MIT designs 'invisible,' floating wind turbines

PhysOrg ^ | 9/19/2006 | Nancy Stuaffer

[Boiler Plate]

Conversion from AC to DC and vice versa is fairly easy, however to transmit a hundred miles would require the use of extremely high voltages and most likely DC. The problem is that this would quite simply be a maintenance nightmare. Someone may come up with a way to do this economically but at present I would estimate at $100 a foot to install the power lines or about $50 million.

[Locomotive Breath]

http://ewh.ieee.org/soc/pels/pdf/pelsNL0306.pdf

page 17, figure 5 and 6

Fig. 5 - Doubly-fed induction generator
Fig. 6(a) - Synchronous generator with gearbox
Fig. 6 (b) - Multi-pole synchronous generator with field control
Figure 6(c) - Multi-pole permanent magnet synchronous generator

These are all AC machines. (The old-fashioned brush-type DC generator you're thinking of is too inefficient and high maintenance.) You'll note that, except for the doubly-fed synchronous, all systems take the ac and convert it to dc and then back to ac for connection to the utility. This is because the electrical output frequency of the generator depends on rpm while the utility is a constant 50 or 60 Hz. The two sets of crossing circles on the right represent a transformer that steps the voltage up for transmission from the remote site to the power grid.

[Locomotive Breath]

Well, that was just a guess on my part. The link to the offshore nuclear plants was very interesting but I don't see how it follows from what I said. Did you mean to reply to a different post?

[Red Badger]

No, I just thought you might interested in Offshore Floating Power ideas that go way back.............

[Locomotive Breath]

Got it. Thanks. I grew up and was in Norfolk at the time but don't remember this. I guess it went to FL to early to make much of a splash locally.

[Mogollon]

Also, they will kill hundreds of sea gulls, pelicans etc that happen to be flying past.

[Red Badger]

I think that it's overall, a good idea. NIMBY's can't complain, and even in the unlikely event of an accident, there's no one around to evacuate. Employees could don special suits to protect them..............

[Kenny Bunk]

How are they going to get the electricity onshore?

Big fat underwater cables connected to a substation in the the Hyannis front yard of a big fat guy I know.

[uglybiker]

Yeah, but where you don't have NIMBY's, you have BANANA's -- Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.

Trust me. Somebody's gonna b**ch about it.

[Larry Lucido]

How are they going to get the electricity onshore?

Tugboats.

[Comstock1]

This is slightly off topic, but I recently encountered my first wind farm. I went through the Oklahoma panhandle at about two in the morning on my way from Amarillo to Denver about three weeks ago. Returning a couple days later I was shocked to discover that I had driven right through a very large wind farm that had dozens of these giant General Electric wind turbines.

I had never seen one before and I have to say it is quite impressive. There was very little wind that I could observe on the ground, but the turbines were turning at a fairly steady rate. The cattle grazing around them didn't seem to be disturbed at all.

[Red Badger]

The cattle grazing around them didn't seem to be disturbed at all.

Yeah, but the cows now give pre-churned butter and pre-mixed milkshakes........

[uglybiker]

And homogenized milk!

[fortunecookie]

Sure! And I get will get royalties for my idea when I was a teen to package yogurt and granola together. My friends laughed at my idea. I think McDonald's alone owes me millions! ;-)

(Don't ya hate it when a big group beats ya to it...)

[AFreeBird]

Alternators, just like in your car, produce AC power which is converted to DC to run your electrics and charge your battery.

So in this case, no conversion would be needed.

Alternator Secrets

[rellimpank]

---thanks a bunch--that's what I've been looking for ---

[rellimpank]

---AC power to go on line must be in phase and hold closely to 60hz--in fact, I suspect the most "precision" measurement the average person is exposed to is AC power from the plug in the house.

My curiosity was how varying wind speed is converted and the above excellent reference answered all my questions--

[Reeses]

How are they going to get the electricity onshore?

That would be a fun engineering test question.

They could make hydrogen gas and fly it in by air tanker. Hmmm, maybe the windmills could cause extra cloud formation and transport the energy via hydro power. That might be surprisingly efficient and would cool the Earth's surface, the man made clouds bouncing the sunlight out to space.

[antiRepublicrat]

(Don't ya hate it when a big group beats ya to it...)

I thought of anti-skip buffer memory in a portable CD player a couple years before they even started making portable CD players (without an anti-skip buffer, that didn't show for a couple more years).

I'd be a billionaire now.

[fortunecookie]

I thought of anti-skip buffer memory in a portable CD player a couple years before they even started making portable CD players (without an anti-skip buffer, that didn't show for a couple more years). I'd be a billionaire now.

Indeed. A very cool idea. I don't know that I'd be a billionaire with my granola/yogurt idea, but I'd probably bump into you at the Club, and ask how you were enjoying the brunch, featuring my granola yogurt in it's various flavors. ;-)