Giant Floating Windmills To Launch Next Year 162
pacroon writes "StatoilHydro is building the world's first full-scale floating wind turbine, Hywind, and testing it over a two-year period offshore of Karmøy, Norway. The company is investing approximately $80 million. Planned startup is in the fall of 2009. The project combines existing technology in innovative ways. A 2.3-MW wind turbine is attached to the top of a so-called Spar-buoy, a solution familiar from production platforms and offshore loading buoys. A model 3 meters tall has already been tested successfully in a wave simulator. The goal of the pilot is to qualify the technology and reduce costs to a level that will mean that floating wind turbines can compete with other energy sources."
Birds? (Score:4, Interesting)
Just out of interest (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Transmission? (Score:5, Interesting)
This also solves the issue with noise from wind generators anchored in deep water, which the Danes have estimated could cause problems for whales - sound travels much farther in deep water.
And can we please spare the feckless comments on injuring birds, large size windmills move much too slowly to cause a bird damage unless they ploughed into it headlong, and any bird that would do that will have difficulties with flying into cliffs as well.
Re:Birds? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Birds? (Score:3, Interesting)
Since it is alway out among the waves . . (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not include a wave generator as part of the system?
For the rare individual who does not know. A wave generator in this context does not make waves but uses the motion of waves to generate electricity.
Re:Birds? (Score:2, Interesting)
Altamont did kill a lot of eagles, and since it was one of the first, the reputation stuck. The reality is that Altamont has "has the highest numbers and rates of raptor kills of any wind facility in the world." (same source). Since then, the wind industry has learned a lot about siting (don't put them in the endangered species nesting area, duh) and construction (shape the nacelle so it's not an attractive place for birds to land/nest). Probably most important, the infrastructure industry in general takes the stakeholder process a lot more seriously now--when you start talking with biologists, the Audbon society, whoever early on, you can avoid things like this rather than having to fight them in courts.
These days, bird kills are pretty negligable. The last factoid I heard is that a typical housecat kills as many birds as two wind turbines.
(Oh yeah, to those posters who said the turbines turn slowly: I think that's an optical illusion because they're so big. A 70m diameter rotor spinning at 15-20 rpm may look slow, but the blade tips are going over 100mph).
Re:Birds? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power#Birds [wikipedia.org]
British Solar Water Heating (Score:4, Interesting)
The big problem there is getting your hands on a Stirling engine.
Re:Just out of interest (Score:3, Interesting)
It appears they are suitable for small things along the roadside where the cost of installation of electrical service far outweighs the cost of electricity - signs along the highway, and such - and moreover things which aren't exactly the most critical infrastructure (like, oh, stoplights).
When it comes to things that chew lots of power, though, I'm sure there's no contest.
It reminds me of those solar garden-lights that they sell that you can just stick in the ground instead of digging trenches and running out conduits and getting the services of an electrician and such. They're not quite as bright as the wired kind, and they don't last the whole night (so you can't have them running in the early morning), but they're good enough for the job of glowing for a few hours in the evening after it gets dark and before you head indoors. They wouldn't exactly work to light up the inside of your house.
Re:Transmission? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Birds? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Since it is alway out among the waves . . (Score:2, Interesting)
Possible but the earlier poster above was probably right that it is a bad idea to combine two immature technologies.
Wave generators extract energy from the vertical movements of the waves, they are still anchored in one spot. Likely the Windmill parts would need some adjustment for the motion but perhaps not as much as you would think as I doubt that they are solidly anchored to the sea floor, I suspect like a tethered buoy they will do at least some bobbing around. One thing about wave generators is (I believe) that their output will be steadier and more predictable than a windmills will be.
Re:Just out of interest (Score:3, Interesting)
anecdotal (Score:1, Interesting)
Also, if you want an interesting geek project, you can build your own windchargers for pretty cheap, several websites and plans on the net. Building the blades is actually the hardest part, and even then you can cheat and just buy the blades, and most everything else can be scrounged so it is still cheap.