Floating Wind Turbine Platform 228
Sterling D. Allan writes "Inventor Tom Lee is nearly ready to strike a deal to install a flotilla of offshore wind turbines, combined with hydrogen-generating capability and battery storage, which he says will enable them to have the consistency needed to be a primary grid energy provider, and not just supplemental to the gird. The floating platform enables them to take the turbines to where the wind blows and birds are few, and people even fewer. His objective in commencing this project 12 years ago was to come up with a power solution for developing nations."
It Doesn't Matter (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, no matter how much alternative energy sources are promoted by one faction of the environmental movent there will always be the fringe who hates any energy source that benefits humans. It is as if humans are not part of nature and that we are just a fucking infection that is destroying the Mother Earth (Matrix Agentism). It is chilling how much the rhetoric of Earth First! and other enviro-whackos mirrors that of fundamentalist theologies.
I hope this project can get funded. We need energy and there is no reason for us to not develop these resources for human use.
Birds (Score:5, Insightful)
And even if windfarms did pose a danger to birds, the benefits of a clean, sustainable energy source so far outweigh the downside of a few dead pigeons here and there, that it's silly to even contemplate the matter.
So that means... (Score:4, Insightful)
in technology terms, you have got nothing.
I was ready to make a deal with a nice Nigerian fellow, but that doesn't mean a darn thing.
Orders of Expense (Score:3, Insightful)
More Expensive: Marine Goods.
Even More Expensive: Aero Goods.
Aero, electronic goods exposed to a marine environment ... Could we make that Monopoly Nuclear running NT too? Now that would be expensive.
Really, who knows, clever people can make anything work.
Re:It Doesn't Matter (Score:1, Insightful)
I also think that it's likely that birds will become attracted to the platforms because of the fish that will gather to feed and hide around the platforms. Plus there are other denizens [signonsandiego.com] of the deep who will see this as a great place to rest and mate.
Re:Birds (Score:5, Insightful)
The threat isn't as small as a few pigeons, but it is an area where active research in avian behavior could reduce the number of impacts.
There isn't a single "zero impact" energy source. An environmental price for any energy source can be found if you look hard enough. The challenge is learning how to balance our need for energy with the size of the threat to the environment.
Re:It Doesn't Matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, let's look at how many new refineries have been constructed in the US in the last 30 years. And how many nuclear plants have been constructed in the same timeframe.
Your sarcasm doesn't measure up to reality, does it? The fact is, if the US had been continuing to build out its nuclear power capacity we may not be discussing energy strains the way we are today.
The primary contributors to the crash of oil prices in the mid-1980's was conservation measures combined with the expansion of US nuclear energy.
Conservation will only take you so far. After that, you have to develop new sources.
Re:Large areas required (Score:1, Insightful)
USPTO Search (Score:1, Insightful)
If this is such a great technology, why isn't it covered under a patent?
As long as its out there... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It Doesn't Matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, those pesky environmentalists in control of all the oil companies decided that it made more sense to use old, grandfathered refineries than actually make new ones that complied with modern air regulations. The fact that it chokes off supply occassionally and raises the profits is a horrible side-effect for the poor companies.
And how many nuclear plants have been constructed in the same timeframe.
There are certainly many people who have an irrational fear of nuclear power, but I think the nail in the coffin of that particular enterprise was that nuclear wound up being no cheaper than anything else, and every plant would have been losing money if it weren't for the huge government subsidies.
The fact is, if the US had been continuing to build out its nuclear power capacity we may not be discussing energy strains the way we are today.
Indeed, and had we been continuing to build out wind and solar power, we would be even better off than with nuclear! But of course nobody is protesting wind and solar power, I wonder why we haven't invested in those with half the gusto we've spent trying to find a few million nonreplaceable barrels of oil off the coast of Florida? I've never heard of anyone getting sick from living next to a windmill.
Conservation will only take you so far. After that, you have to develop new sources.
Indeed -- and building more oil refineries is not "new sources". Drilling in Alaska, drilling off Florida, drilling anywhere is not "new sources". Call me when ConocoPhilips builds their first tidal generator in the Gulf of Mexico, and then I'll shed a tear for the Cato institute bravely fighting the environmental lobby that has been holding us back from any "new sources" of energy. I mean, it's not like we've had over 30 years to work on this stuff.
Re:It Doesn't Matter (Score:1, Insightful)
Are you freakin nuts? Wait, you were saying you like these fringe groups. (rubs eyes)
re fanaticism--The number one reason that energy use gets extended is economics, followed closely by technology and research. Not fanaticism.
Higher gasoline yield per product, including cracking? Chemists. Better gas mileage? Engineers. EPA decisions? Think less dependency or the nation's economy more so than the EPA folks listening to these fanatics. Many other reasons but just a few to throw out there.
More so, I would say fanaticism pushes people away; environmentalists of all stripes are often hated because the movement is hallmarked by these fanatics, who overshadow even when the more moderate environmentalists who may have correct but controversial proposals.
Worse, fanatics employ tactics on areas which are already recognize or solveable; the issues lie elsewhere. Sort of like the anti-hunger charities asking for donations when the problem with world starvation is not longer about availability of food but food being used as a governing or social and political tool.
re those record profits--A for-profit company making...profit. Shocking. They have a product in demand with supposed dwindling, even according to
Further, just because a profit is posted doesn't mean it all goes to dividends. You might want to follow where the money goes before you bitch. Profits are used in many ways--dividends to investors, some as cash reserves, some are invested in looking for new oil/gas reserves, plenty is put into research, albeit to keep the energy competitive with alternatives.
You really want to make an impact? Form a company making home energy products on the cheap. Tell the government to take the immense tax revenue from fuel taxes and instead of spending it on pork and highways where none are needed, to invest it directly into alternative energy research. Combat the transportation and auto and airline lobbiests and force new standards on fuel economy for trucks, cars, and airplanes (yes, airlines suck fuel bigtime). That'll do a lot more than burning SUVs, hijacking fishing trawlers, or demanding solar grids be built on acres of land in the midwest.
Re:What about the cost (Score:5, Insightful)
Surface area of the Pacific:
166 million square kilometres, 64 million square miles
Typical size of a wind turbine:
Blade span (total diameter): 200 - 350 feet
Mast height: 150 - 300+ feet
Arranging 4 of these together on a platform the size of a (american) football field (360*160 = 57600 sq. ft.) would mean that you could cover the Pacific with these if you managed to produce a hair under 31 billion platforms...
Let's say you want to have a total of 1000 platforms, each with 4 turbines. This would require (approx) 0.00000322% of the surfacea area of the Pacific. It is unlikely that such turbines would have a measurable effect on global weather patterns.
I'm not trying to flame you here, just want to underscore that the amount of energy contained in global weather patterns and the size of the oceans (from which much of this energy flows from) completely dwarfs almost anything we can realistically throw at it right now. It has been estimated [universetoday.com] that it would require thousands to millions of times our current planetwide energy output to reach a level where weather patterns could be altered.
A second article from this Bullshit site? (Score:2, Insightful)
This article is barely worth discussion. These are the same clowns who set off our collective bullshit alarms in a previous Slashdot article [slashdot.org]. It's a shame they ganked that domain name(opensourceenergy.org), it would have made a great name for a collaborative site for use by actually reputable people.
Re:This is not feasible today (Score:2, Insightful)
I shudder to think what the world would be like if, to pick a random example, da Vinci thought the way you do.
Re:Developing Nations (Score:5, Insightful)
You start by not mentioning that France and Japan do it.
Frighteningly, I'm quite serious.
Alternative viewpoint. (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of blaming the relatively weak and powerless environmentalists (how many seats does the Green party have in our beloved Congress?), maybe you should consider that Texaco, Unocal, Chevron, etc, don't exactly want to see cheap and safe nuclear power crushing their sale of natural gas/coal. It's also more than likely that by keeping refining capacity at artifically low levels, that they can string along the public for a longer period of time on a dwindling supply of oil.
"Your sarcasm doesn't measure up to reality, does it? The fact is, if the US had been continuing to build out its nuclear power capacity we may not be discussing energy strains the way we are today."
It's far more likely that a paranoid public, feeding on information from hyped up reports from 3-Mile island, is taking a "not in my backyard" approach to this.
Think hard.
How much power does the environmental lobby really have in this country?
Facts:
1. No Kyoto Treaty
2. Current administration/party in power refuses to recognize global warming, and went as far as to hire a guy to CENSOR reports on this topic.
3. Scaled back clean air regulations.
4. Not a SINGLE Green Party Senator (check out the Bundestag for comparison)
5. Massive subsidies for an energy sector that's been posting record profits.
Re:What about the cost (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Equations of wind energy storage. (Score:3, Insightful)
Firstly, it's quite possible for a high pressure system to drop wind speeds all over the UK (And bring in a very cold snap at the same time); not the best scenario for a blackout.
Secondly, the point that I raised about baseload generation was and has not even been addressed. Wind power still gets a 'free ride' at the moment - wheras a gas powered station, for example, can be switched on to provide backup for an unplanned outage elsewhere, a wind farm cannot. So you do indeed need installed nuclear/hydro/fossil capacity equal to total maximum demand+20%. Wind power cannot be counted into this.
Normal thermal power plants act as both contricutor and backup. Wind can only ever be a contributor, unless you implement the system in my first post, which makes it fantastically expensive. Switching NG plants on and off (especially newer combined-cycle ones, ironically), is also quite wasteful even if you can predict when you will do it.
Third, we don't usually try and balance electric grids over too huge a region, as it is very hard from a technical viewpoint. Doing this specifically to accomodate wind power should be chalked up as another extra cost. And in the UK, wind power will add to the existing imbalances - most generating facilities are in the North and West, which are also the best wind sites, and most usage is in the south east.
To summarise: Wind power does require more backup building, unless it only makes a trivial contribution. The article you quote tries to dodge issues more than address them.
Re:Alternative viewpoint. (Score:3, Insightful)
But they'd have to pay for those new plants. They don't want to do that. The reason no new nuclear plants have been built isn't just because of regulation (though that's a convenient excuse for them to give) - it's because they aren't that profitable.
Re:We must move upwards not forwards! (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as stacking, you're already really high up. I know the turbines they are proposing to put in Vineyard Sound are 120m tall or so. I think that's just the tower too. The blades up higher. So the tower would have to be twice that and much stronger since you'd be applying force even further from the base. Maybe they do this with smaller turbines but I'm pretty sure costs get out of hand quickly.
Re:Equations of wind energy storage. (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends what you consider trivial. The article I quoted is talking about wind as a source of 20% of our needs. I think most of the arguments against probably break down when you're only talking about 1/5 of the total supply, but organisations such as Porritt's renewables commission find themselves having to argue hard even for that.
Re:Real Advantage - Law of the Sea (Score:3, Insightful)
It's what we do with the technology that makes the world better or worse.
Thus I could use technology to mail you a steaming pile of pooh (if I knew your snail mail address), or build a catapult to fling it at you, but I won't to that. I'll just explain that in this instance you're mistaken.
Have a nice day!
Re:What about the cost (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, let that be a lesson for all of us. An "infrastructure" devoted to the elite will simply be destroyed by the majority who are being starved by said elite.
Backup doesn't matter. (Score:3, Insightful)
Who cares? Just keep a few backup gas plants around for when the wind doesn't blow.
There is only so much gas in the world. If the gas plant has to operate 1 day per year because there isn't enough wind, than is 364 extra years of gas supplie to run that plant.
Yes you need to maintain that gas plant even when idle, but even with that, I'd prefer to save gas where we can.
Re:This is not feasible today (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you imagine what the world would be like today if every inventive mind rationalized new concepts the way you just did?