A Server Farm Powered By a Wind Farm 164
1sockchuck writes "A Texas startup called Baryonyx plans to build data centers powered entirely by renewable energy. Its first project will be a wind-powered server farm powered by 100 wind turbines in the Texas panhandle. The company has also leased 38,000 acres in the Gulf of Mexico, where it hopes to build hundreds of 300-foot wind turbines that can each generate up to 5 megawatts of power to support additional facilities. Baryonyx plans to sell excess capacity to the local utility, which it will use as a backup when the wind dies down."
Wind is nice, but.... (Score:3, Informative)
Hope they Have Startup Capital (Score:3, Informative)
Cause at $1.5-2.0 Million per mile for 30 miles of transmission line, they are looking at around $45-60 Million for 115KV transmission out there. Add another $10 Million to add to the 138KV sub in Dalheart, at least another $15 million for their own substation near the wind farm, plus another $10 Million for interconnections between wind turbines and the wind substation. Settling any right of way issues, better budget at least $5 million. And add in 10% for miscellaneous changes and unforeseen consequences. Plus another 10% for the program management....
We're talking $100-115 million dollars being spent on transmission line construction, and this all before this project makes any money. Plus, THREE YEARS? I know you are marketing to the venture capitalists, but I don't think so, try 5 years minimum.
And this is BEFORE costs per wind turbine, which run in the $2-3 Million per turbine due to them being in high demand right now. So that's another $200-300 Million on top of that. Tax credits will shave off almost 70-80% of the purchase price of the turbines over 10 years though. Didn't know we taxpayers were subsidizing this construction, didya?
WANTED: Investors with serious balls. Require big brass ones, with money to spend in a shite economy. Will not receive return on investment for at least 5 years if ever. This is Texas, Wussies, Pussies, and Wimps need not apply...
~Sticky
Use the grid as a big battery. (Score:3, Informative)
If it's powered of the grid when it isn't windy out, and it's powered entirely by renewable energy, wouldn't it be powered entirely by renewable energy if it used the grid all the time?
Sounds like they have excess generation capacity. They sell the power to the grid when the wind is high and buy it from the grid when the wind is too low to supply the local loads. If they buy less than they sell they can honestly say the load is (at least on the average) powered entirely by renewable resources.
It's not even a cheat: Peak wind power usually occurs when the peak demand on the grid is occurring. The wind farm doesn't just displace more fuel-burning at peak times than the data center causes at offpeak time. It displaces more costly fuels - both in money and pollution potential.
By analogy with "antenna farm". (Score:4, Informative)
can someone explain to me why server farms and wind farms are "farms"?
Probably by analogy with "antenna farm" - an old radio term for a site with a number and usually a variety of antennas. (These were typically a radio amateur running on many bands but some commercial and military "farms" also existed.) It was a joking reference to the crowded cluster of antennas "growing up" from the plot of land like a crop of trees or other cultivated plants in a farm or garden.
Re:Wind Farms in Mexico? (Score:3, Informative)
... is there any reason why anyone hasn't bought cheap land and/or politicians in Mexico ...
The land is cheap - but US citizens can't own it.
The politicians are too expensive: Once you've got some money coming in they want it all.
Re:59 Sq Miles for 1500 MW. Nuke Plant Better. (Score:3, Informative)
There are some important differences between a 1500MW wind farm and a 1500MW nuclear plant. The nuke will actually put out 1500MW consistently regardless of weather conditions (with a good track record of security you can even get an uprate of a few percent), whereas the wind farm will sometimes give you 1000MW and sometimes zero (wind farms rarely achieve their theoretical power output). The nuclear plant will also probably last longer.
Re:Why not just use the grid? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:59 Sq Miles for 1500 MW. Nuke Plant Better. (Score:4, Informative)
Nonsense. The new French reactor [wikipedia.org], 1650 MWe, has a pricetag of $4.8 billion. Recent Japanese and Korean reactors were in the same range - $2-3/W (PPP), as surveyed by MIT CEEPR [mit.edu] (under "update on the cost of nuclear power"). The accompanying study [mit.edu] (2009) predicts costs for new US reactors to be $4/W. In short, the numbers are consistent. You can look up cost figures, levelized cost studies (here's a start) [blogspot.com] up and down, and you will find this is true.
Also nonsense. Just take one recent [eon-uk.com] UK wind farm, which came in at £111 M for 60 MWe - $2.07/W, or extrapolating, over $3 billion for 1500 MW. You can survey costs all over the web, and this is typical. Whitelee [renewableenergyworld.com], Europe's largest onshore farm, cost £300M ($496M) for 322 MWe, $1.54/W. Lynn and Inner Dowsing [wikipedia.org] - UK's largest offshore farm - came in at £300 M ($496 M) for 194 MWe, $2.56/MW. The famous London Array [timesonline.co.uk] is now at £3B ($4.96 billion) for 1,000 MWe: $4.96/W. (To be fair though, this represents a 200% cost overrun over the original estimates. [wikipedia.org]) (Sorry about the angstrom signs: they are supposed to be British "pound" symbols)
Also, besides the fact that your bogus figures for wind are 10 times cheaper than reality (and for nuclear, 10 times more expensive than reality), your comparison is bogus in yet another away. You comparable incomparable quantities: a megawatt of baseload yields far more energy than a megawatt of wind power - because it yields power continuously, whereas the wind turbines are very frequently down, or generating at fractional capacity. This is represented by the "capacity factor" [wikipedia.org], which is the fraction of the nameplate capacity actually achieved by a power plant - ratio of [average power output]/[power capacity]. And while nuclear power plants, as generally reliable baseload plants, run at 90%+ [doe.gov] capacity factor - that is, average 0.90 MWe of generation for each 1 MWe of nameplate capacity - wind farms, becuase of the obvious intermittency of wind, average only 20-30% [wordpress.com] capacity factors, with some exceptional [prinsesamaliawindpark.eu] offshore locations yielding 40%. Those megawatts are completely incomparable: 1 MWe of nuclear yields 2-4 times more energy than 1 MWe of wind power.
Re:59 Sq Miles for 1500 MW. Nuke Plant Better. (Score:4, Informative)
A type 1 wind site will get about 40% of maximum capacity on average. So a simple multiplier still puts wind farms a long way ahead on those numbers.
Of course there are other benefits to nuclear over wind and as the proportion of wind increases, the grid quickly becomes unstable. However at the current level of wind penetration that's not an issue, so wind farms are the better choice.
Re:Umm... (Score:2, Informative)
you've must never have seen the Texas panhandle. its big, barren, desolate, empty space, like the moon- but with wind.
Re:Umm... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:59 Sq Miles for 1500 MW. Nuke Plant Better. (Score:2, Informative)
In my view, wind power is a fad. I'd wager in 20 years there will be a booming business in wind turbine demolition as it becomes painfully clear, even to many wind power advocates, that their efficiency is lousy and the ongoing maintenance, especially as the turbines age, far larger than inticipated; many will be glad to see the eyesores turn down.
Oh? How much would you wager?
There are already wind farms that have been around for more than 20 years (e.g. the Altamont Pass farm in California), installed in response to our last energy crisis (in the '70s). The last few decades have indeed seen some of the turbines being taken down, but often simply to be replaced by newer, larger models that generate more power and are less hazardous to wildlife.
As to your speculation about efficiency and maintenance, it seems odd in light of this history. What surprising new general problems with turbine maintenance and efficiency are we going to learn in the next two decades that we didn't learn in the past few, beyond the occasional "lemon" model of turbine? If turbines were so spectacularly troublesome in general, then why would the owners of the older wind farms have continued to maintain and upgrade them over the past few decades? Do the people installing new farms fail to investigate the historical record when presenting the efficiency and operation and maintenance (O&M) components of their cost model to investors? Are the investors similarly negligent when making the massive capital outlays necessary to finance a wind farm? None of these wind farms are heading for flashy IPOs where VCs can unload risk onto the public.
Wind energy may have been a "fad" in the early '80s, but in 2009, it is a relatively mature and serious industry, with long-term investments and time horizons. There are conferences all about trends in wind energy O&M, for Christ's sake. This notion you seem to be presenting, that the entire industry is ignorant about the subject and you're the only one who has thought to anticipate these problems, is laughable. It seems more like you just don't like wind turbines and are speaking from hope, rather than knowledge.
The truth is that turbines have become more efficient and maintainable as time has passed, and it is likely that this trend will continue as the technology continues to mature, as competing wind farm operators demand better performance from competing manufacturers, and as these operators deploy condition monitoring, predictive modeling, and other technologies designed to reduce O&M costs.
However, if you really are convinced of your opinion and serious about your wager, it's possible that, if you wished to make your challenge on longbets.org, someone would be willing to take you up. So, issue your challenge and put your money where your mouth is. I'd suggest you put at least $2000 on something like "in the year 2029, the rate of wind turbine demolition will exceed the rate of wind turbine construction, and this will largely be attributed to unforeseen efficiency problems and maintenance costs."
Or, your could settle back in your armchair and leave the opining on wind turbine efficiency and maintenance to people who know something about it and have real money riding on getting it right.
Re:wake up folks need more nuclear power! (Score:2, Informative)
I don't get it - why pebble bed reactors? They don't seem suitable for destroying waste (that is, transmuting and fissioning the transuranics). First off, many PBRs are completely unsuitable for this - because they are [pbmr.com] uranium-cycle reactors in the thermal spectrum, and are not breeders - they do not destroy TRUs, but in fact create more of them. I guess some PBRs could be breeders - maybe the thorium PBRs [wikipedia.org], but even then there's a huge problem. PBRs are not designed for a closed fuel cycle - quite the opposite, the extremely-hard ceramic pebbles are designed to be indestructible and inert, not easily amenable to chemical reprocessing (which as a first step, means dissolving or melting the spent fuel elements.)
There are other reactors that are designed for closed fuel cycles, and disposing of nuclear waste. One class is the liquid-metal fast breeder reactors (LMFBR), like the IFR [wikipedia.org] that was developed at Argonne national lab. The IFR was designed around a reprocessing cycle (pyroprocessing [anl.gov]): that is why it uses metal fuel, as opposed to the common metal-oxide fuels, which are harder to reprocess because you need to reduce the very stable uranium/plutonium oxides. (Or even worse, the carbide fuel in TRISO pebbles).
Another reactor designed for reprocessing is the molten salt reactor [wikipedia.org], which has a liquid core (!) of a low-melting point fluoride salt. This is even more amenable to reprocessing - there is no need to break down - and then fabricate again - the solid fuel elements, as there aren't any!
But as far as I know, pebbles beds have no chance as a closed fuel cycle.
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Informative)
Well, that's easy for you to say. Do you share the same opinions about the landscape of the arctic wildlife preserves?
theres a big difference between the artic wildlife preserves and the texas panhandle, BIG. obviously theclimate, but only _slightly_ less obvious is the wildlife diversity / scarcity. theres not a lot of wildlife that lives specifically in that area at all, much less endangered species. There are few Raptors that live in that area as well, furthermore the Energy Center of Wisconsin claims that Cell Phone Towers kill far more birds annually. i guess we should stop using them too, huh?
Those wind farms really scar the countryside, and the maintenance roads that link them further destroys the ecosystems you so readily condemn. Don't forget about the intra-farm transmission lines and support structures. These things destroy hundreds of square miles to produce the power of one natural gas power station. Of course, it's on somebody else's land, though, isn't it? I guess there's no price some people are not willing for someone else to pay.
In open, flat terrain, a utility-scale wind plant will require about 60 acres per megawatt of installed capacity. However, only 5% (3 acres) or less of this area is actually occupied by turbines, access roads, and other equipment--95% remains free for other compatible uses such as farming or ranching. But lets not limit our view to land use, since you mentioned the alternative of natural gas, lets look at some of the resources that requires in comparison .25 gal\kWh produced, a wind plant requires .001 gal\kWh, again i ask, have you been to Texas? its not exactly drowning in water, except for the Gulf Coast, but thats several hundred miles away, should we truck the water in or lay pipelines for a gas plant? i'm sure the impacts of that would be minimal.
according to the American Wind Energy Association [awea.org] (i know, probably a somewhat biased source, but hey, its _a_ source, all i saw in your post was youtube, which i dont consider a source for things like _facts_ and _data_) a combined cycle gas plant requires approx
And funny that coal was mentioned, because it is the most favored fuel under the new "green energy" bill passed by the US House of Representatives. It is going to be massively subsidized for decades to come, while the cleanest fuel (natural gas) is the most punished -- both in power generation and industry. But, hey, who cares if "green energy" as portrayed in the popular press works or not... it's _GREEN_, and these wind farms go to ELEVEN [youtube.com]!
ummm... the the US house of representatives? the same US house of representatives that is considered to be the 7th most corrupt on the planet by Transparency Internationals 2009 Global Corruption Barometer? http://www.transparency.org/ [transparency.org] you _really_ want to trust that they're looking out for _your_ interests? wait, are you an Oil Barron, or a major Pharmaceutical manufacturer, or a Multinational Conglomerate or a failing bank? if so, these just might be your guys.
Re:59 Sq Miles for 1500 MW. Nuke Plant Better. (Score:3, Informative)
Which bit exactly? The 40% number is taken from real wind generation data I have sitting in front of me. It's all public domain stuff.
Re:59 Sq Miles for 1500 MW. Nuke Plant Better. (Score:3, Informative)
My $4/W figure was the estimate for new United States reactors, according to the interdisciplinary MIT study The Future of Nuclear Power [mit.edu] (the 2009 update).
Referring again to the MIT study, they explain in detail what goes into their cost models (the 2003 full report, appendix 5). It encompasses EVERYTHING - the entire plant (steam turbines and all), the operating costs over 40 years of operation, 40 years' worth of fuel, the decomissioning costs after those 40 years, the waste disposal cost under the current 0.1 c/kWh DoE fee, etc. The TOTAL cash flow is estimated at $4.5 billion (nominal) during the construction phase - see the supplemental paper Update on the Cost of Nuclear Power [mit.edu], table 6A (this doesn't include the financing costs - go down to 6C).
Of course, what's really interesting is the levelized lifetime cost, per kWh. The MIT study estimates this at 8.4 c/kWhe; I've surveyed a dozen other [blogspot.com] such levelized cost studies on my blog. Feel free to follow the links and read up on them.
By the way, the NRC fees [nuclearstreet.com] a very tiny part of costs - currently $4.6 M/year, out of of the MIT estimate of $56 M/year of fixed O&M costs (for a 1 GW plant).
Nameplate capacities are incomparable. They represent peak power generation; but some power plants always operate at full power, and others operate intermittently, hence the energy yields (integral of power * dt) are completely different.
No, that's a fallacy. 1 MWe of wind (nameplate capacity), at 30% capacity factor, averages 300 kWe (averaged over long time periods), with an instantaneous range of 0-1000 kWe. Adding together a thousand such (identical, independent) turbines gives you an average of 300 MWe, albeit with lower statistical variance - smaller fluctuations.
You are conflating two separate issues. One, is that the average output of a windfarm is a fraction of its nameplate capacity. Two, is that the output over time has very large variations. See? They are separate problems.
Re:59 Sq Miles for 1500 MW. Nuke Plant Better. (Score:3, Informative)
The nuke will actually put out 1500MW consistently regardless of weather conditions
Theoretically - mostly yes. I don't know nothing about the environmental laws in the USA, but in Germany there are laws allowing only a specific maximum of thermal energy to be diverted into the nearby rivers - so in a hot summer the nukes can only operate at 30% or even less (like in 2006) - source [wikipedia.org])
Practically they are down quite often. They can only operate 92% of the time for maintenance reasons (same source). And even after maintenance they fail quite often. From the 17 or so nuclear plants in Germany at least one is down for security reasons at every given time. So even without a warm summer they are up at most ~85%, with a hot summer perhaps only ~75%.
So with an average uptime of about 80% and the 40% average capacity of wind farms stated by shermo nukes are still fifty times(!) more expensive than wind farms.
Re:Umm... (Score:2, Informative)