Wildly Reinvented Wind Turbine Generates Five Times More Energy Than Its Competitors (fastcompany.com) 217
Norwegian company Wind Catching Systems is developing a floating, multi-turbine technology for wind farms that could generate five times the annual energy of the world's largest, single wind turbine. This increased efficiency is due to an innovative design that reinvents the way wind farms look and perform. Fast Company reports: Unlike traditional wind turbines, which consist of one pole and three gargantuan blades, the so-called Wind Catcher is articulated in a square grid with over 100 small blades. At 1,000 feet high, the system is over three times as tall as an average wind turbine, and it stands on a floating platform that's anchored to the ocean floor. The company is planning to build a prototype next year. If it succeeds, the Wind Catcher could revolutionize the way we harness wind power. The world's first floating wind farm, Hywind, opened in 2017, almost 25 miles off the coast of Aberdeen in Scotland. The wind farm counts six floating wind turbines that are slotted in a buoyant cylinder filled with heavy ballast to make it float vertically. Because they're only tethered to the seabed with thick mooring lines, they can operate in waters more than 3,000 feet deep. Hywind is powering around 36,000 British homes, and it has already broken U.K. records for energy output. Wind Catching Systems launched the same year Hywind opened. It claims that one unit could power up between 80,000 and 100,000 European households. In ideal conditions, where the wind is at its strongest, one wind catcher unit could produce up to 400 gigawatt-hours of energy. By comparison, the largest, most powerful wind turbine on the market right now produces up to 80 gigawatt-hours.
There are several reasons for this substantial difference. First, the Wind Catcher is tallerâ"approaching the height of the Eiffel Tower -- which exposes the rotor blades to higher wind speeds. Second, smaller blades perform better. [Ole Heggheim, CEO of Wind Catching Systems] explains that traditional turbines are 120 feet long and usually max out at a certain wind speed. By comparison, the Wind Catcher's blades are 50 feet long and can perform more rotations per minute, therefore generating more energy. And because the blades are smaller, the whole system is easier to manufacture, build, and maintain. Heggheim says it has a design lifespan of 50 years, which is twice as much as traditional wind turbines, and when some parts need to be replaced (or during annual inspections), an integrated elevator system will offer easy maintenance. "If you have one single turbine and you need to change the blade, you have to stop the whole operation," says Ronny Karlsen, the company's CFO. "We have 126 individual turbines, so if we need to change the blade, we can stop one turbine."
When the system reaches the end of its life, much of it can be recycled. After the first significant wave of wind power in the 1990s, many traditional wind turbines have reached their design lifespan; blades the size of a Boeing 747 wing are piling up in landfills. Not only are the Wind Catcher blades smaller, but they're also made of aluminum, which, unlike the fiberglass used for larger turbines, is entirely recyclable. "You melt it down and produce new ones," says Heggheim. A prototype will likely be built in the North Sea (in Norway or the U.K.). After that, the company is looking at California and Japan.
There are several reasons for this substantial difference. First, the Wind Catcher is tallerâ"approaching the height of the Eiffel Tower -- which exposes the rotor blades to higher wind speeds. Second, smaller blades perform better. [Ole Heggheim, CEO of Wind Catching Systems] explains that traditional turbines are 120 feet long and usually max out at a certain wind speed. By comparison, the Wind Catcher's blades are 50 feet long and can perform more rotations per minute, therefore generating more energy. And because the blades are smaller, the whole system is easier to manufacture, build, and maintain. Heggheim says it has a design lifespan of 50 years, which is twice as much as traditional wind turbines, and when some parts need to be replaced (or during annual inspections), an integrated elevator system will offer easy maintenance. "If you have one single turbine and you need to change the blade, you have to stop the whole operation," says Ronny Karlsen, the company's CFO. "We have 126 individual turbines, so if we need to change the blade, we can stop one turbine."
When the system reaches the end of its life, much of it can be recycled. After the first significant wave of wind power in the 1990s, many traditional wind turbines have reached their design lifespan; blades the size of a Boeing 747 wing are piling up in landfills. Not only are the Wind Catcher blades smaller, but they're also made of aluminum, which, unlike the fiberglass used for larger turbines, is entirely recyclable. "You melt it down and produce new ones," says Heggheim. A prototype will likely be built in the North Sea (in Norway or the U.K.). After that, the company is looking at California and Japan.
Not "reinvents", optimizes (Score:5, Insightful)
When I RFTA, it looks like Wind Catching Systems really just looked at the issues encountered by off shore wind systems and put together different pieces (none of them revolutionary) to come up with what is an optimized system for it's environment.
Good on them and I hope they succeed but thinking they've done something completely different just isn't the case.
Re: Not "reinvents", optimizes (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Not "reinvents", optimizes (Score:2)
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If it performed as advertised then that will be savvy investors.
Absolutely. There's massive potential in renewable energy. I find it a bit dubious, though, that they are comparing with 100M turbines when 250 M turbines are now starting to be built and, by the time this is ready, a reasonable number to plan for would be 300M, especially in offshore turbines. It's also strange that they make a big deal about the ability to switch off bits of the system when a standard wind turbine would probably sit together with tens or hundreds of identical ones already, so switching o
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This could be tested with a high degree of accuracy with 3D modeling & simulation.
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they havenÃ(TM)t even built a prototype. This is just trying to scam dumb investors.
I'm thinking this is more about government money than private investment. Offshore wind and solar power are quite expensive and so survive on government money, without government incentives I suspect both industries would collapse.
We need energy that is as low in cost as coal and natural gas, without government incentives, to have a sustainable energy supply. That means hydro, onshore wind, nuclear fission, and maybe geothermal. We need a diverse supply of energy and this focus on offshore wind and solar
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We need energy that is as low in cost as coal and natural gas, without government incentives, to have a sustainable energy supply. That means hydro, onshore wind, nuclear fission, and maybe geothermal.
At this point you are no longer simply ignorant. You have been shown the levelised costs of electricity [wikipedia.org] several times - that is the costs which account for any level of intermittency and capacity factors - and these clearly show that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of energy supply we have ever had and, most importantly, that the cost of these sources is continually falling. You never address it, just saying "I want different numbers", as if you could wish it out of existence. Geothermal is great, b
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At this point you are no longer simply ignorant. You have been shown the levelised costs of electricity several times - that is the costs which account for any level of intermittency and capacity factors - and these clearly show that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of energy supply we have ever had and, most importantly, that the cost of these sources is continually falling. You never address it, just saying "I want different numbers", as if you could wish it out of existence.
The full report from which those number came warn about direct comparisons of intermittent sources like wind and solar to dispatchable sources like hydro and nuclear. The LCOE does not factor in intermittency and capacity factor, and you'd know this if you read the report.
Currently available nuclear designs, on the other hand is something we just can't afford.
The same thing was said about solar power decades ago, then the government dumped billions of dollars into research and development, as well as enforcing preferential treatment for solar power, which brought lower costs. Just imagine if
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The thing is that the goverment did do exactly that for Nuclear.
No, they did not. Not in the USA at least.
We saw Democrats kick nuclear power in the balls for over 40 years. They held up construction on radioactive waste disposal sites and then used the lack of disposal as an excuse to hold up new construction on nuclear power.
Even given all these subsidies so far, nuclear has still failed to become economic. The cost of nuclear is actually rising, which is not because it was cheaper, it's because the industry was lying beforehand and now the real costs are becoming visible.
The costs of nuclear power was rising because Democrats kept changing the rules. When the industry adapted to the new rules then the Democrats changed the rules again.
The one upward ratchet on costs is ALARA, "as low as reasonably achievable".
Re: Not "reinvents", optimizes (Score:2)
I largely agree with you, but your link shows once again that one shouldn't trust any statistics one hasn't faked oneself.
I'm pretty sure that the wind prices don't contain blade decommissioning. The wear on those is humongous (I have something like 6-12 months in the back of my head but I may be wrong), and they're made of materials that need to be incinerated at extremely high temperatures, lest they fill landfills forever.
I still think that renewables are the way to go - the price evolution is still noth
Re: Not "reinvents", optimizes (Score:2)
Re: Not "reinvents", optimizes (Score:5, Insightful)
No, wind is not very expensive. It's now coming in cheaper than nuclear.
Onshore wind is low cost, offshore wind costs plenty. We will see nuclear power costs come down with experience, economy of scale, and technological development, just like we did with solar power. The difference is that nuclear power does not have near the same land and material requirements of solar power, and it not dependent on the weather to produce power, which means we can rely upon it when power is needed and we can deploy it where it is needed.
Nuclear has a niche role to play, of which I am supportive, but you don't seem to be look at things holistically. Time and again, I have pointed out factual errors you have made and you shift goalposts or ignore them.
What did you point out to me? You may remember me but I don't remember you. Refresh my memory, I run into plenty of people that believe so much that is not true.
You also seem to have some sort of misplaced political obsession which is not factually-based.
My "obsession" is to solve the problem of rising energy costs, dependence on foreign energy, and only tangentially concerned about CO2 emissions. I look at the data and I see that there is one path to solve this problem, and that path includes nuclear fission power. Lots and lots of nuclear fission power. I've read some history and I've seen politicians bring up energy prices, pollution, and more recently CO2 emissions again and again. History shows that the only nations that have succeeded in achieving their goals of lowering pollution, lowering energy costs, and lowering CO2 emissions did so with a combination of hydro, geothermal, and nuclear fission. I see onshore wind joined in on that too in the last decade or two. So, "looking at things holistically" there is our path to solving our energy problems. There isn't much resistance to onshore wind so I don't see a need to bring it up much. There appears to be a growing resistance to hydroelectric power but not too much just yet. The big problem, where there is the most resistance, is in nuclear fission power. I've read a number of studies now where it has become quite clear that we will not solve our energy problems until we take nuclear power seriously as a solution. It's become clear that this is slowly sinking in to people's heads on just how vital nuclear power is to our economy. Polls show that a slim majority of voters in the USA support nuclear power. All it will take to push that over into a large majority is another nuclear power plant shutting down, maybe three or four, and then it will start to really hurt. Energy prices will start to climb. Nuclear engineers and technicians will be looking for work. And then nuclear power will become a major issue in an election.
When that happens we will see Democrats and Republicans fighting to say just how much more they support nuclear power than the other candidates. We will be building nuclear power reactors by the dozens. We will have to because we built them by the dozens decades ago. We have nothing to replace these aging nuclear power reactors but new nuclear power reactors. Once we start building them then it's simply not going to stop.
We will build more nuclear power reactors in the USA. We will build more nuclear power reactors all over the world. We will do so soon, and we will do so by the dozens. We can start now and avoid an energy crisis or we can wait for the crisis and start then.
Re: Not "reinvents", optimizes (Score:5, Informative)
They have to have a lake or river for water supply,
No, they do not. We know how to build air cooled nuclear power, and we now have a federal government willing to license them.
By that time, expanded wind and solar and new grid storage technologies (whether battery, molten salt, or other) will make nuclear even less necessary.
Land and material use issues for wind, solar, and storage will not not go away in that time.
We will build more nuclear power plants in the USA. Dozens of them. We will do this soon or face another energy crisis like in the 1970s which drove the USA to build nuclear power plants in the first place.
Most of the issues you bring up are political, and those issues are already fading and will continue to fade as energy costs rise. Our choices are to keep burning fossil fuels, see energy costs skyrocket, or nuclear fission power. I believe we will continue to burn fossil fuels as energy costs rise and then people will decide that nuclear power isn't so bad after all. Until we see some new technologies come along those are our choices. Hoping for a new technology to offer another option is not an energy plan.
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Wind and solar are not constrained like nuclear. Sure, you get some people worked up on occasion about the wind towers, but you don't want the big ones in the city anyway because buildings interrupt the flow. Farmers are generally happy to rent the land, and in between cities in the Midwest, there's a lot of space. Resistance to offshore wind is decreasing. Solar, of course, is growing rapidly because it can be put o
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We know how to build air cooled nuclear power, and we now have a federal government willing to license them.
We have known for decades. No progress.
Land and material use issues for wind, solar, and storage
What issues? I don't see any. It works. It expands. It exceeds demand to the point of making the energy too cheap [independent.co.uk].
Until we see some new technologies come along those are our choices. Hoping for a new technology to offer another option is not an energy plan.
We already have it. There's no dreamin aout new solutions except the hypothetical new nuclear reactors. We even solve the methane crisis with renewable energy. [ca.gov] Don't spread lobbyist FUD.
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We're talking about wind. Do keep up.
I was making an analogy between solar power, wind power, and nuclear power, do keep up. Solar costs came down with development, and we will see nuclear power costs come down with development. Wind, like solar, is dependent on the weather and requires far more land and material than nuclear fission.
You keep saying that. It keeps going up, though.
We need development, which means building things. We already saw the Biden administration express considerable concern on the state of the current fleet of nuclear power plants with plans to keep them running a
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The proposed setup seems to me to be prone to tipping over once it starts catching wind. Two extra "floaters" on each side, attached to the main construction at an angle might prevent tipping over, but that makes the whole construction bob a lot more, so none of the fans will be at good angle. Or remain in a good position for proper functioning. I expect these units to require much more maintenance because of the bobbing.
Perhaps I see too much bears on the road, but by showing me these rendered images of th
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The proposed setup seems to me to be prone to tipping over
The mooring lines will prevent tipping. They are also designed to dampen the resonant frequencies that can lead to tipping.
Two extra "floaters" on each side
Outriggers.
You should only need one. It will provide buoyancy in one direction and ballast in the other.
I think you way overestimate the "bobbing" problem. Avoiding resonance is standard engineering practice, and there are many techniques that can be applied.
Re:Not "reinvents", optimizes (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I bet they never though of that, a good job you noticed the flaw, better tell them quick.
Not even optimized. Pure marketing fluff (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know that they even really optimized anything.
The headline says it produces three times as much power.
The summary points out it's three times as high as the one they compared it to. So yeah - they made one bigger than the other one.
The pitch from the company then goes on to imply that smaller rotors are more efficient. No, no, no. There's a reason average turbine six has increased 600%. Same reason airplanes use the biggest props they can without having it strike the ground on landing, and quads the biggest they can without the props hitting each other.
The power from a rotor (turbine or prop) is proportional to the swept area. In the case of a turbine, that's multiplied by the square of the wind speed. There's no "turning faster for more power" bullshit - the AoA is adjusted for the RPM vs torque you want, the power stays the same. (Power being torque times RPM).
Assuming your generator (or motor) can handle the torque, the SLOWER spinning blade is more efficient because of lower parasitic drag and tip vortexes. That just makes sense intuitively that something moving through the air fast is going to make a lot of turbulence, chaos, as opposed to smooth flow.
Further, many small rotors have lower swept area than a single rotor covering the same size area because by having many you lose swept area to the packing factor.
* cube of wind speed (Score:3)
I wrote "the square of the wind speed"; that should be cube. Power of wind is proportional to wind speed CUBED.
Which creates a fundamental problem.
Wind turbines need to be beefy enough to handle wind speeds much higher than normal. Which means the wind attempting to destroy them is MUCH, MUCH more powerful - that cube law.
Conversely, wind speed 25% of normal has very little power. Maybe just enough to overcome the friction from those big beefy parts, with none left over to generate electricity.
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Which means the wind attempting to destroy them is MUCH, MUCH more powerful - that cube law.
Square law, if you're talking about force. Structures generally don't get statically destroyed by excess power rather than by excess force.
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Which means the wind attempting to destroy them is MUCH, MUCH more powerful - that cube law.
Square law, if you're talking about force.
Yep. Aero force is velocity squared, and power is force times velocity
Structures generally don't get statically destroyed by excess power rather than by excess force.
You brake the rotation at high wind speeds in any case, because other parts of the electrical system can't take overpower.
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Conversely, wind speed 25% of normal has very little power. Maybe just enough to overcome the friction from those big beefy parts, with none left over to generate electricity.
The friction forces can be quite large and once stopped static friction, or "sticion", comes into effect and this is larger than the friction of a moving object. This means that the force to get the turbine moving can be more than the wind alone can overcome, and this means that the turbines will need to be spun up to speed using power from the grid before they can produce power. There has been a lot of research into windmills that can self start because if there is already a shortage of power then drawing
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They claim 5 times the energy "per unit", with is meaningless.
The only measurement that matters is the energy output per dollar invested.
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Also: "We have 126 individual turbines, so if we need to change the blade, we can stop one turbine". That sounds great but you better wear the correct PPE if you're going to be working around the unstopped turbines.
Re: Not even optimized. Pure marketing fluff (Score:2)
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Also: "We have 126 individual turbines, so if we need to change the blade, we can stop one turbine". That sounds great but you better wear the correct PPE if you're going to be working around the unstopped turbines.
If you're working on the hub then you'll be 50 feet from the nearest moving turbine.
There's also no reason they can't stop a 3x3 grid of turbines so you can work on the center one.
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Perhaps you should have looked at it.
Before posting your nonsense rant.
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Assuming your generator (or motor) can handle the torque, the SLOWER spinning blade is more efficient because of lower parasitic drag and tip vortexes.
No. There is an optimal tip speed which is expressed as a fraction of the wind speed ("tip speed ratio"). Thus, smaller rotors go at a higher RPM but get the same tip speed. TSR depends on the airfoil as well as factors like number of blades, but if the aerodynamics are the same it does not depend on the size. Propellers are one thing where smaller scales are not less efficient.
(in the real world the smaller rotors will have a lower Reynolds number and thus slightly di
Re: Not "reinvents", optimizes (Score:2)
where is the reinventing (Score:2)
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And despite their assertion, longer blades are more efficient.
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It depends on how quickly the wind is moving, since the longer blades top out at a relatively low maximum speed.
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I hear you, but think about when something breaks on this one, it'll affect only 1/100th of the power output, plus the total cost to replace it will be less than 1/100 or the total cost. When something goes wrong with the big ones, you're out all the power and depending on what goes out, it may cost a lot of money as well.
As to complexity, I'm sure what's complex about this. It's a whole bunch of turbines on a grid. Now, whether they can make it work (it'd require a LOT, LOT, LOT of weight under water to
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Re: where is the reinventing (Score:2)
Still not a reliable generation method (Score:2, Interesting)
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If you watch British wind turbines, you will see a few of them running whilst many sit idle. The reason for that is that the UK has quite a bit of legacy thermal power which is very inflexible (coal and especially nuclear is very problematic). Currently wind power has become really good for the grid due to weather prediction models. When wind is expected to be relatively low output, the grid ramps up the thermal power to compensate. Is it possible that, at the point the 200MW output was noticed, a number
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The UK hasn't even really begun to tap it's reliable offshore wind resources. Out in the North Sea the wind is constant, but only recently has it become cost effective.
Re: Still not a reliable generation method (Score:2)
Re: Still not a reliable generation method (Score:2)
Smaller blades better? (Score:4, Interesting)
Wait, there was a story [slashdot.org] very recently about an enormous wind turbine that said larger was better. The Dept of Energy says the same thing... But TFA says "more RPM = more energy" in kind of a blanket statement. I can see why an array would be more efficient. Sounds like "it depends".
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Sounds like someone forgot about the existence of gears.
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Gears cost efficiency. Going through additional gearsets is why an automatic has more loss than a stick, even with a lockup TC.
Wildly imagined (Score:5, Informative)
"The company is planning to build a prototype next year. If it succeeds..."
The article titles are just BS. "It generates" isn't true. Add in "might generate" or "hopefully will generate" and it would be truthful, but less click worthy.
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Prototypes on this scale are expensive.
There'll be some engineering challenges to overcome, sure, but there's nothing radical about this tech. Nothing that screams "This will never work!"
So, what you're saying is... (Score:2)
Got it.
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Complete BS clickbait as a prototype has not even been built or tested.
The basic math/theory is very simple though and the numbers add up.
ie. This isn't like Solar Roadways.
Another benefit to this design (Score:4, Funny)
McDonalds can put a barge behind it and collect plenty of chopped bird meat to use for Chicken McNuggets.
Re: Another benefit to this design (Score:2)
Not out in the middle of the ocean, they canâ(TM)t. Very few birds there.
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Not out in the middle of the ocean, they canâ(TM)t. Very few birds there.
That’s why it produces flying fillet o’ fish. Soaring exocoetidae in, tasty sandwiches out. Power is just a useful byproduct.
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It wont be in the middle of the ocean. Just our of range of sight from the coast (if at all).
Re: Another benefit to this design (Score:2)
Just simple geometry (Score:2)
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Higher windspeeds? (Score:2)
which exposes the rotor blades to higher wind speeds.
Looking at the design, some of the turbines are higher, and exposed to higher wind speeds, but some are significantly lower.
What about the potential differences in speeds across the array? Will they employ synchronization across the array to prevent resonances that might rip the array apart? Or do they just say, "it's out at sea, so the winds won't be turbulent or otherwise inconvenient"?
Nice Hyperbola, (Score:2)
It's a drawing, they "plan to build a prototype". Big drawings of big turbines have been done before and failed :)
That square design, how does that draw more energy than other shapes? I hope you know that the available energy depends on the area swept, not the amount of blades (or the amount of coverage).
Even taking such wild claims as 5x energy at face value, that thing looks like it has *much* more than 5x the number of moving parts compared "normal" turbines sweeping the same area. Unless they have magi
Nope (Score:2)
The first prototype quaintly named Bird Mulcher .. (Score:3)
... will be made some time in the future ... maybe ....
What "engineer" came up with this? The windage [wikipedia.org] alone makes it impractical for pretty much any use at sea. It looks strikingly top-heavy for a floating platform. And sorry, but smaller blades are less efficient.
Making the blades out of aluminum is a good idea. Makes them heavier than fiber reinforced polymer and thus less efficient overall, but good for recycling.
No kidding (Score:2)
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Perhaps the smaller blades/parts don't need to be as strong so it's cheaper to use aluminum. If that's the case, they might as well then also tout the side effect of the parts being easily recyclable.
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Perhaps in materials. But, how do the labor (when making fairly small quantities) costs compare? How are the yields (a screwed up aluminum part still has value as scrap)? How long does the aluminum alloy they are using compare to fiberglass in durability (this would affect maintenance costs)?
I doubt they picked aluminum primarily because it's recyclable.
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That's sort of the whole point of this design as far as I can tell without reading the linked article - lots of very small blades (easier to manufacture, ship, service, etc...) so maximum strength isn't needed.
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If the planned service life is 50 years AND above sea surface in windy conditions, then I'd be wary of someone proposing aluminium, since it seems to fail on both conditions. ... aluminium does not corrode in such conditions. So no problem at all.
I think you are mixing a few things up
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But, replacement is easy during scheduled maintenance. It's very unlikely that anyone expects these things to sit out there for 50 years with no routine maintenance -- which might include replacing the very inexpensive blades every 10 years. Very few things with a service life of "50 years" require no routine maintenance or replacement parts in the first 50 years. (Realistically, it's also ridiculous to expect anything like this to actually remain in service for 50 years -- technology advances in this relat
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Oops... Meant to reply to parent.
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aluminium does not corrode in such conditions
Aluminium does in fact corrode in seawater spray.
Re: Worries about recycling blades? (Score:2)
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They are sitting 20+ miles offshore. NOTHING about this is easy or cheap to service. even a $2 part will cost many thousands of dollars to replace.
So if an Aluminum blade can last twice as long then it could turn out to be much cheaper in the long term.
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Maybe the problem is worse than I think? Those blades look hue, but they're hollow. Once chipped, it won't be all that much volume... someone c
Re:Worries about recycling blades? (Score:5, Informative)
According to the Internet [compositesworld.com], a 34- to 38-meter turbine blade weighs a bit over 5 tons. Times three blades per 25 years (nominally) gives about 0.6 tons per year for a single (1.5 MW max) turbine.
Given a 35% capacity factor [umich.edu], that's about enough to power about 400 US homes. The US landfilled 146 million tons [epa.gov] of waste in 2018, or 1.17 tons per household. So wind turbines would equal about 1/800th the per-household waste by weight.
Fiberglass reportedly has a density of 2000 kg per cubic meter, but I think that's in solid form. How much does it increase when chipped? How does that compare to the density of our other trash? Overall, if the assumptions -- especially of a 25-year lifetime -- hold, it seems like a small enough fraction of current waste generation that is can be compensated for or managed without much effort.
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I used to think it was awful how much stuff we were putting into landfills, that all the space in the world would be used up.
Then I realized landfills don't take valuable space, they can be dug deep enough that they don't matter (as long as they aren't leaching chemicals into the environment). There might be problems with resource exhaustion if we don't recycle things, but
Landfills by themselves (without toxic ingredients) are not problematic.
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Except how many landfills don't contain toxic waste, household waste is full of materials that are either toxic or will break down into toxics or methane.
Currently no such thing as a harmless landfill unless you're just throwing old bricks in there.
Modern landfills may be lined but the materials they are lined with will either crack or degrade over time. Landfills are not a sustainable paradigm.
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household waste is full of materials that are either toxic or will break down into toxics
Are you sure this is common? Household cleaners usually get sent down the drain. The only thing I can think of are batteries. What toxic things are you thinking of?
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PVC
Circuit boards
Rotting food creates methane
Plenty of people will throw everything and anything in their bins including paints, glues, bug sprays, cosmetics, etc etc.
Re: Worries about recycling blades? (Score:2)
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Everywhere? Because it seems like every council has different systems, some collect food waste, some don't, they collect differing types of plastics etc.
Re: Worries about recycling blades? (Score:2)
Re: Worries about recycling blades? (Score:2)
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Also lots of things like clothing and furniture are sprayed with toxic forever chemical fire-retardants.
Re: Worries about recycling blades? (Score:2)
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The glass fibre itself could just be recycled by melting again into glass, the problem is the binding resins. These are still organic compounds, that are not easy to recycle especially when mixed with the glass fibre. Probably the best way to dispose of them would be to shred them and burn them at a very high temperature in an incineration plant, generating as much energy as possible from the combustion and leaving behind ideally only inert ashes, molten glass and CO2. Yes, it generates some CO2, but nothin
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If you don't like wind power, you've got to have something to bitch about.
To be excessively fair, some of the first wind farms became obsolete fairly quickly and were abandoned by their owners instead of properly decommissioned. I don't think the blades were a particular problem though.
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I've always wondered about all the chatter around how turbine blades are so hard to recycle. Seems like a truck-sized chipper-shredder is all it would take.
Chipping it isn't the problem. The problem is dismantling it, transporting it to the chipper and turning it into car sized pieces for the chipper to work on. Those things are HUGE.
Re: Worries about recycling blades? (Score:2)
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What makes you think fiberglass is inert? It ain't. The glass is, but the resin is not.
Inert isn't all it's cracked up to be anyway, what we want to know is what something breaks down into, what is consumed in that process, what is released.
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About two-thirds of aluminum used is recycled already, yet fiberglass blades dramatically cheaper, so I wonder.
Anyway, the fiberglass stuff doesn't need to go in landfills used for something else, can be buried anyway without issue unlike most our other non-food waste.
Re: Worries about recycling blades? (Score:2)
Re: Worries about recycling blades? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Well, if decommissioned blades aren't damaged/scratched too much, they could be used as support in large constructions, as those blades will remain rigid and strong for many years. Supports for open plan factory halls, for example.
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So, when it erodes, it doesn't turn into tiny particles?
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So, when it erodes, it doesn't turn into tiny particles?
Tiny particles of glass. Glass is silicon dioxide.
Do you know what we call tiny particles of silicon dioxide?
Sand. It's called sand.
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That's the annual output at the expected capacity factor. It makes more sense than, say, the maximum instantaneous power because no wind turbine operates at its maximum power much of the time.
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You are missing an important corrective - sense of proportion. Because otherwise you would also need to propose
- Nuke the Mount Everest and flatten the Himalaya (because it is taking away energy)
- or chop down forests (you see a tree bending with the wind and the gushing of the leaves? -> that's kinetic energy at work -> trees slow down the wind)
- and don't get me started on wind creating waves
Harnessing the wind is taking energy away
Basically you can at best only harness 59% of the kinetic energy
(Bet
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(Donald Trump thinks wind turbines are windmills even though they aren't directly used to grind grain into flour)
How does Merriam-Webster define a windmill?
https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
1a : a mill or machine operated by the wind usually acting on oblique vanes or sails that radiate from a horizontal shaft especially : a wind-driven water pump or electric generator
Perhaps the second entry is also appropriate.
2 : something that resembles or suggests a windmill especially : a calisthenic exercise that involves alternately lowering each outstretched hand to touch the toes of the opposite foot
How does this differ from a wind turbine?
https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
a wind-driven turbine for generating electricity
A wind turbine is a windmill but not all windmills are wind turbines. Perhaps one needs to look at the definition of a mill for some clarity on this.
https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
There's a lot of ways to define mill, and one such definition can be a building, facility, or machine for making something. A flour
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"And for those wondering about the dangers this might pose to birds, Heggheim says the structure will be kitted out with bird radars that send out short pulses of signal to help prevent collisions with migrating birds. “These units will be so far offshore,” he says, “so birdlife along the coast should not be endangered.”