|
Post by scpg02 on Jan 1, 2011 20:42:49 GMT
But I find one poorly understood phenomenon to be the biggest weather related hurdle to these monstrous machines. What the heck is the impact of the long term climate cycles on the wind? Since the cold phase has started its likely that much of the wind information from recent decades...is now invalid. They've seen this happening in the UK during the cold snaps. So the windfarms are going to be in the wrong places, and an even greater waste of space and money? Maybe they can convert them into something else, like..um...derigible parking. LOL
|
|
|
Post by trbixler on Jan 2, 2011 15:51:49 GMT
Snow covered Mt San Jacinto peak masked by clouds while windmills in the valley continue in the new year idle. I see one kind of waving at the mountain. Maybe it is just my vantage point. Tax boondoggle continues.
|
|
|
Post by trbixler on Feb 3, 2011 5:15:41 GMT
Who could have possibly thought of during cold nights that there would be light winds and snow cover together. Lisa, Obama all together now its the CO2. "We Spent Billions on Wind Power… and All I Got Was a Rolling Blackout" "The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said 7,000 megawatts of generating capacity tripped ["tripped" means failed]Tuesday night, leaving the state without enough juice. That’s enough capacity to power about 1.4 million homes. By rotating outages, ERCOT said it prevented total blackouts. “We have the double whammy of extremely high demand, given the lowest temperatures in 15 years, combined with generation that’s been compromised and is producing less than expected or needed,” said Oncor spokeswoman Catherine Cuellar. Oncor operates power lines in North Texas and facilitated the blackouts for ERCOT." wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/02/we-spent-billions-on-wind-power-and-all-i-got-was-a-rolling-blackout/#more-33093
|
|
|
Post by trbixler on Feb 14, 2011 13:46:05 GMT
But But it seemed like such a good idea at the time. I mean all those tax credits and ...... "The Futility of Wind Power" "Wind power is intermittent, unreliable and hard to predict. To cover the total loss of power when the wind drops or blows too hard, every wind farm needs a conventional back-up power station (commonly gas-fired) with capacity of twice the design capacity of the wind farm to even out the sudden fluctuations in the electricity grid. This adds to the capital and operating costs and increases the instability of the network." wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/13/the-futility-of-wind-power/#more-33980
|
|
|
Post by curiousgeorge on Feb 14, 2011 21:31:58 GMT
|
|
|
Post by matt on Feb 14, 2011 21:38:11 GMT
"Wind power is intermittent, unreliable and hard to predict. To cover the total loss of power when the wind drops or blows too hard, every wind farm needs a conventional back-up power station (commonly gas-fired) with capacity of twice the design capacity of the wind farm to even out the sudden fluctuations in the electricity grid. This adds to the capital and operating costs and increases the instability of the network." wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/13/the-futility-of-wind-power/#more-33980What a STUPID quote. What's with the gas-fired electrons? Only half as powerful as wind-blown electrons?
|
|
|
Post by matt on Feb 14, 2011 21:41:07 GMT
"The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said 7,000 megawatts of generating capacity tripped ["tripped" means failed]Tuesday night, leaving the state without enough juice. That’s enough capacity to power about 1.4 million homes. By rotating outages, ERCOT said it prevented total blackouts. “We have the double whammy of extremely high demand, given the lowest temperatures in 15 years, combined with generation that’s been compromised and is producing less than expected or needed,” said Oncor spokeswoman Catherine Cuellar. Oncor operates power lines in North Texas and facilitated the blackouts for ERCOT." wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/02/we-spent-billions-on-wind-power-and-all-i-got-was-a-rolling-blackout/#more-33093Another STUPID quote. It says NOTHING about wind power generation. Since coal-fired plants went down, suddenly it is the wind's fault??
|
|
|
Post by julianb on Feb 15, 2011 9:48:37 GMT
I don't know where the 2 for 1 figure came from, a figure of 90% of spinning or ten minute availability is a more quoted figure. The link below outlines some of the problems associated with high levels of wind power capability v baseload. www.windaction.org/documents/262 This points out how Denmark, with one of the highest windpower penetration, neither saves money or emmissions.
|
|
|
Post by matt on Feb 15, 2011 23:40:34 GMT
I don't know where the 2 for 1 figure came from, a figure of 90% of spinning or ten minute availability is a more quoted figure. The link below outlines some of the problems associated with high levels of wind power capability v baseload. www.windaction.org/documents/262 This points out how Denmark, with one of the highest windpower penetration, neither saves money or emmissions. The basic problem, that when the wind blows in Denmark wind power must be sold at discount to other countries. However, as other countries build wind infrastructure, it becomes an equal trade issue. When Germany has to sell to Denmark when winds are high in Germany, the market prices for peak wind power should become more reasonable. This gets down to the issue of scale. Wind power doesn't un-scale well. It is good for large geographic regions because winds tend to even out on a continent-wide scale. Denmark is far too small to make a go of it alone, so they're getting reamed in the instant demand market. That's not an inherent flaw in wind power.
|
|
|
Post by magellan on Feb 16, 2011 0:55:51 GMT
I don't know where the 2 for 1 figure came from, a figure of 90% of spinning or ten minute availability is a more quoted figure. The link below outlines some of the problems associated with high levels of wind power capability v baseload. www.windaction.org/documents/262 This points out how Denmark, with one of the highest windpower penetration, neither saves money or emmissions. The basic problem, that when the wind blows in Denmark wind power must be sold at discount to other countries. However, as other countries build wind infrastructure, it becomes an equal trade issue. When Germany has to sell to Denmark when winds are high in Germany, the market prices for peak wind power should become more reasonable. This gets down to the issue of scale. Wind power doesn't un-scale well. It is good for large geographic regions because winds tend to even out on a continent-wide scale. Denmark is far too small to make a go of it alone, so they're getting reamed in the instant demand market. That's not an inherent flaw in wind power. Wind power is not good at any scale, save maybe somebody's backyard as a conversation piece for bragging rights to who can spend the most money on the most worthless equipment. The numbers don't add up, and that is the bottom line; the numbers. www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html#TABLE
|
|
|
Post by poitsplace on Feb 16, 2011 4:46:16 GMT
The basic problem, that when the wind blows in Denmark wind power must be sold at discount to other countries. However, as other countries build wind infrastructure, it becomes an equal trade issue. When Germany has to sell to Denmark when winds are high in Germany, the market prices for peak wind power should become more reasonable. This gets down to the issue of scale. Wind power doesn't un-scale well. It is good for large geographic regions because winds tend to even out on a continent-wide scale. Denmark is far too small to make a go of it alone, so they're getting reamed in the instant demand market. That's not an inherent flaw in wind power. The basic problem is that we need power when we need it...not when the wind is blowing. What about this do you not get??? Wind power is too erratic, high maintenance, takes up too much space and is too expensive. The ONLY plus side is that it doesn't consume fossil fuels. Everything else is a negative. On the other hand...a new nuclear plant doesn't require backup power, is low maintenance, far cheaper and has a tiny footprint. Wind shouldn't have even been considered.
|
|
|
Post by julianb on Feb 16, 2011 5:56:21 GMT
India has a pretty advanced Nuclear Power program, see:- www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf53.htmland is about to commission a reactor using Thorium, "Thorium fuel cycle development in India The long-term goal of India's nuclear program has been to develop an advanced heavy-water thorium cycle.The first stage of this employs the PHWRs fuelled by natural uranium, and light water reactors, to produce plutonium. Stage 2 uses fast neutron reactors burning the plutonium to breed U-233 from thorium. The blanket around the core will have uranium as well as thorium, so that further plutonium (ideally high-fissile Pu) is produced as well as the U-233. Then in stage 3, Advanced Heavy Water Reactors (AHWRs) burn the U-233 from stage 2 and this plutonium with thorium, getting about two thirds of their power from the thorium. In 2002 the regulatory authority issued approval to start construction of a 500 MWe prototype fast breeder reactor at Kalpakkam and this is now under construction by BHAVINI. The unit is expected to be operating in 2011, fuelled with uranium-plutonium oxide (the reactor-grade Pu being from its existing PHWRs). It will have a blanket with thorium and uranium to breed fissile U-233 and plutonium respectively. This will take India's ambitious thorium program to stage 2, and set the scene for eventual full utilisation of the country's abundant thorium to fuel reactors. Six more such 500 MWe fast reactors have been announced for construction, four of them by 2020."
|
|
|
Post by AstroMet on Feb 16, 2011 6:17:50 GMT
But But it seemed like such a good idea at the time. I mean all those tax credits and ...... "The Futility of Wind Power" "Wind power is intermittent, unreliable and hard to predict. To cover the total loss of power when the wind drops or blows too hard, every wind farm needs a conventional back-up power station (commonly gas-fired) with capacity of twice the design capacity of the wind farm to even out the sudden fluctuations in the electricity grid. This adds to the capital and operating costs and increases the instability of the network." wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/13/the-futility-of-wind-power/#more-33980This is something that has been warned about for quite some time, but the AGW purists kept pushing wind power as alternative without seeing that many of these wind farms consumed more electricity than they gave out. Also, the design clearly was faulty and rushed to market for political purposes. Then, you have the weather itself. In the coming global cooling climate, more of these wind farms will be useless in generating power and will become damaged like the one above. What's needed are upgrades to existing power sources and infrastructure because global cooling is so much more powerful than global warming could ever be. The storms of global cooling are stronger with colder temperatures persisting and lasting longer over periods of time - requiring the need for more energy.
|
|
|
Post by trbixler on Feb 19, 2011 16:32:51 GMT
|
|
|
Post by curiousgeorge on Feb 19, 2011 16:53:44 GMT
Technical question about these turbines: Do they have de-icing boots or heaters, and do they have a variable pitch capability to adjust for wind speed? It seems to me that these would be basic design requirements.
|
|