Author Topic: Wind farms  (Read 6040 times)

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Offline raw-al

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Wind farms
« on: April 05, 2017, 03:04:28 am »
I knew that wind turbines cause beehives to exhibit all of the symptoms of problems, such as
very angry bees, which means that the farmer cannot get even a bit close without being completely suited up (I and lots of beeks work with no suits at all)
low honey production
Swarming which means loss of a massive amount of bees when they basically flee
death of hives completely
etc

But I was not aware of the devastating affects (death blindness spontaneous abortion etc.) on livestock, wild birds, pets of all sorts,
Deaths of humans and physical misery

I used to work at the largest underground hydroelectric power plant in the world, so I knew from talking to the control room guys that these wind turbines are not far from being useless as they only produce intermittent power and it is a crazy fluctuating power. In other words when you turn on an electric item it requires basically rock steady power or you will have devices constantly burning out from too much power or no working from too low power. That is why they have to have so many turbines, to smooth out the power. Additionally the turbines do not produce at the early times in the day/evening when the power is need and some days they produce nothing so the regular power plants still have to be there and they don't like running at low power so intermittently turning them down does no good only harm.

However this report outlines the reality. Starting with the PPL who live in cities and buy the propaganda and then onto the PPL in rural areas who know the reality. It is financially and environmentally a disaster. Some species are actually being put on the edge of extinction by these windmills.

I personally have read the books on global warming, but now serious doubt has been cast upon it by other PPL coming in who talk about climate cycles being associated with sunspots…

Alan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef6bb-S1CLo&feature=em-uploademail
Cheers
Al

Offline raw-al

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Re: Wind farms
« Reply #1 on: April 05, 2017, 03:08:21 am »
To explain more in depth re: the power fluctuations, the turbines do not produce at the early times in the day and the evening when the power is most needed and some days they produce nothing so the regular power plants still have to be there and they don't like running at low power and intermittently so turning them down does no good, only harm. It's sort of like idling your car. After awhile the plugs just foul up and the oil gets dirty and the rings break or wear out.
Cheers
Al

Offline Iguana

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Re: Wind farms
« Reply #2 on: April 05, 2017, 04:07:36 am »
Hmm, i live just 1 km away from the nearest wind turbine; we have ducks, hens, bees, people nearby have dogs and cats and we don't notice any ill effect of these turbines. There are plenty of wild animals around, mongooses, mice, birds, etc.

The wind doesn't stop at night!

Most large thermal power plants use steam or gas turbines which, AFAIK, can work at full power immediately after starting without any problems. Diesel and gas-engines generators can be also started and stopped at will. There's more wear when they are often cold-started, but it's not such a big problem.

This post signed Alan looks like complete bullshit to me.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2017, 04:21:08 am by Iguana »
Cause and effect are distant in time and space in complex systems, while at the same time there’s a tendency to look for causes near the events sought to be explained. Time delays in feedback in systems result in the condition where the long-run response of a system to an action is often different from its short-run response. — Ronald J. Ziegler

Offline Alive

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Re: Wind farms
« Reply #3 on: April 05, 2017, 07:39:10 am »
The coal power stations needed time to get steam up, so needed a steady load.

Now every wind turbine built needs to be paired up with a variable load generator, like gas turbine or hydro, to provide power when there is no wind.

There are some amazing videos on youtube  showing the high death rate per kWh from wind, and very low from nuclear - although that was before the genocide, ecoide, and oil price support from Fukishima.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2017, 08:07:02 am by Alive »

Offline raw-al

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Re: Wind farms
« Reply #4 on: April 05, 2017, 02:05:31 pm »
Hmm, i live just 1 km away from the nearest wind turbine; we have ducks, hens, bees, people nearby have dogs and cats and we don't notice any ill effect of these turbines. There are plenty of wild animals around, mongooses, mice, birds, etc.

The wind doesn't stop at night!

Most large thermal power plants use steam or gas turbines which, AFAIK, can work at full power immediately after starting without any problems. Diesel and gas-engines generators can be also started and stopped at will. There's more wear when they are often cold-started, but it's not such a big problem.

This post signed Alan looks like complete bullshit to me.
Belief is a wonderful thing Iguana.

The wind does indeed 'not' normally make it to the earth at night. Yes it does sometimes and in some locales this may not be true but normally it doesn't. Close to the equator the air is rising and so there is very little wind period, low or high. I've seen it blowing 30 to 50 knots, even at 1000' AGL (350 M) (Above Ground Level) and zero on the ground more nights than I could tell you. It is very strange to be coming in to land (130 to 140 knots approach speed) with a crab of 30 degrees or more into the wind and a major headwind on final and just before touchdown the wind dies to nothing so you suddenly have to straighten out and add power to keep from slamming into the runway. In some locales on the ground, you can even hear the windshear which sounds like a distant roaring from up above. Windshear is the change in windspeed with altitude and is often used to determine where it will be bumpy by pilots, because where there is a stronger wind as you change altitude there is mixing and thus turbulence.

What I have noticed is that often when the wind is 'howling' meaning speeds in the Jetstream in excess of say 80 knots it is often practically dead on the ground.

The theory of why the wind dies at night that I was taught, which may have changed in the intervening years is that during the day the sun heats the earth causing the air next to it to warm up and thus become more viscous and have less mass or inertia, so it sticks to the earth less and can move more quickly and thus windy and also the wind is gusty because it is deflected by everything from trees to mountains to houses etc etc making it tumble.

Conversely in the nighttime the sun's heat is missing, so the air cools, becomes heavier, denser, more resistant to being moved and in essence sticks to the earth, thus no wind and it falls or settles.

Maybe where you are in France, the prevailing wind off of the ocean is incessant because there is less friction on the ocean and diurnal heating/cooling is less. Where I am next to the Pacific we have a mountain range between us and the prevailing westerlies, so the friction is again at work.

Meteorology is a huge topic that PPL spend a lifetime learning. Some books to read that are unusual but fascinating are written by an American hang glider pilot whose name escapes me but he wrote on micrometeorolgy, which is about the winds/air movement below 3000'or 1000 M to the surface.

Re starting and stopping powerstations, I was repeating what a number of electric engineers that ran diesel etc powerplants told me. When they run the powerplants at low speed they puff out a lot of smoke because they are not efficient at low speeds. Basically they would get complaints from the locals about the smoke dirtying the laundry on the clotheslines.

The turbines that I flew were basically damaged by starting and stopping them. This damage is essentially caused by the expanding and contracting of the vanes etc during the temperature changes of starting and stopping, causing the vanes to rub at the tips and stressing them with speed changes. Basically Pratt and Whitney once said to us on a training course, that someone had figured out that each startup caused (probably in today's prices) about 75+ dollars.

What I said about wind turbines being all over the place in regards to output was told to me by friends who did training at a large facility in the US where they trained on simulators. They complained about these wind turbines because at the time they said they were useless. You cannot have inconsistent power on a grid, plain and simple.

I recall discussions at the university where the electrical engineers were discussing the variable output of WT and things were discussed like doing what they were at the time planning in Iceland where they were planning to convert the electricity from the geothermal sites to produce hydrogen and running local cars on it.

There are maps of North America where the wind speeds are given and thus can guide planners to where the wind is most consistent and strong and when I was leaving work, they were constructing a lot of these windmills near the site I lived at, because they had the strongest most consistent winds in NA and it is basically uninhabited.

I heard of one scheme where they have basically a pipe that sticks up in the air and has a sort of drum spinning around it with vanes sticking out to make it spin, sort of like a squirrel cage air fan. I saw pics of it on a Popular Science cover being used on ships to assist to power them.

PPL will always be attracted to what seems like free electricity and will hope and dream that it will work but reality steps in.
Cheers
Al

Offline raw-al

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Cheers
Al

Offline Alive

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Re: Wind farms
« Reply #6 on: April 06, 2017, 12:06:03 pm »
Very interesting comment raw al.
We get an easterly wind here that is caused by the sun heating the land, warm air rises, and sucks cool air from the sea. As soon as the sun goes down then that wind stops, it's great for sailing as I know that there will be wind so long as I'm back before late afternoon.
Those squirrel turbines are very inefficient, its the same as plane wings, greater aspect ratio means greater efficiency.
And those ships with a rotating tube as a "sail" were stupid, those science magazines had some dumb stuff, like the one armed WT, and the flying car with four rotary engines, anyone failing equals death.
The future will be Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, that are safe and non radioactive (this was called cold fusion)

Offline raw-al

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Re: Wind farms
« Reply #7 on: April 06, 2017, 01:15:46 pm »
Alive,
Back when I was hang gliding I flew from a place where when the sun was getting low the cold air would slide down the mountain side, filling the valley and actually causing rising air, so you'd run like h#ll off to smash through the layer of subsiding air (subsidence) close to the wall and dive out of it and then once you got out a short distance you'd be in what we used to call "Magic" air. Lift everywhere in fact it was a bit difficult to land because you had to dive through it to the landing zone (LZ).
Cheers
Al

Offline Iguana

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Re: Wind farms
« Reply #8 on: April 07, 2017, 06:54:55 pm »
Thanks for the information about turbojets turbines, Raw-Al. Don't worry, I avoid beliefs. Are blades temperature in utilities gas turbines  as high as in aircraft engines and spark ignition automotive turbochargers, not to speak about steam turbines?

Anyway, why would utilities invest so much money in wind turbines if they are useless? It doesn't make sense. On this map (sorry in French but you should be able to find it in English too) we can see the how the electricity in every European country is generated at each moment ("in real time" they say as if there's an unreal time ;) ). 
https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&countryCode=DK
As I write, almost 30 GW are generated in Danemark by wind turbines, by far their main source of electricity — at least right now. Click on other countries to get the relevant info.

Of course, thermal winds stop late at night, but most winds are not thermal. Moreover, most electricity consumption occurs day time before the meals for cooking food and from industries — which usually are not working at night; that's why the kW.h is often at a reduced price during the night.

PS: Oh, yes, they are!
Quote
http://www.wartsila.com/energy/learning-center/technical-comparisons/gas-turbine-for-power-generation-introduction

The temperature at which the turbine operates (firing temperature) also impacts efficiency, with higher temperatures leading to higher efficiency. However, turbine inlet temperature is limited by the thermal conditions that can be tolerated by the turbine blade metal alloy. Gas temperatures at the turbine inlet can be 1200ºC to 1400ºC, but some manufacturers have boosted inlet temperatures as high as 1600ºC by engineering blade coatings and cooling systems to protect metallurgical components from thermal damage.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2017, 07:20:00 pm by Iguana »
Cause and effect are distant in time and space in complex systems, while at the same time there’s a tendency to look for causes near the events sought to be explained. Time delays in feedback in systems result in the condition where the long-run response of a system to an action is often different from its short-run response. — Ronald J. Ziegler

Offline raw-al

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Re: Wind farms
« Reply #9 on: April 08, 2017, 10:37:35 am »
Thanks for the information about turbojets turbines, Raw-Al. Don't worry, I avoid beliefs. Are blades temperature in utilities gas turbines  as high as in aircraft engines and spark ignition automotive turbochargers, not to speak about steam turbines?
The only gas turbine engine that I am familiar with being used by a utility is an old jet engine that was bought by NL hydro years ago. They have it as an emergency generator and I have forgotten the details. I just remember the engineers talking about it. I know that PT6 engines have been used by utilities and I have no idea of the specifics.

As far as steam turbines of course I assume the temps would be considerably lower. Our ITT or inter turbine temperature maxed at 800 degrees C, which was basically the (throttle) limiting factor. However the actual temperatures in the engine might be hotter but we weren't aware and didn't need to know.

Anyway, why would utilities invest so much money in wind turbines if they are useless? It doesn't make sense.
I guess I understated the significance of wind power, because it fairly rare here.
Thanks for the map. They don't mention Nuclear which is over 25% of the total. I am surprised that with the mountains in Europe there is no hydroelectric generation.

My understanding is that peak electrical loads are breakfast and suppertime.

Where I worked we produced 5,428-megawatt of Hydroelectricity. Mind you, it harvests water from a watershed of 67,340 Sq Km while France is total of 547,030 Sq Km so the reservoir alone is about 12.31% the size of France.  http://data.mongabay.com/igapo/world_statistics_by_country.htm

Canada is land rich and the reservoir is in a northern largely uninhabited area. Canada has a number of sites and generates about 59% (2009) from hydro and we also export to the US. Hydro is cheap and easy to produce and is dead rock stable power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill_Falls_(Labrador)_Corporation_Limited If you want more juice it's easy peasy as you are not at the whims of the winds. They are working on another huge project to increase the output by 40% last I heard. One of the largest civil engineering projects in the world.

As to why utilities in Europe use wind, I am guessing that there are totally different situations, and Euros tend to think differently than NAs. Europe is close to the ocean, so maybe prevailing winds are the reason. Honestly I have no idea. I know on this side of the ocean there are a lot of subsidies to get PPL off the 'oil Tit', which I suspect are politically motivated, but I would be guessing. There are wind farms here and there is also a water turbine near my Mom's birthplace in Nova Scotia at Parrsboro, which is essentially a large hole into which money is poured. They have the highest tides in the world (Marseilles is next) but there is huge problems with silt to contend with.

There is: http://canwea.ca/wind-energy/installed-capacity/ in Canada. That is only double what the capacity is @ Churchill Falls. I could not find stats on actual vs usable output.

But why try wind...... Us guys like to believe we can get something for nothing and a number of ideas have been tried from balloons with wind generators on them, solar, and Tesla was rumoured to have dreamed up some amazing thing to produce free electricity, but had the rug pulled out from under him (as the legend goes) by his banker. There are a number of PPL who claim to have made over unity devices, but alas men have egos and if somebody in charge believes in his project then money is no object. For instance the guy who spearheaded the Parrsboro power project was from Parrsboro..... Homecoming hero.... Boy who done well....

I am not an engineer and so I am mentioning what I have heard.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2017, 01:44:10 pm by raw-al »
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Al

Offline Iguana

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Re: Wind farms
« Reply #10 on: April 09, 2017, 10:04:01 pm »
I guess I understated the significance of wind power, because it fairly rare here.
Thanks for the map. They don't mention Nuclear which is over 25% of the total. I am surprised that with the mountains in Europe there is no hydroelectric generation.
Nuclear is there, 7th line (11% of the total for the world in 2014*)
Hydro is on the 3th line   (17% of the total for the world in 2014*)
Wind was 9% of the total for the EU27 in 2014* — certainly more now as more wind turbines are installed.
Today, most of the electricity in Portugal is generated by wind turbines, for example
*http://www.tsp-data-portal.org/Breakdown-of-Electricity-Generation-by-Energy-Source#tspQvChart
Quote
My understanding is that peak electrical loads are breakfast and suppertime.
Exactly. Cooking causes a huge wastage of energy, not only by the electric cookers, but also dishwashers and industrial production of processed food and stuff like dish-detergents, electric kitchen tools, etc. I wonder if nuclear power plants would be needed if everyone were to eat 100% raw and unprocessed. 
« Last Edit: April 09, 2017, 10:30:55 pm by Iguana »
Cause and effect are distant in time and space in complex systems, while at the same time there’s a tendency to look for causes near the events sought to be explained. Time delays in feedback in systems result in the condition where the long-run response of a system to an action is often different from its short-run response. — Ronald J. Ziegler

Offline TylerDurden

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Re: Wind farms
« Reply #11 on: April 10, 2017, 01:48:54 am »
Quote
My understanding is that peak electrical loads are breakfast and suppertime.
This sort of thing should be mentioned by RVAFers a lot. Being more environmentally-friendly makes RVAFers seem like the good guys rather than the absurd cannibal-image the more hysterical mainstreamers have of us.
"During the last campaign I knew what was happening. You know, they mocked me for my foreign policy and they laughed at my monetary policy. No more. No more.
" Ron Paul.

Offline Iguana

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Re: Wind farms
« Reply #12 on: April 10, 2017, 01:57:07 am »
GCB wrote a whole book (not yet published, I wonder what he's waiting for) about these and other environmental problems due to cooking and neolithic foods.
Cause and effect are distant in time and space in complex systems, while at the same time there’s a tendency to look for causes near the events sought to be explained. Time delays in feedback in systems result in the condition where the long-run response of a system to an action is often different from its short-run response. — Ronald J. Ziegler

Offline raw-al

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Re: Wind farms
« Reply #13 on: April 10, 2017, 12:21:25 pm »
Nuclear is there, 7th line (11% of the total for the world in 2014*)
Hydro is on the 3th line   (17% of the total for the world in 2014*)
Wind was 9% of the total for the EU27 in 2014* — certainly more now as more wind turbines are installed.
Today, most of the electricity in Portugal is generated by wind turbines, for example
*http://www.tsp-data-portal.org/Breakdown-of-Electricity-Generation-by-Energy-Source#tspQvChartExactly. Cooking causes a huge wastage of energy, not only by the electric cookers, but also dishwashers and industrial production of processed food and stuff like dish-detergents, electric kitchen tools, etc. I wonder if nuclear power plants would be needed if everyone were to eat 100% raw and unprocessed. 
The map you first linked to shows nothing for nuclear and hydro and only shows Europe. However the new link shows it. Thanks.

That's interesting. Hydro is 58% in Canada, wind is 12%, unfortunately nuclear is 16%.

It would be interesting to know the energy usage for food production (processing, cooking, cleanup etc)
Cheers
Al

Offline raw-al

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Re: Wind farms
« Reply #14 on: April 10, 2017, 12:22:39 pm »
This sort of thing should be mentioned by RVAFers a lot. Being more environmentally-friendly makes RVAFers seem like the good guys rather than the absurd cannibal-image the more hysterical mainstreamers have of us.

I always mention that in conversation and about how many hours a day are freed up if no food cooking, but it doesn't seem to sink in.
Cheers
Al

 

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