[HN Gopher] The world's largest wind turbine has been switched on
___________________________________________________________________
The world's largest wind turbine has been switched on
Author : thunderbong
Score : 87 points
Date : 2023-07-29 16:15 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.iflscience.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.iflscience.com)
| retrocryptid wrote:
| [flagged]
| jeffbee wrote:
| In the port of Halifax right now there are two heavy-lift semi-
| submersible transports carrying 12 13MW wind turbines destined
| for the Vineyard Wind project off Cape Cod. A photo of what the
| tower segments look like:
| https://twitter.com/BenMacLeod/status/1680629818931511296/ph...
| rajandatta wrote:
| Fascinating article. Looks encouraging. The size of the turbine
| and the capacity claimed is staggering. Is anyone aware of any
| materials that explainn how one distributes turbines over a farm
| to maximize yield? Can a tribune of this scale alter localized
| flow to require specific distribution patterns?
| weinzierl wrote:
| In the 80s we had GROWIAN [1], which I found utterly fascinating
| as a kid. I have always been under the impression it proved that
| ultra-large turbines were a dead end. Maybe they will be
| rehabilitated?
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growian
|
| EDIT: I always remembered GROWIAN as a single blade system, but
| apparently that was its successor _Monopteros_ , which only ever
| reached the prototype stage.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| From your own link:
|
| > Some lessons were however learned from conceptional mistakes
| made in its construction, e.g., the futility of trying to reach
| profitable installation sizes without taking intermediate steps
|
| > The point of view that multi-MW-yield wind turbines were
| technically and commercially infeasible gained some currency
| after the failure of the project, but was eventually superseded
| by technical progress. Beginning with the late 2000s, twenty-
| five years after Growian was decommissioned, installations with
| identical dimensions and yield (100 m rotor diameter, 3 MW net
| yield) were being produced in large numbers, a class of
| turbines that has continued to dominate the market and to push
| forward the mean net yield of newly installed turbines.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Another interesting paragraph suggests this was designed to
| fail:
|
| > The partners as well as the BMFT also had political motives
| connected with the project. Gunther Klatte, management board
| member of RWE, stated during a general business meeting: "We
| require Growian [in the general sense of large wind turbines]
| as a proof of failure of concept", and he noted that "the
| Growian is a kind of pedagogical tool to convert the anti-
| nuclear energy crowd to the true faith".[6] A similar
| statement regarding the incurred financial burdens was
| reported of Minister of Finance and former Minister of
| Research Hans Matthofer: "We know it won't do anything for
| us. But we do it to demonstrate to the wind energy advocates
| that it doesn't work."[6] After the Green Party had derided
| the installation as the electricity provider's "fig leaf" on
| the occasion of groundbreaking in May 1981, the RWE took
| internal measures to make sure that publicly a position of
| open-mindedness towards alternative energy production was
| emphasized while public interest in wind energy was allayed.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| For whatever reason, wind power tends to be back-of-mind for me.
| Clearly, I'm missing out!
|
| What amazing machines!
| timpeq wrote:
| [flagged]
| tekla wrote:
| How does it imply that?
| [deleted]
| function_seven wrote:
| I think parent is pointing out the unnecessary "for one year"
| part. What is the purpose of that?
|
| I assume that this turbine should be able to supply those
| 36,000 households for an arbitrary amount of time, not just
| one year.
| inconceivable wrote:
| lmao yeah dude they replace it every year.
| tommiegannert wrote:
| Got curious what the power rating of the blade pitch control
| system is. Couldn't find a size reference, but KEBA [1] sells
| motors and drivers at the 9 kW and 22 kW levels. Nidec [2] at 26
| kW.
|
| So just controlling the pitch (presumably of a more average
| turbine) uses the (peak) power of heating a house in Sweden.
| Noted that the duty cycle is low, but still.
|
| [1] https://www.keba.com/download/x/18628e52a3/pitchone-
| datashee...
|
| [2] https://www.nidec-industrial.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/05/...
| nerdponx wrote:
| It'd be interesting to see how much energy a modern natural gas
| power plant uses for its operations by comparison.
| [deleted]
| ninkendo wrote:
| 123 meter blades, that's insane. This means the tip of the blade
| travels 772 meters in a single rotation. The speed of sound is
| 340 meters per second, meaning if it travels more than 0.44
| rotations in a second, the tips of the blades are breaking the
| sound barrier.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| This made me think that people in the West imagine East Asia
| like Japan or Hongkong, ie. everything is packed and very
| small. But China in general really is like the US (and indeed
| the country is of similar size): everything tends to be big.
| Certainly, coming from Europe, everything is huge in China.
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| The GE Haliade X, smaller but not by a lot, maxes out at 7
| rotations per minute, giving a rotor tip velocity in the
| vicinity of 80m/s. Generally noise considerations mean you
| don't aim for a tip velocity faster than that, although for a
| turbine that is only installed in offshore or other uninhabited
| locations, you might design for a higher tip velocity. Despite
| some advantages to higher velocity, though, considerations
| related to erosion caused by high speed impact of dust, water
| drops and ice particles become an issue long before you'd get
| to supersonic speeds.
| antisthenes wrote:
| > The GE Haliade X, smaller but not by a lot, maxes out at 7
| rotations per second
|
| I think you meant per minute.
|
| Per second would mean that the rotor tips are travelling
| faster than SR-71.
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| Yes. Thanks.
| rcme wrote:
| That is crazy, but, on the other hand, seeing this rotate
| faster than once every two seconds would be insanely fast.
| civilitty wrote:
| We just need to hook it up to a flux capacitor and the next
| typhoon will give us time travel.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I did the math, but we didn't hit 1.21 jigawatts
| ragebol wrote:
| If they do break the sound barrier, that's also when the
| efficiency drops iirc. So I guess they'll switch it to a
| heavier load or RPM, or apply the brakes?
|
| Not sure how that works for a wind turbine
| SonicScrub wrote:
| Rotating blades like this should never go beyond the critical
| Mach number where local airflow on the blade upper surface
| reaches Mach 1.0 (about Mach 0.8ish). The shockwaves that
| form are attached to the surface and like to shift around
| with slight changes in conditions, which cause awful
| vibrations. I'd expect the blades to be braked in some way to
| never exceed critical Mach number.
| tgv wrote:
| Isn't there a great resistance to overcoming it? So basically
| it would stop accelerating before ever crossing it.
|
| But, AFAIK, windmills wre immobilized when the wind gets too
| strong, in order to protect them. If the tech allows it, they
| can also be made to catch less window. Some Dutch wind mills
| could be rotated, and the cloth covering the arms could cover
| less surface. Modern windmills adapt their position
| automatically. Look at [0] and search for "Ten Have /
| Beckers".
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmill_sail
| pengaru wrote:
| I presume the pitch is adjustable, so unless the mechanism
| fails you can just relax the pitch like pointing a sailboat
| directly into the wind to depower the sails.
| bluGill wrote:
| The mechanism is designed (or at least should be designed)
| so that if anything breaks the blades rotate to the no
| power position. There is a lot of engineering and
| redundancy that i'm only partially aware of.
| pengaru wrote:
| I guess the real question is how bad can conditions get
| before the "no power position" is still too much force
| for the structure to withstand.
|
| You can't escape the fact that the blades are a ton of
| surface area on a long lever... and if the winds are both
| forceful and directionally chaotic, there isn't really a
| "no power position" to be found.
|
| Going back to the sailboat metaphor, it's the conditions
| where you douse the sails entirely. At most flying a
| little storm jib. Pointing upwind is just to enable doing
| so.
| Qem wrote:
| Birds won't be happy, unfortunately. Yet, better than wrecking
| Earth's cycles by pumping to much garbage in the atmosphere
| like we do today.
| myshpa wrote:
| Painting the blades lowers the number of collisions
| significantly.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| Fortunately, this is an offshore turbine, so it gives a lot
| of surface area for marine life to live on, which eventually
| turns into food for birds.
| steelbrain wrote:
| Not trying to pick a fight but just posting because I hear
| this often from my friends, re birds being happy.
|
| The choice, if between coal-fired plants and windmills should
| be pretty obvious to birds. Sure we may not see them getting
| splashed to bits with coal-fired plants but they are silently
| getting ill/dying over time.
| mirko22 wrote:
| So are people, yet we are afraid of nuclear power...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Because solar and wind are a fraction of the capex and
| opex, have none of the risk or security headaches, more
| easily distributed (meaning less grid infrastructure) and
| don't generate nuclear waste.
| kdmccormick wrote:
| Bird death from turbines small-scale and highly
| predictable. Deaths from nuclear can range from zero to
| regional catastrophe and it's basically impossible to
| predict when it'll happen and how bad it'll be.
|
| I'm not anti-nuclear, but the risk profile is SO
| different from wind.
| fasterik wrote:
| The worst case is worse, but nuclear disasters are so
| rare and reactors produce so much power that nuclear is
| safer than wind in terms of deaths per TWh.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Let's stop subsidizing their accident insurance then.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nucl
| ear...
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Do you transport something like this in pieces, or as a single
| blade?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| A German company says they can transport blades of up to 100m
| length as a single piece [1]. For longer things I'd guess
| there is no option other than to manufacture them on site or
| near-site, as the Danes are doing for offshore projects [2].
|
| [1] https://www.doll.eu/de/produkte/schwertransport/nachlaeuf
| er-...
|
| [2] https://www.wiwo.de/technologie/wirtschaft-von-
| oben/wirtscha...
| tjoff wrote:
| That is on land, there is a reason a lot of wind production
| is close to a harbor.
|
| So near-site in practice means, near-harbor.
|
| Possibly you can have an agile vessel doing the last
| stretch so that you can change that to ~near-sea.
| jayGlow wrote:
| the US Midwest has a ton of wind power, if you drive
| through there you have a decent chance of seeing a truck
| carrying a blade. pretty interesting stuff. obviously
| those are a lot smaller than this windmill though.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| If you drive through Iowa, it seems like you will see
| nothing but windmills. Just an enormous amount of
| installed capacity.
| thenewwazoo wrote:
| The blades are transported in single pieces, on trucks with
| steered rear carriers, as in this video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTpZ5V4HrK4
| tinco wrote:
| The blade is usually manufactured as a single fiberglass
| piece. With how big this thing is I imagine it's manufactured
| somewhere directly at the shore, and just lifted onto a boat
| directly from the factory.
|
| The base is segments (shaped like calamari rings), which are
| big but usually can be transported by road, but the big ones
| probably can't pass under bridges.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| How technically challenging is building(?) printing(?)
| these pieces? Presumably they need to withstand enormous
| amounts of strain. Can you produce an impromptu factory
| anywhere, or does this require sophisticated equipment that
| benefits from fixed installations?
| kabanossen wrote:
| Depends, regular ones as a single blade since they're
| assembled in the factory. But there are attempts to do it
| differently because of the inconvenience. A swedish company
| make wind turbine towers out of wood that can be assembled on
| site: https://modvion.com/
|
| Here are some images to give you an idea of the size of large
| wind turbines https://growsverige.se/2023/02/11/storleken-
| svindlar-pa-nya-...
| askvictor wrote:
| Given that the wind is pushing it, wouldn't the blade tip's
| speed somehow be naturally limited by the wind speed?
| MayeulC wrote:
| * * *
| jakewins wrote:
| At least in sailing, you can go a lot faster than the wind; I
| assume the same is true for these blades.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| it would be except that the goal of a wind turbine is to
| generate power rather than go fast
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| My little "farm" covers 21 acres. The blades on this single
| turbine sweep an area equal to more than half of that. Amazing.
| jameskerr wrote:
| Giant turbines out in the ocean with regular gales and storms.
| That must be a massive challenge to construct.
| Animats wrote:
| These are advertised as "typhoon resistant". Like all big wind
| turbines, the props are variable pitch, feather under excessive
| wind, and rotation stops.
|
| The big trouble spot is the gearbox and its bearings.[1] These
| big turbines are advertised as "semi direct drive" turbines,
| which means they only have one stage of geared speed step-up.
| Large wind turbines are very slow compared to desirable
| generator RPMs, and the bigger the turbine, the lower the RPMs.
|
| Bearing trouble is currently the big limitation on turbine
| life. Not many large wind turbine drivetrains are reaching the
| 25 year design life. Huge bearings and gears with off-axis
| loads have problems not seen in other applications. As the wind
| changes, stresses appear from odd angles. This causes minor
| bearing damage, which increases wear, which eventually causes
| major damage.
|
| A new research result: [2][3] Argonne National Lab has been
| able to reproduce this problem in a benchtop setup. The
| metallurgy/lubrication problem is still not fully understood,
| and it's getting considerable attention.
|
| Stuff like this is the difference between a prototype and a
| long-lived production product.
|
| [1]
| https://www.stle.org/files/TLTArchives/2020/08_August/Featur...
|
| [2] https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/articles/zeroing-
| no-1-cause...
|
| [3]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09215...
| tuatoru wrote:
| Truncated-pyramid floating wind turbines shouldn't have as
| much of a problem with this, as the loads are closer to
| traditional transverse and axial.
|
| (Picture two flat-topped letter 'A's, one behind the other,
| with a crossbar going from the top of the front one to the
| top of the back one. The blades spin around this crossbar, an
| axle. The generator can be at one end of this axle, or in the
| blade hub. The whole structure is floating, moored at one
| corner, and can rotate to keep the blades facing into the
| wind as required.)
| dtgriscom wrote:
| Anybody else notice the small arrow on the base of each blade
| showing which way it should rotate? (Is it likely that someone
| would install these blades backwards?)
| Qem wrote:
| Curious about what is the upper limit. How much can we go beyond
| 16 MW before physics laws put a cap on size?
| tda wrote:
| Last I heard I think 25MW turbines were in some early stage of
| development. At least that is the biggest my former employer I
| recall was considering for their latest installation vessel.
| But I have been out of the loop for a while, so would love to
| hear an update.
|
| The first 14MW was installed quite a few years ago (and it
| might have been upgraded to 15MW), so this is just a small-ish
| increase in max size. The big news, foe at least, is that it is
| Chinese. Siemens, Vestas and GE have some serious competition
| now it seems
| samstave wrote:
| We need to figure out how to get things to spin in space really
| fast - like some piezioelectrical fan blade turbine that takes
| advantage of the extremes in differential temps?
|
| @Twosdai - I was talking about space generators, there is no
| air. So how get spin, from temperature diffs that can turn a
| turbine/generator?
| twosdai wrote:
| I don't think that it's necessarily speed which is the thing
| that we should look for. It's how best to convert large
| amounts of moving air into rational motion. So a large slow
| moving windmill may generate more power than a smaller faster
| moving one.
| Animats wrote:
| The picture looks strange. You can see a ship through the turbine
| blade. That seems to be because ifisicence took a promotional
| picture with lettering and leaf decoration from here [1] and
| "cleaned it up" with some photo tool.
|
| General Electric and Vestas both have 14 megawatt wind turbine
| prototypes in operation. This seems to be a prototype deployed in
| a large installation. It's not in the catalog yet.[2] Mingyang
| has been delivering some 12 megawatt units. Two years ago they
| announced a similar model with slightly shorter blades.[3]
|
| [1] http://www.myse.com.cn/en/
|
| [2] http://www.myse.com.cn/en/cplb/info.aspx?itemid=578
|
| [3] http://www.myse.com.cn/en/jtxw/info.aspx?itemid=825
| nerdponx wrote:
| The caption says "similar to this one" so I didn't expect much.
| But it's interesting to see a publication engage in what looks
| initially like overt copyright infringement.
| petee wrote:
| It is an unedited photo, available in their press packet --
| http://www.myse.com.cn/en/zlxz/index.aspx
| constantly wrote:
| Good spotting, IFLScience hasn't been "real" science for a
| while since they got some traction and vitality. Their role has
| shifted more towards what makes headlines, which is what sells
| ads, which is what pays them.
| aaron695 wrote:
| [dead]
| Kosirich wrote:
| Siemens Games RE has one as well.
|
| https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/one-day-one-turbine-359mwh...
| tuatoru wrote:
| Statista records a MySE turbine with 118m blades at 16MW
| nameplate.[1]
|
| At 123m blade length, this should be maybe 1 MW more. Looks
| like the original article, which claims power for 36,000
| "homes", is using roughly 1 home = 0.5kW. In the US it's more
| like 1 home = 2kW.
|
| 1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/570678/biggest-wind-
| turb...
| doodlebugging wrote:
| They have installed these in the Taiwan Strait where, in the
| event of war between China and Taiwan, one well-aimed missile
| knocks out power to 36000 homes or businesses. Obviously the
| first target and the juiciest targets are those that disrupt and
| disable the adversary's ability to produce the means and
| materials of conducting warfare. Therefore power generation,
| factories that produce munitions or that can be quickly flipped
| to dual purpose factories are obvious targets to neutralize.
| Accomplishing the destruction of your adversary's domestic
| ability to produce the weapons of war, food stocks for the
| nation, munitions, etc compromises the adversary's ability to
| conduct a war without needing to depend on outside assistance.
|
| In Texas we have numerous wind farms. One of my relatives came
| home to find a crew at work on the neighboring property building
| a pad for a turbine. They had received no notice that a wind farm
| was to be constructed in the area and none about opportunities to
| object to turbine placement and as a result, while they were
| trying to determine who to contact about this, brand new turbines
| were installed on the neighboring property with the nearest one
| being less than 1500 feet from their home. It appears that they
| are now stuck with the constant whoosh-whoosh-whoosh of the
| blades as they rotate and an electric hum, 24 hours a day and
| their peaceful home now has an inescapable background noise
| pattern.
|
| I love wind power, I have some solar power installed on my own
| property and will be upgrading that. I think though that the
| ability to enjoy peace and quiet in your own home should not be
| compromised by a private utility even if they are providing clean
| power for public consumption.
|
| It would be better if we could replace some older turbines with
| newer units like this high-capacity turbine in the article.
| Perhaps with larger, more pwoerful turbines we would need fewer
| to be installed to be able to meet our state's power consumption
| needs. New wind power installations should be mandated to use
| best-available technology so that we end up with durable,
| reliable, quiet power generation with a minimal footprint.
| jl6 wrote:
| The low density of wind power actually makes it much harder for
| an adversary to take out a country's energy production
| capacity. Currently, that well-aimed missile could hit a
| nuclear plant and cause devastation as well as the loss of
| multiple gigawatts of capacity. The equivalent wind power would
| be spread across hundreds or thousands of turbines, spaced
| kilometers apart. Destroying one wouldn't have the same impact.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Missiles with integrated guidance systems are in every modern
| inventory. I mentioned the possibility of the loss of a
| single turbine to one missile and left it up to the reader to
| extrapolate the consequences if the one firing the missile
| had a large number of missiles at their disposal. Satellite
| data available allows one to pick high value targets with
| high precision.
|
| I hope that conflict between Taiwan and China never happens.
| I enjoy reading about new technologies coming into production
| and if these nations go to war, a lot of this productive
| capacity will shift to production of tools for war instead of
| tools useful for solving problems that we have brought on
| ourselves over generations.
| fbdab103 wrote:
| I am not sure what is your point. Do not ever construct
| critical infrastructure because it might be targeted in
| war? You say window turbine, but that could just as easily
| be a coal plant, hospital, car factory, legislative
| building, etc.
| thefurdrake wrote:
| ... But how many missiles would be used to take down a
| massive wind farm vs taking down a single nuclear reactor?
|
| Regardless of whether the enemy has lots more missiles,
| they still have a finite number of them. Those missiles
| cost money. War is as economic as it is kinetic.
|
| Using those missiles to disable power generation means they
| can't be used on other targets. Overuse of ammunition eats
| into stockpiles or forces early resupply, which takes time.
|
| Time matters in war.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Very valid points. Those who have to conduct the war must
| consider these things - supply chain issues, production
| bottlenecks, existing stockpiles - and prioritize targets
| accordingly. Choosing between potentially causing a
| nuclear disaster and disabling power generation from
| cleaner sources is a no-brainer for me. I'd leave the
| reactor intact and re-evaluate the sensibility of that
| decision daily in case something changes. There are so
| many higher value targets available that would have a
| noticeable effect on the adversary's ability to continue
| waging war that those higher-value targets should get a
| higher priority.
|
| It's a lot like WWII where Allied aerial bombardment
| campaigns tried to target oil refining, ball bearing
| production, railroads and critical transportation
| infrastructure like bridges, factories where tanks,
| planes, and other vehicles were manufactured, and rocket
| launching facilities. Those targets, if you can keep
| hitting them so that they never come back to full
| capacity will give a tangible advantage.
| thefurdrake wrote:
| I'm not sure there are too many higher-priority targets
| than a modernized nation's capacity for generating and
| supplying electricity when it comes to that nation's
| ability to resist invasion. There's a reason modern wars
| involve targeting electrical infrastructure as a
| strategic priority...
|
| That and industrial manufacturing (which China has
| motivation to keep intact), but even industrial targets
| are contingent upon an electrical supply.
|
| The military can run off fossil fuel generators for only
| so long.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _The equivalent wind power would be spread across hundreds
| or thousands of turbines, spaced kilometers apart._
|
| Take out the transformer station at, or transmissions line
| from, the wind farm.
| tuatoru wrote:
| That is not specific to wind technology. The risk is much
| worse with legacy coal, gas and nuclear power stations.
| thefurdrake wrote:
| I have this problem a lot in rimworld. I solved it by
| running more than a single line. I feel like that's a
| viable solution for attacking transmission lines in the
| real world, too.
|
| Transformers less so, I suppose. I'd imagine those could be
| hardened. Is there a reason we couldn't place them
| underground?
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| TFA is about offshore wind turbines, which would seem to
| address your concerns about having one built near your house.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Believe it or don't, I read TFA and added a little color to
| the situation since most of us understand that great
| technology like high-capacity turbines has the potential to
| be useful in more locations than just offshore installations.
|
| As time passes and we are able to make the switch from fossil
| fuel sources to renewable sources we will find ourselves with
| a requirement that we produce as much power as possible in
| the smallest footprint. There will always be people who don't
| want a turbine near their house. That's a simple fact. One of
| the original arguments against wind installations in
| California was the argument that it spoiled the view since no
| one wanted to see a bunch of turbines along a scenic ridge,
| they preferred the unmolested vistas of their childhood.
| Later, they focused on noise issues, which are valid
| concerns, and many states worked with operators and other
| stakeholders to design a set of guidelines or restrictions on
| minimal offsets from habitations.
|
| Texas is not one of those states and so wind turbines of any
| size can be installed within the wind farms without taking
| into consideration existing habitations. Most operators
| solicit public input though in the case I mentioned, there is
| no record of any notice to affected people that the wind farm
| might have an impact on their use of their property or
| quality of life.
|
| It is a lot like the problems we had here during the Barnett
| Shale boom about 15 years ago where operators bought mineral
| rights all over North Texas and began drilling for natural
| gas and then fracking those wells so they would be economical
| to produce. There were no restrictions in most cities and
| communities on offsets to housing, schools, businesses, etc
| and so, as the industry has done so many times in the past,
| they took advantage of that situation and began drilling
| knowing that they could deal with those problems later.
|
| Over a course of years some communities passed regulations
| limiting drilling locations and other parts of the operation
| in a bid to prevent drilling wells just over a fence and the
| building of compressor stations in neighborhoods.
|
| I think if you had a compressor station, even one with all
| the noise attenuating walls around it, near your own house
| you would also keep a wary eye on any attempts to bring other
| noise sources into your area that will interfere with your
| quiet enjoyment of your private property. The low frequency
| rumble from the compressor engines is not attenuated by the
| puffy walls and travels for large distances like ground roll
| on a seismic record. I am a geophysicist and for me, when the
| compressor starts up it is like feeling the initial part of
| an upsweep from a vibrator except that the upsweep never
| makes it to the higher frequencies. It's just a low frequency
| rumble that doesn't stop until the compressor engines stop.
|
| My mind doesn't get stuck on actualities, I look at
| possibilities, probabilities, and consequences and for that
| reason I can see that something like a huge turbine installed
| today in an offshore generation configuration could easily be
| employed later as a component of an onshore generation farm.
|
| I know that puff piece article didn't cover any of that
| ground since it was not designed to tell any part of that
| story.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| Similar wind speeds happen every afternoon in "the Slot" in the
| SF Bay. Maybe we should decorate the area with a similar giant
| windmill. It also happens to be when peak pricing is in effect.
| danans wrote:
| I've been thinking along the same lines recently. The shallows
| just next to Emeryville seem ideal for this, and would
| aesthically match the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge. I'm
| not sure if or why this hasn't been proposed yet.
| post_break wrote:
| I can think of a five letter word why. NIMBY
| windows2020 wrote:
| I wonder what paint job would best prevent birds from being
| destroyed by this. It looks like sometimes one blade is painted
| black for this purpose.
|
| How do bird deaths from wind turbines compare to other manmade
| objects?
| not_your_mentat wrote:
| I have it on good authority that birds aren't real.
| askvictor wrote:
| We should really stop building skyscrapers, as they cause
| plenty of birth deaths too.
|
| And stop destroying their habitat, and changing the climate
| which is destroying their migratory air currents and on-route
| stop-overs.
|
| TLDR: there are plenty of direct and indirect things that cause
| a _lot_ more bird deaths. Don't let perfect get in the way of
| good.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| Insignificant on many levels. If we should care for that we
| should stop all fossil fuel consumption right now, stop eating
| meat, and most importantly, stop putting glass windows into our
| cute buildings.
|
| Why are these questions always in wind turbine posts before
| anything els?
| mirko22 wrote:
| Cos some people care about birds?
|
| How does eating meat factor into this?
| erulabs wrote:
| Because ostensibly global warming and climate change is of
| far more existential threat than localized turbines. Wind
| power could possibly save _all birds_ , at the cost of
| _some birds_. It's similar to when a self driving car gets
| into an accident - all hand wringing and no looking at
| broader statistics.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| Most people who bring up birds wrt wind turbines don't care
| about birds, eg Donald Trump.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Well, if the meat is chicken or turkey...
| windows2020 wrote:
| If wind turbines were the number one bird killer, wouldn't
| figuring out the best color to paint the blades or other
| mitigation strategies be worth it?
| mig39 wrote:
| Do wind turbines kill more birds than cats?
| moffkalast wrote:
| Looking at this source [0] they kill about as many birds
| in a year as we eat chickens in a week, i.e. ~1 million.
|
| 7 times as many are killed by cell towers, 80x as many by
| cars, and up to 1000x as many by cats. Maybe they should
| put cat ears on turbines and people would be fine with
| them.
|
| [0] https://www.energymonitor.ai/tech/renewables/weekly-
| data-how...
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > If wind turbines were the number one bird killer
|
| They are not.
| tedunangst wrote:
| There will always be a number one bird killer, unless no
| birds die ever.
| canadianfella wrote:
| [dead]
| Qem wrote:
| > Why are these questions always in wind turbine posts before
| anything els?
|
| Because it's better to worry about it and try to mitigate at
| the beginning, than wait until there is too much inertia,
| sunken costs, vested interests and institutional pushback.
| Some things become too hard to fix if you start wrong.
| el_benhameen wrote:
| Folks who worry about this have an excellent outlet for their
| concerns: don't have outdoor cats, and donate and work to
| spay and neuter feral outdoor cats. They are orders of
| magnitude more destructive to the bird population than wind
| turbines will ever be.
| gWPVhyxPHqvk wrote:
| Bird deaths from wind turbines are essentially a rounding
| error, probably less than a million a year. On the other hand,
| cats kill billions of birds per year.
| windows2020 wrote:
| It would be interesting to see the number of animals killed
| by power source per unit of energy.
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| It's offshore, so it provides surface area for marine life to
| live on. Fish can eat that algae, and birds can eat those fish.
| mx_02 wrote:
| Is bigger better when it comes to wind power?
| jl6 wrote:
| The world used about 180,000TWh of energy in 2022[0]. That
| requires about 21TW of generation capacity. If we assume wind
| turbines have a capacity factor of about 30% due to the
| intermittency of wind, we would need about 69TW of nameplate
| capacity.
|
| If each of these turbines is rated at 16MW, we would need about
| 4.3 million of them.
|
| Is there enough space?
|
| Let's assume turbines should be spaced 10 rotor diameters
| apart[2]. A turbine of this size (246m diameter) would need to
| have about 2.5 * 2.5=6.25km^2 of dedicated space. So we will need
| about 27 million square kilometers of open sea space.
|
| Coincidentally, that's the same as the total area of continental
| shelf in the whole world.[3]
|
| Continental shelf depth is up to 200m.[4]
|
| The deepest wind turbines today are in depths of 59m.[5]
|
| What should we conclude? As long as we figure out a way of
| building turbines in deeper water, or perhaps floating turbines,
| and a way of manufacturing the required materials (hopefully
| without recourse to fossil fuels), the project seems _just about_
| plausible. But it would be a truly planet-scale endeavour.
|
| [0] https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor#Wind_farm
|
| [2] https://ideasmedioambientales.com/wind-turbine-spacing/
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_shelf
|
| [4] https://www.britannica.com/science/continental-shelf
|
| [5] https://www.sse.com/news-and-views/2023/04/world-s-
| deepest-o...*
| adrianmonk wrote:
| > _of open sea space_
|
| I'm not disagreeing with your math, but it doesn't need to be
| offshore only. Currently 93% of wind power is on land, and 7%
| is offshore[1].
|
| In the United States, it's much more extreme. Literally 99.99%
| of turbines are on land and 0.01% are offshore[2].
|
| Offshore is growing faster than onshore, though.
|
| ---
|
| [1] See "Technology deployment" section here:
| https://www.iea.org/energy-system/renewables/wind
|
| [2] See this map: https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/viewer/ . It
| shows 72,731 wind turbines, 7 of which are offshore. Also see
| this Wikipedia article:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in...
| robin_reala wrote:
| Is anyone seriously proposing a wind turbine monoculture for
| energy generation?
| jl6 wrote:
| Pick your desired percentage of wind in the future energy
| mix. Even if we say 25%, it's still going to need millions of
| turbines. And our energy demands are not shrinking.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| We built about a million aircraft globally during WWII
| (specifically: 1939-1945). I'm not saying the average WWII
| airplane compares perfectly to a modern wind turbine, but
| the technology and industrial base we used to do this was
| also vastly more primitive. So yes, I'd bet that a
| sufficiently-motivated human society can crank out a
| million turbines over a multi-decade time span. You can
| Google the IEA "Net Zero by 2050" report to find estimates
| of how much offshore wind capacity there is (it's a lot.)
|
| It does illustrate the specific challenge of this energy
| transition. If a given energy technology isn't being mass-
| produced in factories, it's basically irrelevant given the
| scale of what we need to do.
| Someone wrote:
| > And our energy demands are not shrinking.
|
| I think they should be, but even if they aren't, there
| still is the observation that a kWh of electricity often
| can produce more of what we really want (light, motion,
| compute power) than a kWh of oil (about the only thing we
| can efficiently convert that into is heat)
|
| For example, Google tells me
|
| - petrol is about 12 kWh/kg,
|
| - the modern fiat 500 has a 47l gas tank,
|
| - Tesla sells cars with 50kwh batteries.
|
| Yet, that Fiat doesn't have ten times the rang of the
| larger Tesla.
| Shaanie wrote:
| My country produces around 20% of its energy from wind
| nowadays, 2010 it was less than 3%. Seems to work just fine
| and is growing rapidly.
| askvictor wrote:
| There are designs for floating turbines (but they still need to
| be anchors to the sea floor). Though I wonder if, on scale,
| they could be made into a flotilla that would only need a
| smaller amount of anchors for the whole thing, and also be
| towed around if needed.
| hannob wrote:
| You're confusing primary energy with useful energy.
|
| What people need to realize is that if we go to renewable,
| electric energy, in most cases this will also involve
| efficiency improvements. Many fossil fuel based processes are
| horribly inefficient, with electricity you can often avoid
| doing things like "80% of our energy goes into heating up the
| air around whatever we're doing".
|
| That said: Yes, we'll need a lot of wind turbines.
| jl6 wrote:
| I don't mind being conservative for this exercise, and
| renewables have their own inefficiency issue: we'll need to
| accept the inefficiency of using electrolysis to produce the
| hydrogen needed to synthesize the feedstocks needed to run
| petrochemical processes (e.g. producing plastic), because
| energy production isn't the only thing that depends on fossil
| fuels.
| giomasce wrote:
| I heard that the total wind power across the whole world is
| something like 20 times the total power humanity needs. So if
| we ended up doing this, we'd stealing some 5% of power from the
| wind, which is quite a lot. This itself could have significant
| climate consequences.
|
| Solar shouldn't have this problem, instead: the amount of power
| we receive from the sun is ridiculously larger than what we can
| ever thing to consume.
| jrmg wrote:
| That's just a 2100x2100 square. How much ground area does one
| of these turbines need?
|
| I know that in reality you couldn't just put them all in one
| place.
| tln wrote:
| Holy crap, they can withstand 79.3 m/s winds... that's 178 mph!
| tuatoru wrote:
| Need to. There are typhoons in the area, and they're getting
| stronger. 200 mph would be better.
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(page generated 2023-07-29 23:01 UTC)