Wind Energy

i read up on those batteries,very interesting, one wonders why it so difficult to store power.

For the sake of the discussion lets say that the the mills are producing 10% of the electricty needed. Then there is nothing stopping the building of 10 times as many farms. This does not even include a few neighbours from putting up a small one to take care of their own requirements. So put up your mill lads and get your electric or air car and tell Cowen and Barboso to screw. The group could own a couple of petrol vans for a long journey. Cowen does not want this to develop and even though that might be hard to believe his actions speak otherwise.

will he not be pushing for the the privatisation of the transmission network

That sounds like a good idea, but what are the details. If it allows groups to use the existing wires then that is great. If socialists ever had a reasonable argument it would be that the wires belong to the people. If this proposal means that the wires are privately owned then is it not clear whose side Cowen is on. If anybody has the details.

lostexpectation wrote:

i read up on those batteries,very interesting, one wonders why it so difficult to store power.

It is a big question LE, but on a technical level, it's storing energy not power. I might start a thread on the difference .

lostexpectation wrote:

will he not be pushing for the the privatisation of the transmission network

youngdan wrote:

That sounds like a good idea, but what are the details. If it allows groups to use the existing wires then that is great. If socialists ever had a reasonable argument it would be that the wires belong to the people. If this proposal means that the wires are privately owned then is it not clear whose side Cowen is on. If anybody has the details.

This is the Eirgrid fiasco going on presently. The wires and almost everything (power stations) are owned jointly by the ESB and Eirgrid at present. Both are state companies, well, the ESB is semi-state whatever that means - there are private shareholders or something.

Eamon Ryan is the Minister responsible for this now and the proposal is - and I'd love to know if it's Green Party policy - that the wires be taken over completely by Eirgrid, a state company, and the rest privatised i.e. power stations. There is talk of EON, the German company, buying Tarbert in Kerry and running it privately - currently it is an oil-fired station but there is also talk of it getting converted to gas.

So the plan is that the state take control of the wires and other bits of the transmission system just like they should have done with Eircom, and the end-points, the suppliers, let loose on the market.

It's never that easy though is it? The ESB shareholders do not want to let go of the wires to the state because they feel it would asset-strip them ... So the wires are currently owned by some of the people but Ryan will fight a valiant fight to get the wires off them. I saw in the paper recently that it might be delayed for two more years now ..

The only things privatised are the wind farms. (are there any decent alternatives to the words 'privatised' and 'public'/'state-owned' etc?)

Even if a fee had to be paid for the use of the wires it would not be too bad. It is strange to see the Irish government doing what Bush is doing here. I predict that big companies will be given the running of toll roads there. Public/private partnerships is fascist system.

The Spanish have continued to telemeter their turbines - the green and yellow lines are the estimated and telemetered graphs of their electricity production via wind. Both lines should overlap once all their units are telemetered.

Good stuff. Now 77% telemetered.
I don't know why they didn't put it in at the start though.

Some bits and pieces from the interweb

Offshore wind power park announced for Delaware

Quote :

Bluewater spokesman Jim Lanard said the power company will get about 16 percent of its electricity from a field of 150 wind turbines, anchored in the seafloor about a dozen miles off Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

The contract with Delmarva would use less than half the projected generating capacity the energy park is expected to have when completed. The rest would be sold to other customers.

The project's cost is estimated at $1.6 billion, according to a project official with Bluewater.

The offshore site is expected to be operational within four years, but the timing depends on how quickly regulatory agencies can review and approve the construction project.

Using electricity generated by the wind, "Delmarva Power will be able to light about 50,000 homes a year, every year" for the duration of the 25-year contract, Lanard said, with first power expected by 2012.

He said the project may help stabilize consumer energy costs, since the contract locks in the price Delmarva will pay per kilowatt-hour.

Rotating Skyscraper which doubles as Wind Turbine - Ecogeek

Can ye really see it happening lads ? A revolving tower that size ? Mother of ..

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/25/duibai.tower/index.html?eref=rss_tech

What about some Nano Vent Skin technology for your skyscraper.

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

What about some Nano Vent Skin technology for your skyscraper.

Nanotech - great stuff. Is there such thing as nano wind though? And how far is that lattice of little turbines possible with current technology? There must be a few good nanotech books we can put on the book club...

The information in the video about the sunlight producing 1.5eV per photon and a molecule of water requiring 1.23eV in order to split it up into Hydrogen and Oxygen thereby creating hydrogen directly from sunlight with no energy inputs (in theory) was interesting and will have me thinking for the next few weeks.

Auditor #9 wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

What about some Nano Vent Skin technology for your skyscraper.

Nanotech - great stuff. Is there such thing as nano wind though? And how far is that lattice of little turbines possible with current technology? There must be a few good nanotech books we can put on the book club...

The information in the video about the sunlight producing 1.5eV per photon and a molecule of water requiring 1.23eV in order to split it up into Hydrogen and Oxygen thereby creating hydrogen directly from sunlight with no energy inputs (in theory) was interesting and will have me thinking for the next few weeks.

Far enough for a motorway tunnel. http://nanoventskin.blogspot.com/

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

EvotingMachine0197 wrote:

What about some Nano Vent Skin technology for your skyscraper.

Nanotech - great stuff. Is there such thing as nano wind though? And how far is that lattice of little turbines possible with current technology? There must be a few good nanotech books we can put on the book club...

The information in the video about the sunlight producing 1.5eV per photon and a molecule of water requiring 1.23eV in order to split it up into Hydrogen and Oxygen thereby creating hydrogen directly from sunlight with no energy inputs (in theory) was interesting and will have me thinking for the next few weeks.

Far enough for a motorway tunnel. http://nanoventskin.blogspot.com/

Each wind turbine is 25mm long by 10.8mm wide.

Bah that's micro not nano

Interesting to put a skin like that on a car as they intimate at the bottom of the page, saying there might be problems with friction. Could more energy be gained in electricity from say the roof of a moving car (or the back) than is lost due to friction?

Those micro turbines are use like solar panels too on the sides of houses and stuff - cool isn't it? The material itself is made from stuff that is photosensitive so it gets the best of all worlds.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Bah that's micro not nano

They're unsing nano because of the molecular goop, not the grid.

Quote :

Interesting to put a skin like that on a car as they intimate at the bottom of the page, saying there might be problems with friction. Could more energy be gained in electricity from say the roof of a moving car (or the back) than is lost due to friction?

No, that would be like a perpetual motion machine, efficiency would have to be greater than 100%

Nice idea. Construction would be much cheaper, being able to build them in dry dock and tow them out. Also you can tow them back to shore for easier maintenance.

I wouldn't like to see one wash up on Portmarnock beach though. So I hope theos chains are tough.

Massive wind farm - 456MW - gets consent in Scotland. Yippee!

Airtricity are going to build the biggest windfarm in Europe according to breaking news on the left hand side there. Finfacts has some facts

Quote :

The wind farm will eventually have up to 152 turbines and construction work is expected to begin later in this financial year. First commissioning is scheduled for 2010 and completion of both phases scheduled for 2011. Its development is expected to require the investment of around £600m, which is included within SSE’s existing plans to invest £2.5bn in renewable energy in the UK and Ireland over the next five years.

http://www.finfacts.com/irishfinancenews/article_1014248.shtml

The "in planning" area of the Airtricity site says the farm was planned to be a bit bigger at 580MW so it wasn't cut by much. The war of attrition continues on the wind.

http://www.airtricity.com/wales/wind_farms/scotland/in_planning/clyde/

According to THIS, Sweden is going to construct something enormous - 3-3.5 Gigawatts (the irish grid demand is about 5 gigawatts annually on average). They hope to complete this by 2020.

We won't feel it until we're buying wind-created energy from the Swedes...

It is bloddy huge though. 250sqkm to maintain every year? Considering the ongoing failure of a more realistic London array, I think this is a bad idea.

Wind is currently fine for low poers. But at higher power, the area and maintenance therof becomes massive (and one might say unsustainable). Remember the london array needed 341 turbines for 1 GW. That is a lot of maintenance.

riven wrote:

It is bloddy huge though. 250sqkm to maintain every year? Considering the ongoing failure of a more realistic London array, I think this is a bad idea.

Wind is currently fine for low poers. But at higher power, the area and maintenance therof becomes massive (and one might say unsustainable). Remember the london array needed 341 turbines for 1 GW. That is a lot of maintenance.

Is the area in which it is located a considerable factor in the maintenance? Would it not be in upland areas without tree cover or much vegetation?

Fair point on the maintenance of the turbines offshore. Still, isn't it comparable to the cost of maintenance of coal or other fossil fuel stations (possibly not gas) ? I'm sure the offset on imported fossil fuels could more than pay for the maintenance.

The wind arrays being built in fairness must be backed up by fossil fuel stations which are sensitive enough to respond to the presence of green electricity in the grid. If the UK were to achieve their ambition of 50% wind generated electricity by 2020 that's 50% less fossil fuel per year. Not only will there be savings on the price of the fuel but the price of the carbon tax.

I do believe we need change but I do not believe that wind in its current technological format is the way to go.

The power produced is fine but a large number of seperate turbines are required. That is fine (in my opinion) for a distributed system (power close to usage source) but not for current centralised systems. There is too much focus on wind as is and not enough on its novel development (rather than simple extension of current technologies) or that of other power sources.

P.s. I thought that Britian were aiming 15% renewables by 2020.
p.p.s While 50% from wind does mean ~50% less fossil fuels for britan, it would requre approx 80,000+ turbines.

riven wrote:

P.s. I thought that Britian were aiming 15% renewables by 2020.
p.p.s While 50% from wind does mean ~50% less fossil fuels for britan, it would requre approx 80,000+ turbines.

Holy turbines even on top of mosques, batman

Here's their demand/production today - 40 GW
http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electricity/Data/Realtime/Demand/Demand60.htm

They'd need 20GW for half that and assuming that they used at least 7 MW turbines with a liberal assumption of a capacity factor of 50% (the 7MW turbines would be offshore) I get a figure closer to 12000 turbines ...

(if there were a higher capacity factor or a 10MW turbine developed .. )

Indeed if you look at this link they believe it is in the region of 11,000 turbines that might be built before 2020.

From it:

That 80K figure is incorrect, it is actually for total capacity (40GW).

Using the London array as an basis.

The London array is designed for 1000 MW but reality bites and it realistically would produce 630 MW. Take 63 MW for transmsiision and we are hovering around 550 MW for each London array. To get 20 GW that requires approx 36 arrays at 12,000 turbines.

Then you have to add in actual real innefficiencies (wind speed variance, downtime and Scotland), all of which head towards 25-30K turbines.