MAR 24

Wind power and solar power should really be developed as alternative sources of energy. I once visited the city of palm Springs and California and boy! that city really is a role model for the rest of the US in terms of wind power. Thousands upon thousands of wind turbines are found there, and the whole city as well as surrounding towns rely solely on wind power

I never see anyone mention the issue of climate change when talking about wind turbines, but seriously, if you put thousands of wind turbines, big ones and small ones, wouldn´t they slow down the wind, thus changing air currents and in consecuence climate?

Wind turbine technology is seriously bad technology. It creates noise, visual disharmony, kills numerous flying birds and bats and it can't provide a reliable base load. If enough of these rotating monstrosities are built, our beautiful planet will be ruined.

Why can't we have geothermal power from hot rocks? Even nuclear power is better than these horrible machines.

Interesting point Herno...

I suspect that it may not be a significantly change it for thousands of years though. We are putting buildings up by the thousand daily around the world. Each one will slow the wind down. To counter that we are destroying many square km of forest each day too - although that will end someday (one way or another).

Overall, it will slow it down - as research has pointed out - tidal & wave generators slow the planets rotation enough to measure. but not enough to change anything for millennium. It follows that wind harnessing can slow it down too.

First all the turbine are place close the the earth surface, where the impact on global air flow has no real impact. And second we had a lot more impact cutting down all the trees in the world. We will never get around to build as many wind turbines as we have cut down large tree. So if yuo are worried about changing the wind speed, think of this as just moving it back toward where nature had it before we started cutting so many trees.

Some of that "wasted space" between other turbines is being used for crops.

I am very skeptical that this would be cost effective, what developer is going to go through the hassle of installing 75kW turbines when the horizontal axis turbines are usually about 2.5MW. They would have to install 30 of those to match the capacity!

Steve of the Bad Tech comment, I agree with much of what you say, but there is no factual basis in saying that windmills kill numerous birds and bats. In fact it is very likely that no birds are killed (don't know about the bats).

On the issue of reliablility of the base load, I entirely agee.

The main problem with vertical turbines is the relatively low cross-sectional area. In theory, instead of a 2MW turbine you could have 100 25kW machines, but you might need 200 because wind speed at the ground is less than at 100m above ground. Per kW the large machines are cheaper, usually 4-5x, because the area swept is pi*R^2, proportional to the square of the rotor length. A unit 10x bigger generates 100x the power.

Though these vertical turbines can run at lower wind speed, if the speed is 1/4 the speed at rated power, the units generate only 1.3% of rated power (power is the cube of wind speed: .25*.25*.25). At half speed they generate 12% of the rated power. There isn't much difference between low wind and no wind.

Right now the large wind generators are expanding rapidly because they are profitable at current prices (among the cheapest electricity with stable prices). I've been right under them (in Germany). Farming goes on without issues right underneath them (but vertical turbines take away the land). They are pretty quiet-- just a whooshing sound similar to a stunt kite in stiff wind.

Even if we generated all energy from wind, it wouldn't affect wind speed by a significant amount. Even right behind the units, wind speed drops only slightly-- if the speed dropped significantly, then it would slow the wind in front and cut the power generated. Also, only 100m of >10,000m above the surface is affected.

Steve is correct, wind does not provide a reliable source of power, and may actually be putting strain on base plants, as base plants are meant to be run at X% until down time, peaking plants take care of the peaks, peaking plants can take the bouncing around, I'm not too sure if the base plants can, neither is Emerson Control Systems, and they will be talking about this at a future conference which I cannot remember at this time.

Sorry: out of context, but the real issue is: what do we need the power for?' (not, 'how do we make the power')

Quick thought experiment. In the current state of human maturity, imagine tomorrow we discovered a totally renewable, non-polluting, source of power.

What would happen next?

My guess:
1. The mountains would be levelled faster
2. The seas would be fleeced faster
3. The cities would blossom like pond scum
4. We would spin out in a druken orgy of limitless material transformation

I actually think the energy "bottleneck" is a good thing because it gives us time to think more carefully about ***WHY*** we "need" all this free-floating energy in the first place.

It's not sufficient to claim that a growing population "demands" it...that's a cop out since there are clearly low-energy lifestyles available to choose from.

Those of us with the luxury of having a choice over how much energy we consume might find it much more rewarding to debate the best ways to use only ambient levels of energy rather than fiercely ignoring the consequences of too much energy and not enough maturity.

The efficiency of wind power will continue to improve and soon it will be a major player in national power. Solar is getting there but large scale systems are too expensive. Just this one innovation might double wind power output.

The big benefit of wind is that it is cost effective compared with other sources of renewable energy. The main argument against nuclear is that it is incredibly expensive and it takes decades to get a new plant up and running. Anecdotally, it seems like most people enjoy the sight of wind farms. It's hypnotically tranquil.

Oh please tell me they are kidding about installing a vertical axsis at a wind farm. If they want to fill in the space around the horizontal generators then install solar PV
VAWT are crap! NREL and DOE would agree that noone should have high expectations if one should choose to install a VAWT

Genevar,

I like the way you think. The degree of insight that you show is beyond the nuts and bolts level of thinking that goes on here, for the most part. You actually understand what it is to get out of the hamster wheel that most folks run in and just keep generating or using up more energy, depending on the point of view.

My dream is to build an earth-sheltered house in northwestern Montana near a salmon stream, with a little solar power for amenities and get away from most of the rat race. But, hey, we could all save energy and go on with some modified rat race if we built our cities downward rather than upward, thus minimizing the need for energy.

Whether we can transform our approach to our environment before we destroy it IS the big cunundrum

Genevar,

One of your points seems inherently flawed.

The Mountains are being leveled for coal, coal is one of our major sources of Electricity right now, reduce/remove the need for coal, no more Mountain Top Removal needed.

now if we were still building train tracks from the east coast to the west coast, we would still be destroying mountains for that, but Flight seems to rid us of that need.

everything else I understand where you are coming from. and agree on most of it.

An average US citizen or corporate entity who kills an endangered animal can be in big trouble with the law. Birds, eagles in particular, are zealously protected by nature lovers in America and around the world. Yet a July 2008 study of the wind farm at Altamont Pass, California, estimated that an average of 80 golden eagles were killed there by wind turbines each year. The study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, estimated that about 10,000 other protected birds were being killed along with the eagles every year at Altamont. Where is the outrage over this slaughter? It would seem ecologists have a blind spot when it comes to the wind energy industry. As a result, the carnage caused by wind turbines, the “Cuisinarts of the Air,” is getting greenwashed. And birds are not the only creatures wind turbines kill—they kill bats and people as well.

http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/wind-power-green-and-deadly