New type of wind power generator

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by Sorcerer, Feb 13, 2014.

  1. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Yes good reference and after click on wind machines, read:
    " Wind speed is critical! Double the wind speed, get 8 times the power. The wind is slow and turbulent near the ground and on rooftops. The industry standard is that wind turbines must fly at least 30 feet above anything within 500 feet. "

    Confirming my statement that power in wind goes as cube of wind speed and that to get to economically useful wind, the new wind machine would need huge expensive steel base as it is mainly a big wind blocker, at the top easy to topple over in stronger, useful winds.

    The post 3 photo, which I bet is "photo shop" made is not even as tall as the near-by trees seen in the photo! Whole idea silly and not even presented well!
     
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  3. KitemanSA Registered Senior Member

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    You are lucky. Places where the power company IS required to do it have higher energy prices.
     
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  5. KitemanSA Registered Senior Member

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    If this is indeed the purpose, it is an insane one. There may be some sanity to wanting low carbon. There is some sanity to wanting sustainability. There is surely sanity to wanting clean power. But the prime example of the "broad RENEWABLE portfolio" philosophy, Germany, is among the HIGHEST carbon, LEAST sustainable, DIRTIEST grids in the world. Obviously, the reality of a "broad RENEWABLE portfolio" does not live up to the dream.
     
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  7. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Given that it's a work in progress, at what point do you decide the goals are unachievable?
     
  8. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    You have made some serious claims. Can you back them up with evidence?

    http://data.worldbank.org/indicator...ue wbapi_data_value-last&sort=asc&display=map
     
  9. KitemanSA Registered Senior Member

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    When a decade of extreme spending on the unreliables results in steadily WORSENING power cost, reliability and CIPK, how can you not have already made that decision?
     
  10. KitemanSA Registered Senior Member

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  11. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    LOL, try again. I asked for evidence to back up your claims with facts and evidence. What, you don't have any?

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  12. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    The first automobile was created in1769. But it wasn't commercially viable until the turn of the last century - more than a century later. And what constitutes "extreme" spending in your view? And where is your evidence that leads you to conclude that spending on "unreliables" has resulted in steadily worsening of power costs, reliability and CIPK (Carbon Intensity Per kilowatt)? If you don't look for alternatives (i.e. "unreliables") then how are you expected to find alternatives to carbon based energy sources?
     
  13. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    6,152
    For reasons like

    (1) The rate of achieving these goals is more an indication of the level of resistance from the Right than it is an indication of the ability to reach those them with conviction, on a united front.

    (2) There was relatively little initiative 10 years ago, your time window needs to bracket the actual era of concerted effort.

    (3) Concerns about non-recurring costs are ephemeral.

    (4) Cost and reliability are measured in net against the cost of petro-terrorism and costs of related economic uncertainty, underwater well blowouts and costs of collateral damage, spills, environmental/property damage and cleanup costs, toxicity and related health costs, earthquakes and water contamination (fracking), coal mine disasters, refinery explosions, explosion and meltdowns of nukes, other occupational and bystander death and injury . . . as well as the harm done to the climate.

    (5) Although you mention reliability you seem to be alluding to capacity, which increases as a work in progress, albeit in inverse proportion to the rate of Right Wing resistance.

    (6) As for the carbon footprint of renewables, you'd have to elaborate. You seem to be referring to another kind of non-recurring cost, the carbon spent building the new facilities. I'm not sure what you think the recurring cost in carbon is for running a wind farm, solar collector site, etc.
     
  14. Gage Registered Senior Member

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    All complete rubbish!!! I would love to hear your suggestions for clean, renewable, low cost energy....
     
  15. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    6,152
    There are two main things they are claiming in the ad. One is that a computer model was used to arrive at this. That could mean anything. The more specific claim was that a particular 600W turbine, when placed in this enclosure, did perform better. Assuming they are not lying, it almost seems like there is some mistake, or some kind of bias in the test.

    Speaking of sucking, and considering the low pressure requirement at the outlet in order for air to pass through at all, I was reminded of the perpetual motion advocates who propose machines that assume an infinite sink. This ad seems to imply a kind of gain simply by blowing across a venturi, without respect to the backpressure at the outlet. This to me is the reasoning of an air conditioning repairman who is entertaining notions of perpetual motion machines. I mean, if this were true, then tuba players in marching bands on windy days would never be able to produce a note. They would be blowing up balloons from their mouthpieces just by facing the bells to the wind. And every pneumatic machine on earth would be a free energy source. We'd all be living like kings.

    The best case scenario for their reply to that would be that they are promoting a very large wind farm containing very many low ground, low output generators.

    You could put grilles on the intakes to keep the birds and bats from getting blendered.

    Here's the data they posted. Assuming it wasn't doctored, we'd just need to know exactly what they measured and how their reference turbine was set up. I suspect a little scratching at the surface would uncover their error. The raw data doesn't make sense to me, nor do they give us any clue how they got from there to the bar graph. The captions and labeling don't help either. If the claim is 6x electricity then they should present the raw data which reflects that. In their favor, they did say they measured power across a load. Who knows.


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  16. KitemanSA Registered Senior Member

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    Germany has among the highest power cost per kW. Germany's power is so unreliable that Poland has already blocked it out and The Czech
    Republic is working on it. Germany has about the highest CIPK of any country in Europe. Any of those statements can be backed up with numerous references which I leave as an exercise to the student.
     
  17. KitemanSA Registered Senior Member

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    Did you not just read my statement that "renewable" is a crazy goal? Why would I have suggestions FOR it? If you ask what I have by way of suggestions to replace it, that is easy. Start off by building ~200 1GW LWRs while finalizing a design for a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, and then build as many TWs of LFTRs as the world needs. Lean, clean, green, safe, reliable, sustainable, scalable energy for you, your children, your children's children unto the 20,000,000th generation. Then we can switch to fusion if it is available by then!

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  18. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    here is another good page from the same site:
    http://otherpower.com/bottom_line.html
    it gives the bottom line on homebrew wind turbines.
     
  19. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    LOL, you have made a lot of claims and you have yet to substantiate any of them. Making more unsubstantiated claims doesn’t help your case. You are just digging your hole deeper while patting yourself on the back. In short you are obfuscating. Perhaps the teacher needs to go back to kindergarten.

    This was the statement you were challenged to substantiate, “
    That had nothing to do with Poland. It has nothing to do with reliability. You claimed Germany was a prime example of “Broad RENEWABLE portfolio” philosophy. Where is your proof? You don’t have any. That is why you are trying to obfuscate.

    The truth is Germany has always been and remains, as is most of the world, heavily dependent of fossil fuels for energy production. Germany has never had a “broad portfolio” of energy production resources. Western Europe is constrained by the lack of energy resources. Natural gas is imported from Russia. Further, Germany doesn’t have the highest CIPK in Europe. And far from pursuing a “broad portfolio”, Germany is narrowing its energy portfolio. It is eliminating its nuclear energy facilities.

    So I am again challenging you again for proof of your claims.

    Germany is transitioning out of nuclear power, and that is expensive. And your comments about Germany’s electricity being unreliable are more than a little disingenuous to say the least. Germany like most countries, including the US, has problems with their electrical grids. Germany’s problem is that on windy days it produces more electricity and overloads the grid. It doesn’t have a place to store the excess energy generated on windy days. Germany isn’t the world. Germany’s bungling its energy policies is not reflective of any problems associated with renewable energy sources. Personally, I think Germany has made many mistakes in recent years and those mistakes are not limited to its energy policies.

    I live in the US, my energy costs have gone up 9 times and by 44% over the course of the last few years. And the electricity I use doesn’t come from renewable sources. It comes from a natural gas fueled electrical plant on the other side of town.

    So the bottom line here is you cannot with any degree of intellectual honesty make the blanket statements you made, nor can you extrapolate what has happened in Germany and apply it to the world as you have done.
     
  20. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    Agreed.
    DC and wild AC generators do not discharge the battery when there is no wind. You need a large synchronous machine to do that (and they are very rare in small installations.)
    No such thing as a "small cheap wind turbine that produces a lot of power." All the successful wind installations I have seen/read about/seen analyses on have been on tall (read: expensive) towers, in areas with good wind - and they still need pretty regular maintenance, since the weather is not kind to them.

    In general if you want to produce power you are better off with fewer very large turbines than with smaller independent turbines. They are more efficient (in dollars per peak watt, dollars per kilowatt, conversion efficiency AND kilowatt-hours per land used) and are more easily maintained. Large wind generation with distributed storage/smart loads make a lot of sense.
     
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    Maybe a few old fashioned Dutch windmills might be reintroduced. They are cheap to build and can generate a lot of power at near ground level. Replace the flour mill with a few generators and presto lots of electricity.
    http://ts4.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4701869440762748&w=273&h=188&c=7&rs=1&pid=1.7

    btw. A lot of powerloss in the grid (especially during low demand) could be prevented by converting old smelters into large capacity batteries.
    http://ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.4891930336690596&w=262&h=175&c=7&rs=1&pid=1.7

    http://www.bing.com/images/search?q...rs into powerstorage units.&sc=0-18&sp=-1&sk=
     
  22. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    And large widely spaced generators need a large grid, which does lose power constantly. Moreover large generators need to run 24 hr/day even during low usage. That energy does get lost.

    See above.

    I respectfully disagree. The ideal situation would be if every one had their own personal portable energy generator. No grid would be necessary at all except for the wiring in the house. The problem is to generate sufficient power for individual dwellings.
    The next best thing would be small independent grids, easily hooked into.

    Large projects create large problems and large disasters when they fail, and they will fail......inevitably.
     
  23. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    No the losses are mainly rotational friction and the heavy generators turn at same angular rate to make 60Hz. What changes at low load times is the torque needed to keep that rotation speed. I.e. the steam flow to turbine spinning the generator is reduced. Generator lose rate is almost identical at low demand time as it is at peak demand times. There is of course more (I^2)R loss in the distribution system when larger currents (I) flows so I'm almost sure the system-wide loses decrease at low-load times.
     

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