World's New Largest Wind Farm Could Power 13 Million Homes (interestingengineering.com) 81
China plans to break its own record for the world's largest wind farm by constructing a new one before 2025 that could power more than 13 million homes. Interesting Engineering reports: The 14th five-year plan for Chaozhou, China's Guangdong province, was released last week, outlining the city's ambitious plans for a 43.3 gigawatt (GW) project in the Taiwan Strait. Work on the project will begin "before 2025." It will surpass the largest wind farm in the world once it is finished, according to Guangdong province officials. The 10-kilometer-long farm, which will have thousands of strong wind turbines, will operate between 75 and 185 kilometers (47 and 115 miles) offshore. And because of the region's distinctive topographical features and windy location, these turbines will be able to run between 43 percent to 49 percent of the time, meaning 3,800 to 4,300 hours each year.
A gigawatt is one billion watts, and 3 million solar panels are required to produce one gigawatt of power. 100 million LEDs or 300,000 typical European homes may each be powered by one gigawatt. The facility's 43.3 GW of power-generating capacity could supply electricity to 13 million households, which is equal to 4.3 billion LED lights, as per Euronews. The Jiuquan Wind Power base in China, a huge facility with a 20 gigawatt capacity, presently holds the distinction of being the world's largest wind farm.
A gigawatt is one billion watts, and 3 million solar panels are required to produce one gigawatt of power. 100 million LEDs or 300,000 typical European homes may each be powered by one gigawatt. The facility's 43.3 GW of power-generating capacity could supply electricity to 13 million households, which is equal to 4.3 billion LED lights, as per Euronews. The Jiuquan Wind Power base in China, a huge facility with a 20 gigawatt capacity, presently holds the distinction of being the world's largest wind farm.
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today: must be supplemented by conventional power plants and in turn will reduce the net emissions as well as reduce dependence on energy imports thus in turn reducing market demand for resources and putting pressure on fossil energy prices.
Re:between 43 percent to 49 percent of the time (Score:5, Informative)
And the other 51 to 57 percent of the time?
The turbines have a power factor of about 45%. That doesn't mean they run at 100% power 45% of the time and 0% power 55% of the time. It just means they produce 45% of their full-rated power. For instance, they could run at half power 90% of the time. In reality, they produce some power almost all the time and only rarely produce either no power or full power.
So what happens when they produce no power? Well, that is why we use grids. The power comes from other sources, including solar, nukes, gas, hydro, and ... other wind farms.
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these turbines will be able to run between 43 percent to 49 percent of the time, meaning 3,800 to 4,300 hours each year.
You didn't ask Bubble O' Bill where he pulled his 45% from. But well in for showing the smug prick.
Re:between 43 percent to 49 percent of the time (Score:5, Interesting)
The article is crap so you can't count on them even knowing what they mean. That article contains this half-assed paragraph: "The world's combined onshore and offshore wind power capacity hit 830 GW by the end of 2021. Over half of this comes from China."
Well, capacity doesn't come from anywhere, production (or output) does. And he makes no distinction between nameplate and observed capacity here. So what does he mean? Who fucking knows.
This is a garbage article, so I can see why the "editors" posted it.
Welcome to modern media... (Score:2)
Where poorly educated journalists read press releases and papers they don't understand, and convert them to absolute gibberish like this.
What the original document said is what ShanghiBill said - over a year, the plant will produce between 43 to 49% of it's 'nameplate' power rating, rarely the full number, rarely zero, mostly somewhere in the middle. What the journo wrote after reading it is nonsense.
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And the other 51 to 57 percent of the time?
The turbines have a power factor of about 45%. That doesn't mean they run at 100% power 45% of the time and 0% power 55% of the time. It just means they produce 45% of their full-rated power. For instance, they could run at half power 90% of the time. In reality, they produce some power almost all the time and only rarely produce either no power or full power.
So what happens when they produce no power? Well, that is why we use grids. The power comes from other sources, including solar, nukes, gas, hydro, and ... other wind farms.
Not to mention storage, which is starting to be used to smooth out surges in demand in power grids.
Also, yet to see a power source that is 100% efficient even Nuclear. Also as power demand isn't a static, unchanging number, nor is power supply. The amount of power we use changes at different times of the day, from day to day as well as from season to season.
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Nuclear power factor is generally around 70%, but I'm some places like France as low as 50%.
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Nuclear power factor is generally around 70%, but I'm some places like France as low as 50%.
You are confusing capacity factor with power factor and your facts are wrong to boot. France is in the high 70s and other places such as the US are in the 90s.
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Another journalist who can't do numbers, also:
Eh? So either it's not 10km long or the offshore distance makes no sense what-so-ever, I'm going with the later because 115 miles could actually put the wind farm half way across Taiwan.
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It's not built yet, so I think the 75-185 km is uncertainty in where it will be located.
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I'm waiting for America's response.
Surely the Greatest Country can build something bigger than this...
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Sure, when the grid's not down because it's too hot, or too cold.
Texans talk tough, but reality is a bitch
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Well it is harder to keep a grid going with unreliable renewables but at least Texas is trying to make it work.
No, that's an outright lie on every level. Texas is not trying to make it work, they're trying to make it profitable. And it's not the renewables that are unreliable, it's the legacy plants and the grid equipment. I think you knew that though, and are just a lying trollbag.
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The renewables are unreliable in a very simple sense, their output varies unpredictably and the variation is a very high percentage of average output.
The easiest place to see this is the UK's wind production, which is documented on a pretty much real time basis in two places:
https://gridwatch.co.uk/WIND [gridwatch.co.uk]
http://www.gridwatch.templar.c... [templar.co.uk]
The variation is so extreme that without backup from rapid start gas the output from wind would be unusable. Just look at the charts and the numbers. There is variation duri
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The renewables are unreliable in a very simple sense, their output varies unpredictably and the variation is a very high percentage of average output.
That's just not true. Wind power is intermittent, but it also predictable to within a few percent. You can see some current and historic predictions for UK wind here:
https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs... [bmreports.com]
https://data.nationalgrideso.c... [nationalgrideso.com]
Re: between 43 percent to 49 percent of the time (Score:2)
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The renewables are unreliable in a very simple sense, their output varies unpredictably and the variation is a very high percentage of average output.
That is plain wrong.
They are extremely well predictable.
Dumbass.
They have varying performance, that is all. No idea why people mix predicability up with reliability and fluctuations. They are 3 different axises on a chart!!
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intermittent != unreliable. Also wind is quite predictable.
But the main thing you go wrong is: While you need huge capacity of another source such as gas to supplement renewables, this does not mean you need to burn a lot of gas. Just look at electricity production (not capacity) for Germany 2010 -> 2020: renewables increased from 105 TWh to 251 TWh, gas increased only slightly from 89 TWh to 95 TWh (and gas use for electricity in Germany is mostly irrelevant, it is mostly need for industry and heating),
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Yes, and you can improve resilience through other things too:
1. Variety of locations for each renewable source
2. Variety of sources (eg add tidal)
3. Taller turbines
etc
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Your question is hilarious. Can you really not think of good answers? Here's three:
1. We will run out of gas one day. So it makes sense to use it sparingly.
2. Gas get really quite pricey when there's lots of demand and not enough supply. So again, it makes sense to use it sparingly
3. Gas fucks up our atmosphere because it's carbon-intensive. Renewables don't. So once again, it makes sense to use gas sparingly
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Did you know we can also predict the weather now!
Not with great hourly precision.
But we certainly know which places get the most wind and where the best places to put turbines are.
.
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Leading inquiring minds to ask: why don't we just run on the gas, and forget trying to supplement it with the unreliable or reliably useless renewables?
No, "inquiring minds" would have learned decades ago that natural gas plants still emit CO2. Those same minds hopefully have also learned in the last 6 months that geopolitics can make gas pretty damn unreliable in the UK too.
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Sure, when the grid's not down because it's too hot, or too cold.
Texans talk tough, but reality is a bitch
Spoken like a true Californian that just accepts the rolling blackouts so their grid doesn't set the state on fire...
https://abcnews.go.com/US/cali... [go.com]
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We already did. In red states like Texas...
They're not wind farms in Texas, they're wind ranches.
Re: between 43 percent to 49 percent of the time (Score:2)
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"You can depend on Americans to do the right thing... when they have exhausted every other possibility"
(not Winston Churchill)
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Sure, build 2 nuclear power plants and get 90% power out of them on an annual basis
Encroaching their way to invading Taiwan much? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah because China building their way further and further towards Taiwan, encroaching their way to being better able to invade, well that's not AT ALL one of the project's main objectives...
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And greater fools can't even read the text:
Chaozhou - .. has revealed ambitious plans for a 43.3 gigawatt facility in the Taiwan Strait.
.. will operate between 75 and 185 kilometers (47 and 115 miles) offshore
Also the P2P distance between mentioned Chaozhou and Taiwan is about 200 km thus with the offshore distance reducing the direct distance to ~100-150 km.
Start at Chaozhou and go east, then after 200 km you will be on Taiwan.
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OMG, that should be illegal! China should be forbidden from controlling tectonic activity that put them in that situation millions of years ago!
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China is only 180 km away from Taiwan. Depending on where exactly they want to build it, this could literally put the turbines into Taiwan's territorial waters.
Yes, it should be "illegal" (as far as "international law" will take you, anyway) for China to build wind turbines in Taiwan's EEZ, let alone territorial waters.
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China is only 180 km away from Taiwan.
China's a huge country, moron. This is about a specific part of China, Chaozhou in Guangzhou.
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> China's a huge country, moron. This is about a specific part of China, Chaozhou in Guangzhou
And Chaozhou is only about 200km from Taiwan. Google Maps tells me it's actually about 300 shore-to-shore but subtract 44km from each side for territorial waters and you're at 212km.
Yeah, China is a huge country, and this *specific part* of China is about 200km from Taiwan, moron.
Next up: Any Taiwanese ships trying to navigate through that area are violating some bullshit law and that will be justification for i
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And Chaozhou is only about 200km from Taiwan.
If you go straight east. Which you don't, because then you would describe it as off the coast of Zhangzhou, not off the coast of Chaozhou.
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If you go straight east. Which you don't, because then you would describe it as off the coast of Zhangzhou, not off the coast of Chaozhou.
Who describes it like that? The article doesn't specify where exactly it will be built, just that it's in the "the Taiwan Strait"
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If you go from Haishandao, Chaozhou, to Oigu District, Taiwan, it's 316km. Haishandao isn't even the eastern most part of Chaozhou. If I measure from Dachengzhen it's 301km.
It's only 234km from Dachengzhen to Yuwengdao lighthouse, Penghu County, which is also part of Taiwan.
Don't be a dipshit; this is so easy to verify for yourself it's embarrassing anyone would try to argue it.
=Smidge=
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Speaking of morons, maybe you should be more specific about what you write then!
So what you're saying is, right now, China is only 350km away from Taiwan without the windfarm>.
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Are you suggesting no country should be allowed to build on their land in the direction of any other country? Don't drunk post.
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When you read his post and came to this conclusion you my friend must be drunk, because he only pointed out what that meant for Taiwan, not that it should be forbidden.
But I do understand his thoughts as China with it's nationalism cannot be trusted in any sense that this will not have an additional use case.
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Re: Encroaching their way to invading Taiwan much? (Score:2)
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What this means for Taiwan: nothing. Especially since it's a wind farm. You want to do something which matters, build a nuclear powerplant on the border of a non nuclear friendly country, build an aluminium smelter on the border close to the other country's town.
But wind farms? I can only conclude the world is a perfectly peaceful utopia without any problems anywhere if this is something you decide to give any fucks what do ever about.
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I also cannot think of anything more strategic to attack by Taiwan if pus
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And actually I need to set some things straight:
1.) a modern(most like since 2003!?) wind turbine does not engage "brakes", the blades just "feather" it's called a "fan" position
The braking is done aerodynamically, (hint: "pitch" not "stall") Blades
are feathered.
Often there is a break disk which is basically a parking break to engage some kind of form fitting rotor lock bolt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
But the blades actually even then create enough lift for a very mild rotation.
Which is good from a tr
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I can only conclude the world is a perfectly peaceful utopia without any problems
And I have actuallyy working experience with (onshore and offshore) wind turbines and have observed the radar scattering of the rotors and I also know how a wind turbine sounds under water.
Under normal circumstances you would be correct, "it's just a wind farm". However in this setting a wind turbine along with the farm is a valuable strategic post also due to it's height for different kinds of military purpose.
- cloak/shadow
- reconnaissance / radar / optical / sonar
- communication
- jamming
And in case of Ch
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Are you suggesting no country should be allowed to build on their land in the direction of any other country? Don't drunk post.
China isn't building this wind farm on their "land". They're planning on building it in the Taiwan Strait which is 180 miles (approximately) wide. Territorial borders only extend out to 12 nautical miles.
By building this farm they will then claim they need to "protect" this farm and so will post their navy at even greater distances, thus continuing its efforts to claim the entire strait is theirs. They will also claim they can intercept any ship which comes remotely close, but guaranteed those ships will
The West: China, go green and stop polluting! (Score:2)
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Territorial borders are irrelevant. ... which it does not.
Relevant is the economic exclusive zone, which is 200 n.miles. In case of Taiwan and China it would ofc, be in the middle of the 180 miles strait. *IFF* China would recognize Taiwans borders
Cloaking the approach most likely (Score:2, Troll)
Wind Mills are basically targets:
Well in a conflict then Taiwan also gains leverage, because bascially take a machine gun, grenade or a special missile to the wind mill and it is out of order.
Blast ~1-2m of one blade tip and the rotor will have an imbalance and the turbine will shut down - or in case of continued operation eat up all it's calculated life time in a fraction of time.
Or the sabotage way, use a relativley small distributed amount of plastic explosives at the common downwind side of the tower to
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Yeah, great idea, however the cable sucks.
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All things are targets. You'd rather have the enemy blow up your windmills than your nuke plants. You can probably take out a wind plant with a sniper rifle, it's not like they're armored. Put a couple HE rounds in 'em and you're done.
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There is a difference in the level of ease to disable such an installation in a sense to also hinder possible repair.
And basically not all things are targets per se, when you have that approach you will waste precious ammo on not strategically important targets and then you will end up like russia and Taiwan in a direct conflict has no ammo to waste.
In case of russia I'm not totally "unhappy" with the outcome of their wastefulness.
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Yeah because China building their way further and further towards Taiwan, encroaching their way to being better able to invade, well that's not AT ALL one of the project's main objectives...
Dude, It's a wind farm, not a fleet of 13 million hover tanks.
UPS Delivery: big horse made from wood (Score:2)
From: Unknown fan
To: Troy, Noworries Blv.
And only one Watson! (Score:2)
.. will serve 13 Million Homes.
Yeah, but... (Score:2)
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Either that, or it will be used to torture religious and ethnic minorities, power the computers behind a pervasive surveillance state, or something like that.
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But it probably never will (Score:2)
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Yes, protests still happen in China. Quite frequently, in fact.
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Are you seriously that deluded by your comic book understanding of China? sErIoUsLy!?!?!?!!
Literally there have been protests in Shanghai over the lockdown. There have been protests when people's bank accounts were suddenly inaccessible because some banks were caught out with bad loans. There had been a highly visible protest on a bridge before Xi Jinping's re-appointment.
You're a fucking moron if you think
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You're a fucking moron if you think Chinese people don't protest, or if you think the CCP is actually some 1984-all-powerful-all-seeing government that can prevent all protests before it happens.
Shanghai covid lockdowns speak for themselves. Their protest of being locked in their homes, denied urgent medical care and literally starving to death consisted of screaming out the windows of their homes, banging pots and pans and killing themselves by jumping out the window.
They are spineless slaves.
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Did your homework for you.
You outed yourself as a fucking uninformed moron who can't think beyond the American narrative you were indoctrinated with.
Bigger is better? (Score:2)
I will never get why "bigger/biggest" is news worthy ... besides the point.
If you want to learn something from the U.S., it is often worth looking at California and Texas, compare and contrast. Both big states that are actually large countries, very differently run. Both states get some things right, and other things wrong. Sometimes spectacularly so. Irrespective your political persuasion, worth a look.
There is quite a bit of wind power (and a bit more than half as much solar) in Texas. Why? Because it was
Good, even though China (Score:1)
Uh-Huh (Score:2)