Notes from the Old Country

[skywords]

Wind power is a good soarce of energy and does not take a huge amount of maintenance. Myself and another fella used to maintain a wind farm at the Altimont pass just east of Livermore Calif. These machines were 50KW computerized upwind machines made in Belguim. They were in a bad location being on the back side (down wind) of the hills near the pass. They were subject to a lot of turbulence and faired well considering. Blade pitch was hydraulically controlled with a yaw motor coupled to a ring gear to keep the nacelle pointed into the wind. the towers are 75' high with ladders for the assent. Oily ladders I might add. The computers kept the output at the proper cycles and would shut down if needed with the props feathering. We had only one unit shed a blade resulting in the entire nacelle crashing to the ground. If these machines were placed in clean smooth air they would have done even better. My picture was in Popular mechanics in the 1980's standing on top of a nacelle, a helecopter showed up oneday and snaps some pics. I had no idea what for until someone showed me the issue. Lately I have been seeing the components for some very large wind mills on trucks heading east on I-10.

I flew my ultralight down the backside of a row of them oneday to see what the turbulance was like. Very Very Very Bad Idea Almost did not make it, The stick and pedals were going from stop to stop just to keep it upright using full power. Dumb Dumb Dumb. I was young.

 

[Bill Blue]

Don't be absurd. Political motives are at the core of the problem. And my shots are not cheap, they are rightfully expensive.

Nick, you are proud of your education, so why do you insist on dragging everything down to the level of an ignorant guttersnipe? You cannot solve political problems by needlessly polarizing issues. In addition, energy is a political issue only because some people choose to make it so. It is obvious why you made the choice. More opportunity for fun, fun, fun mudslinging.

Oh yes, I know your expensive shots are the ones you share with Hillary.
Bill

 

[Nickodell]

Bill: Your complaint reminds me of an old adage - The definition of nagging: The constant repetition of the truth. And I don't recall boasting about my formal education. It is what it is; most of it was irrelevant to my later life and my grades were mediocre. Up to the first year of grad school I was more interested in deferring the draft. Had a change of heart a year later. I don't even count my proficiency [is that boasting?] in English. It really just grew on me by osmosis, as it were, from having educated parents who corrected my speech and a house full of books that I worked my way through as soon as I could read. Do me a favor and dig out one of my statements saying that I am "proud" of my education.

Rick: Like just about any other new idea, there are always drawbacks. On the face of it, wind-turbine generated electricity has nothing but positives. But experience in various parts of the world offers a few disadvantages not always obvious.

The first is that manufacturing and installing a wind turbine has an associated CO2 cost! While I don't buy the direct causal relationship between CO2 increase and atmospheric warming (warming actually preceeds and causes the CO2 increase), this is holy writ for environmental extremists. Ireland is busily installing wind farms, and last year conducted a review of the costs and environmental impacts. Surprisingly, manufacture of the turbine, generator, associated gear and concrete base (becauase of soft ground, each large one takes a concrete platform half the size of a football field) results in the production of so much CO2 that they estimate it will take up to 16 years to reach break even, a much longer time than initially estimated in view of the average expected lifespan of the turbine of 20-25 years.

FPL Inc., one of the largest builders and installers of wind turbines in the US states that it costs about $2,000 for each kilowatt of rated power. They project that into around $1.7 million for a 1 megawatt installation, with all the associated expenses (not $2 mm, as there is a volume saving on multiple installations). And rated power is the maximum possible continuous output; the real average output, taking strong winds, light winds and dead calms into account, is 29% of rated (although there are sites in the US where wind speeds are more constant). A similar gas-fired generating plant, in comparison, can be built for less than half this and run much closer to rated power, as it is not dependent on wind speed.

The loss of wildlife is not insignificant, either. The wind farm at Altamont Pass, CA, kills up to 1,300 birds of prey each year, including golden eagles and vultures, and also storks. And that doesn't count smaller birds, and is for just one farm. Multiply this by the thousands that would be needed to supply a large proportion of the country's electric power ....

My only point here is that wind-generated power is not a panacea. Everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when he saw his mother-in-law drive his new Jaguar off a cliff.