Wind Turbines Take a Lesson From Lance Armstrong

ScienceNOW Daily News ^ | 24 November 2009 | Phil Berardelli

[TChad]

I suspect that the turbines would have to be closer together than those in the photo for drafting to have much effect. But I could be wrong.

[neverdem]

IT IS NOT EFFECIENT. Can it give you the personal edge? Yes, but it is not efficient

For U.S. Military, More Oil Means More Death

It's not efficient when the "fully burdened" cost is $45 - $400 per gallon for generators?

The other scenario I wonder about is our grids getting fried with an EMP attack. Wouldn't dispersed renewable energy make sense just for personal or local consumption?

[familyop]

The Betz proof is good for comparing one wind use design to another, but it’s irrelevant where building a turbine on a given site for energy is concerned. For me, it all comes down to dollars spent per wattage produced.

Thus, the paradox that wind energy is more cost-effective in my area (windy much of the time) than solar energy and far more cost-effective than propane or electricity (propane racket and no nearby grid power).

Feast your eyes on the information behind the link below, if you’re really analytically interested in wind energy and not subjectively attached to another pecuniary/political interest. Although we also use PV supplies (good during the few warmer months), the following is the most efficient (dollars/watts) in my area. And BTW, due to cost-saving measures by the commercially built wind turbine manufacturers (magnets, coils and hubs too weak), commercial turbines burn up here.

http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wind.shtml

I can build a 10-footer, including tower, permits and electronics for ~ $1200 to get an average of about 450 watts (about 700 tops from minute-averages) in a typical winter wind here. ...a 17-footer costing me about $5000 to build for about 1.5 kilowatts (about 3k tops from minute-averages) in typical winter winds. And those are rated much more conservatively and honestly than the machines built by the corporates.

For the mostly un-windy and un-sunny areas of the eastern lowlands...start burning fecal and other rotting matter for alternative energy, if you like. But don’t try to further regulate against the building of what works in windy and sunny parts of the West.

[mylife]

Maybe Obama will just send them along thier way with wind propelled beanies and solar powered HUMMVEES

[mylife]

Its not feasible and you know it

[familyop]

"The other scenario I wonder about is our grids getting fried with an EMP attack. Wouldn't dispersed renewable energy make sense just for personal or local consumption?"

Yes, but become aware of whether or not they will be practical for a proposed scenario, and beware of the scams.

The Bottom Line About Wind Turbines

I've used some great ideas from the US Army for building tough solar collectors for hot water and radiant heating systems, BTW--not out of plywood but out of steel, glass, and so on.

[familyop]

"Its not feasible and you know it"

Oh, now that's an objective analysis. [Little irony and sarcasm there.]

It's running appliances and producing heat (diversion load) for several families around here now, as it does through most of the winter nights (winds averaging about 35 knots, gusting sometimes to more than 90). And the trailer hubs will last.

It will be a joy to watch, as the socialistic NIMBY/HOA hags slither back to their lowland cities after losing their ill-gotten retirements up here (on the Rockies). We look forward to the defaults and smaller government policies to come. We will build as we wish on our own properties. Our property does not belong to the busybody neighbors so far supported by free-traitor corporates and governments.

[pa_dweller]

Or, make each turbine individually reversible and control that feature remotely with a computer so you could automatically select the optimum arrangement of clockwise-counterclockwise rotation.

[rabidralph]

My understanding is that it is real-time energy all the time. Nothing is stored. On top of that, when the blade turbines don't have enough wind to turn them, they rely on electricity to turn them. How crazy is that? Plus, they are an eyesore. Learn more about turbines at Wind Action

These access roads need to be kept cleared during the winter so that the turbines can be checked on when needed. So a snow plow has to go out and clear the access road each time it snows. The generator is on the left.

[HangThemHigh]

"Such tightly packed VAWT arrays can produce as much electricity as conventional windmills, all while using as little as one-hundredth of the land area."

Alright, for the sake of argument, assume this might be true. Now how does that compare with the watts/acre for nuclear?

[maine-iac7]

Ah, but millions of our ‘stimulus’ money has gone for the manufacturing of these behemoths - to factories in China!

Silly me, I thought that money was to create jobs in America.

And then they have to be shipped across the ocean. Those things are humongous...that must be quite a bill - and a massive amount on energy for such shipping.

All a massive scam.

The Washington pols have been playing footsie under the table with China for decades now. And alGora is a master player. I'd like to see him go down but if there is a real investigation and heads start to roll - re the phony data on climate control - he'll throw everyone else under the buss. I just want to live long enough to see him get his just deserts. Evil personified.

[rabidralph]

Wind turbines get the largest chunk of tax dollar support among all alternative energy scams, er, sources.

[neverdem]

Alright, for the sake of argument, assume this might be true. Now how does that compare with the watts/acre for nuclear?

See the link in comment# 22. I'm thinking about their utility off grid in remote locations, e.g. forward operating bases. What good is nuclear if your grid is fried in an electromagnetic pulse attack?

[El Gato]

Ah, but millions of our ‘stimulus’ money has gone for the manufacturing of these behemoths - to factories in China!

Be that as it may. An old Westinghouse plant, built in '72 to make gas turbines, which later made big electric motors, but is now Teco-Westinghouse (TECO is a Taiwan company) is building them just north of Austin.

These are not tiny turbines either.

[bert]

at any given moment, a minimum of 10 % of the wind machines are idle. They don’t work in a sustained manner.

This means you can take the maximum out put and deduct 10-20 % for out of service.

This statement is bases on firsthand witness of hundreds and hundreds of the machines in Texas, Colorado, Wyoming and Idaho. I actually made counts of those operational and idle