Posted on 01/01/2021 7:03:15 AM PST by DUMBGRUNT
The turning diameter of its rotor is longer than two American football fields end to end. Later models will be taller than any building on the mainland of Western Europe.
The G.E. machines will have a generating capacity that would have been almost unimaginable a decade ago. A single one will be able to turn out 13 megawatts of power, enough to light up a town of roughly 12,000 homes.
The race to build bigger turbines has moved faster than many industry figures foresaw. G.E.’s Haliade-X generates almost 30 times more electricity than the first offshore machines installed off Denmark in 1991.
In coming years, customers are likely to demand even bigger machines, industry executives say. On the other hand, they predict that, just as commercial airliners peaked with the Airbus A380, turbines will reach a point where greater size no longer makes economic sense.
(Excerpt) Read more at dnyuz.com ...
How some wind turbines hog the breeze
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07528-1
“Under the right atmospheric conditions, the decreases in downwind wind speeds can extend for 50 kilometres or more.”
“what ever happened to small local thorium reactors?”
Not my line of work, but looked to be a good idea, pre 911.
Sadly, primitive peoples possibly creating mass destruction appear to have put the kibosh on it.
https://www.toshiba-energy.com/en/nuclearenergy/rd/safety-reactor.htm
Okay.
“What is the wind speed for optimal generation? I know of one that requires constant 25 mph wind.”
See fig. 2.
In general, wind turbines begin to produce power at wind speeds of about
6.7 mph (3 m/s). A turbine will achieve its nominal, or rated, power at approximately 26 mph to 30 mph (12 m/s to
13 m/s); this value is often used to describe the turbine’s generating capacity (or nameplate capacity). The turbine
will reach its cut-out speed at approximately 55 mph (25 m/s). When wind speeds exceed this, the turbine will
stop power production to protect itself from potentially damaging speeds. Variability in the wind resource results
in the turbine operating at changing power levels. At good wind energy sites, this variability results in the turbine
operating at approximately 35% to 40% of its total possible capacity over a year
Dead birds disappear quickly in the sea.
Also not mentioned is the amount of power generated by a fossil fuel source that is required to get it spinning and to keep it spinning.
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This is all engineering, no need to fret over it.....
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Actually you leave the plants running even when the wind blows. There is not enough time to start from shut down to generation if a brown out occurs.
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Gas would be the easiest second and most portable due to less water requirements.
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Here are two dirty secrets of the IWT industry (and it’s the same for the solar industry).....
As everyone knows, there has to be backup power that can seamlessly pick up the slack when the wind is not blowing (or the sun not shining). The backup power supply of choice for the backup could be anything with the proviso that that the backup has to react quickly. For this reason, the primary choice of backup is natural gas fired generators.... essentially, what is needed are gas powered generators that can go from zero to 100 mph in say 20 minutes. Gas generators can be designed with open loop gas turbines or combined cycle.... the beauty of open loop is that it can meet that ‘zero to 100 mph in 20 minutes’ requirement whereas a combined cycle design might take 2 hours.... and that is too long. On this basis, open loop becomes the more practical choice. Here’s the problem (and it’s a biggie).... open loop is in the 40% efficiency range while combined cycle is in the 60% efficiency range. Bottom line is that in order to accommodate the supply of wind and solar power, inefficient gas generation must be used.
Here’s the obvious question..... If only combined cycle gas turbines were used, would the improvement in efficiency over open loop in conjunction with all the standby energy requirements not totally negate any power that IWTs provide? I have not examined that question in detail but have on a cursory level and I think the answer is easily “yes”.... in other words from a big picture perspective, wind and solar aren’t just figuratively useless they are literally useless.
Here’s a second dirty secret. One other serious negative issue with wind and solar is this..... due to the much increased cyclical operation that the gas plants are going through as they try to pick up the slack when wind and solar are cycling (which of course is constantly occurring), these plants require much more maintenance (and will have much lower life) as a result of thermal and mechanical fatigue of the components. There is going to be a future heavy and ongoing cost for dealing with gas plant maintenance....
The issue with wind and solar is that it assumes that electricity as a resource can be driven by ‘supply’ instead of ‘demand’.... and that only really works if there is electrical storage. Most of us don’t want to be watching tv or doing our laundry and accept the fact that we have to curtail activities because the wind stopped blowing or it went cloudy. Storage on a mass scale actually does exist.... Denmark makes all kind of wind power and when the wind is really blowing, they generate it to an excess. At that point, the link to Sweden kicks in and Sweden is more than happy to take it off their hands. What do they do with it? They use hydroelectric pumps to move water up to an elevated lake and then they can use that water at their convenience to generate power by reversing the direction whenever they like. Denmark is often held up as this wonderful model because of all their wind.... you should ask the average clued in Dane what she/he thinks about that. Well, Sweden likes it quite a bit.....
“I thought they’d be smart enough to use a cylindrical fan design.”
I like this one.
Vortex has no moving gears and the oscillation happens at very low frequencies so the device functions quietly when properly calibrated.
https://vortexbladeless.com/technology-design/
“The ends of these blades move in incredible speeds.”
Not my line of work, but usually considered best practice to remain subsonic.
Yes, even the tips.
Too lazy to do the ciphering, but not many rpm.
What a great graphic, on several levels!!!
From a favorite movie scene.
If I can only remember to ‘borrow’ it when needed?
I don’t see why you wouldn’t remember to use it.
.And how in the name of ALMIGHTY SCIENCE does that NOT alter the climate?
= = =
Exactly!
Besides the dead bird issue?
“The liberals want them? Put them on their turf, not mine.”
They could be atop all the taller buildings in the large cities everywhere!
Yes, some structural reinforcement required, chump change to save the planet.
And the loss of rent-producing floor space for power line conduits? Small potatoes.
Added wind noise? Into every city life, some rain must fall...
Get them up into the jet stream. That’ll do it.
Speaking of jet and birds, wait for the blades to catch an airplane!
Thank you for opening up and sharing in a very readable way why the use of gas is such a key.
I for one appreciated the effort made to share with us.
Respects
Ralf
“> A single one will be able to turn out 13 megawatts of power,”
TVA’s Kingston Steam plant turns out 1,400 megawatts 24 hours a day.
You are right. Major wind turbines disrupt the natural flow of the air. Nature uses wind to transport air heat and to to equate (moderate) temperatures among differents areas.
Major windmills are definitely negatively affecting earth climate. Studies have been done, but buried.
All that messing up the earth climate does not matter! We need to save the earth!
We've got an absolute sh*tload of them in North Central Indiana due to flat rural land. What is the effect? I'm interested.
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