sense to someone???
That was in Wikipedia,
sorry sorry
Nature Abhors a Vacuum, but not inside a rigid structure.
Maybe you should try another site. That hour you lost was probably due to daylight savings time–DST.
You can go jump in the ocean and pull a wave over your head. learn some physics, and after that how to read.
I do not know how this started, has nothing to do with me.
“. . . has nothing to do with me.”
You try to destroy a position, and say: “it has nothing to do with me.” Are you serious?
Heh! Reading is fundamental. Do you really think I don’t know physics? Let’s take a physics exam together.
Isn’t infra-sound still a huge problem for whales, dolphins and other sea life? The US Navy jacks with their “hearing” enough, but to have the constant infra-sound seems like cruel and unusual punishment.
For humans too. Just at different frequencies.
And the same frequencies
There aren’t so many choices between 1Hz and 20Hz,
The US Navy has regulations in place to limit sonar use around areas with whales and dolphins. Civilian sonar has seen an explosion of use since that point but no corresponding regulations to limit the use afaik.
Forgive me, I’m still on “Just say no.”
No.
(agreement)
Sorry, but the whales need to sacrifice to Save the Planet, just like the rest of us!
It’s the order of extinction that needs to be established.
I would start with the IPCC, the UN (most of the agencies, anyway), dark money billionaires, politicians, anyone promoting DEI or socialism or social justice.
Once that is done, we can reassess where we are.
Offshore wind may best be described as not fit for purpose for generating affordable reliable electricity, for sure monopiles for deep water turbine installations are not fit for purpose:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17445302.2022.2140531
A review of challenges and framework development for corrosion fatigue life assessment of monopile-supported horizontal-axis offshore wind turbines
Victor Okenyi, Mahdi Bodaghi Neil Mansfield Shukri Afazov & Petros Siegkas
Pages 1-15 | Received 04 Aug 2022, Accepted 22 Oct 2022, Published online: 04 Nov 2022
Highlights
Introduction
Wind turbines with a capacity to produce over 10 MW were first manufactured in 2018, with foundation costs corresponding to more than 20% of its capital cost (Kim and Kim Citation 2018). With advancements in design and construction, there are now next-generation horizontal-axis offshore wind turbine (HAOWT) prototype of 15 MW capacity set to be built from 2022 using monopile foundations (Vestas Citation 2021).
Fatigue properties change as the size of HAOWTs materials tend to enlarge since size effects have been observed (Ólafsson et al. Citation2016). Also, holistic modelling tools for on-line monitoring and prognostic maintenance of HAOWT are required to be further developed.
This review is conducted as a number of support structure collapses have taken place over the last two decades where the risk of future collapses is still a concern. Reported cases have shown aerodynamic effects through typhoons and storms to be the most critical factors for wind turbine collapse while environmental damages are also encountered (Ma et al. Citation 2019). These damages were also observed to occur mostly at the initial life stage and the end-of-life stages. Thus, as we consider corrosion which is a form of environmental damage, the cyclic loading effect must be considered as both these factors are key drivers for CF (Corrosion Fatigue) damage.
2.1. Loading and operational factors affecting corrosion fatigue process
The two principal fatigue load scenarios of regular operation and parked conditions both have high cyclic loads (BSI Citation 2019). For instance, the bending moments (see Figure 5) vary cyclically due to operational rotation of the blades, wind forces on the tower, and wave forces. Other load situations that affect the HAOWT structures are torsional forces, operational centrifugal forces, coriolis forces, and gyroscopic forces (Igwemezie et al. Citation 2019). Thrust force on the rotor has frequently contributed the most effect on HAOWT monopile supported structures.