OT: Making bigger wind-turbines 5.6MW now, 12MW soon.

On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 16:18:03 +0100, Piotr Wyderski
<peter.pan@neverland.mil> wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote:

Individual wind turbines go up to 5.6MW at the moment, should hit 10MW shortly, and 12MW isn't much further away.

Unfortunately, when there is no wind, both variants are 0MW turbines. So
you need a backup power plant to fill the gap. Greta wouldn't enjoy a
sudden blackout, I'm afraid.

Best regards, Piotr

We are having large-area week-long blackouts in northern California
now, basically PG&E teaching the politicians and customers a lesson on
the value of electricity. And the value of forest management.

At 100% renewable, mostly from wind and solar, there will be
blackouts. People here are buying gasoline-powered generators to keep
their beer cold and to charge their Teslas.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 9:31:55 AM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:

bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote...

Wind power is out, too wasteful and very expensive to procure,
install and maintain. Ocean environments are the harshest in
the world.

Tell that to England, where "Renewables provide nearly a third
of power in the UK and half is generated from wind." And more
massive additional offshore wind farms are coming online soon.
"The cost of new offshore wind has fallen by 50% since 2015."

UK is used to paying exorbitant prices for everything, they run 20 cents per kWH.

https://www.energycentral.com/c/ec/average-price-electricity-country-country

Germany is ridiculous.

They're going to look puuuuretty stupid when small modular reactor (SMR) technology is finally accepted. SMRs don't cost billions and take decades to construct.

--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[Rick C]

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 12:07:39 PM UTC-4, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 11:03:41 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 9:02:21 AM UTC-4, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 7:31:59 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
IEEE Spectrum published this piece recently

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-turbines-just-keep-getting-bigger-but-theres-a-limit

Individual wind turbines go up to 5.6MW at the moment, should hit 10MW shortly, and 12MW isn't much further away.

The article contemplates what a 100MW wind turbine would look like, but thinks that it is some way off.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

So what if Spectrum publishes an article on it, it's for simpletons.
Wind power is out, too wasteful and very expensive to procure, install and maintain. Ocean environments are the harshest in the world. .

Nuclear is one answer but it's pretty much being ignored.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-problems-you-didn-t-know-nuclear-could-solve

Another answer is massive reduction of the population. Since people have been uncooperative about this, they're going to be reduced the hard way..

You seem to be a bit confused. You stated the limitations of nuclear but use the words "Wind power" with them. Same with the issues of wind power, but you used the name 'Nuclear".

Your link is to one of the lamest rationalizations of using nuclear I've ever seen. They talk about using nuclear for desalinization because nuclear produces energy. Duh! So does every other type of electrical generation. It even talks about producing hydrogen for autos even though we have no hydrogen cars, no hydrogen infrastructure and no proposed plans for putting any of this in place. I believe the hydrogen future is safely in the past.

You're completely out of touch. The applications listed on the DoE page are there because 1) these are critically important applications requiring lots of energy, and 2) DoE has invested billions into R&D transitioning all of these tasks into mature technologies.

Hydrogen powered transportation, automotive and rail, is well developed worldwide, no research required. Laying down some refilling stations is not a big deal for the U.S. It's something that can nearly be done overnight. Hydrogen power has a presence on the west coast powering fleet vehicles.

https://www.reuters.com/brandfeatures/venture-capital/article?id=139544

The guy with no fingers is telling me I'm out of touch!!!?

He also says it is a simple matter to build a hydrogen infrastructure "nearly" overnight! LOL I guess that's true in that it wouldn't need to actually provide much hydrogen since there are so few hydrogen powered cars.

None of that bs is important since the single biggest drawback of nuclear is the overly high construction costs and the cost and schedule uncertainty. No one builds plants costing $20 unless they are very, very certain they will make a profit and they will be built in a known time frame. Every nuclear construction project in the US and every one I've read about in the EU are massively overrun and years behind schedule. Even when they project to be done within a year they have more schedule delays and billions more added to the costs. It's a bit like Zeno's paradox. Before they finish they have to reach the halfway point, then they must be within 1/4 of finishing, then 1/8,...

Nuclear just plain costs too much in the face of ever lowering costs of renewables.

--

Rick C.

-+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 12:08:26 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 16:18:03 +0100, Piotr Wyderski
peter.pan@neverland.mil> wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote:

Individual wind turbines go up to 5.6MW at the moment, should hit 10MW shortly, and 12MW isn't much further away.

Unfortunately, when there is no wind, both variants are 0MW turbines. So
you need a backup power plant to fill the gap. Greta wouldn't enjoy a
sudden blackout, I'm afraid.

Best regards, Piotr

We are having large-area week-long blackouts in northern California
now, basically PG&E teaching the politicians and customers a lesson on
the value of electricity. And the value of forest management.

At 100% renewable, mostly from wind and solar, there will be
blackouts. People here are buying gasoline-powered generators to keep
their beer cold and to charge their Teslas.

I think it is more a lesson about living in California where people can't get their shit together.

--

Rick C.

-++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Winfield Hill]

bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote...

UK is used to paying exorbitant prices for everything,
they run 20 cents per kWH.

That's exactly what I pay in Stoneham, MA.


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 12:56:31 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 12:07:39 PM UTC-4, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 11:03:41 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 9:02:21 AM UTC-4, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 7:31:59 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
IEEE Spectrum published this piece recently

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-turbines-just-keep-getting-bigger-but-theres-a-limit

Individual wind turbines go up to 5.6MW at the moment, should hit 10MW shortly, and 12MW isn't much further away.

The article contemplates what a 100MW wind turbine would look like, but thinks that it is some way off.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

So what if Spectrum publishes an article on it, it's for simpletons..
Wind power is out, too wasteful and very expensive to procure, install and maintain. Ocean environments are the harshest in the world. .

Nuclear is one answer but it's pretty much being ignored.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-problems-you-didn-t-know-nuclear-could-solve

Another answer is massive reduction of the population. Since people have been uncooperative about this, they're going to be reduced the hard way.

You seem to be a bit confused. You stated the limitations of nuclear but use the words "Wind power" with them. Same with the issues of wind power, but you used the name 'Nuclear".

Your link is to one of the lamest rationalizations of using nuclear I've ever seen. They talk about using nuclear for desalinization because nuclear produces energy. Duh! So does every other type of electrical generation. It even talks about producing hydrogen for autos even though we have no hydrogen cars, no hydrogen infrastructure and no proposed plans for putting any of this in place. I believe the hydrogen future is safely in the past.

You're completely out of touch. The applications listed on the DoE page are there because 1) these are critically important applications requiring lots of energy, and 2) DoE has invested billions into R&D transitioning all of these tasks into mature technologies.

Hydrogen powered transportation, automotive and rail, is well developed worldwide, no research required. Laying down some refilling stations is not a big deal for the U.S. It's something that can nearly be done overnight. Hydrogen power has a presence on the west coast powering fleet vehicles.

https://www.reuters.com/brandfeatures/venture-capital/article?id=139544

The guy with no fingers is telling me I'm out of touch!!!?

He also says it is a simple matter to build a hydrogen infrastructure "nearly" overnight! LOL I guess that's true in that it wouldn't need to actually provide much hydrogen since there are so few hydrogen powered cars.

None of that bs is important since the single biggest drawback of nuclear is the overly high construction costs and the cost and schedule uncertainty. No one builds plants costing $20 unless they are very, very certain they will make a profit and they will be built in a known time frame. Every nuclear construction project in the US and every one I've read about in the EU are massively overrun and years behind schedule. Even when they project to be done within a year they have more schedule delays and billions more added to the costs. It's a bit like Zeno's paradox. Before they finish they have to reach the halfway point, then they must be within 1/4 of finishing, then 1/8,...

Nuclear just plain costs too much in the face of ever lowering costs of renewables.

You've been brainwashed into oblivion. Do you know you need $3000.00 worth of solar panels installed to power your average coffee maker! And you say nuclear costs too much?

--

Rick C.

-+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Winfield Hill]

bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote...

You've been brainwashed into oblivion. Do you know you need
$3000.00 worth of solar panels installed to power your average
coffee maker! And you say nuclear costs too much?

Hmm, that'd get you six 300-watt panels installed.
Using my own roof measurements, they'd make 2300 kWh
a year. Is that what it takes to run a coffee maker?


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 11:03:41 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 9:02:21 AM UTC-4, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 7:31:59 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
IEEE Spectrum published this piece recently

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-turbines-just-keep-getting-bigger-but-theres-a-limit

Individual wind turbines go up to 5.6MW at the moment, should hit 10MW shortly, and 12MW isn't much further away.

The article contemplates what a 100MW wind turbine would look like, but thinks that it is some way off.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

So what if Spectrum publishes an article on it, it's for simpletons.
Wind power is out, too wasteful and very expensive to procure, install and maintain. Ocean environments are the harshest in the world. .

Nuclear is one answer but it's pretty much being ignored.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-problems-you-didn-t-know-nuclear-could-solve

Another answer is massive reduction of the population. Since people have been uncooperative about this, they're going to be reduced the hard way.

You seem to be a bit confused. You stated the limitations of nuclear but use the words "Wind power" with them. Same with the issues of wind power, but you used the name 'Nuclear".

Your link is to one of the lamest rationalizations of using nuclear I've ever seen. They talk about using nuclear for desalinization because nuclear produces energy. Duh! So does every other type of electrical generation.. It even talks about producing hydrogen for autos even though we have no hydrogen cars, no hydrogen infrastructure and no proposed plans for putting any of this in place. I believe the hydrogen future is safely in the past..

In the immediate future, it's worth noting that hydrogen fuel cells are poised to be the backup storage energy technology of choice for all the intermittent renewables. This stuff with massive batteries made out of conflict minerals is idiotic. Same goes for all this other junk with hydro reservoirs..

--

Rick C.

++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 09:12:08 +0000, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 31/10/19 02:46, Winfield Hill wrote:
Rick C wrote...

I assume the blade length and so the tower height scales
with the square root of the power?

Wind velocity and constancy improve at higher elevations.

Above a few hundred meters, the wind speed and direction is quite
constant. Look at aviation forecasts for 1000FT and 2000Ft. compare
these with surface forecasts.

While at higher altitudes, the wind speed is quite constant, the
surface roughness will cause turbulence closer to the surface. In a
grassy field he air speed at the grass root level is practically zero.
The air speed varies with altitude.

Above more or less flat sea surface, the air speed starts to drop
below 100-200 m. However, above rough terrain, the turbulent air may
start below 700 m (2000 ft).

I don't think wind constancy improves with height
(above ground), although it does with altitude
(above sea level).

The absolute altitude doesn't matter, only the surface roughness (sea,
grass field, forest, city) will effect how badly turbulence is
experienced at different altitudes.

Hence (unless you build a small
rotor on a high tower!) I don't think constancy
will be improved by increased windmill diameter.

Why not put a horizontal bar on top of a sufficiently high tower
(300-700 m) and put two rotors at the end of the horizontal bar.
Perhaps even an H-bar with four rotors. Swing the bar against the
wind.


>The key metric is power per unit land area.

This becomes an issue, if you have to put turbines behind each other.
As long as you only use a single row of turbines perpendicular against
prevailed wind, this is not so much an issue.

A key issue is that as wind turbines in a wind farm increase
in diameter, they have to be spaced further apart.
Unfortunately the diameters cancel, so power per unit land
area remains constant as diameter is increased. The estimate
of available onshore wind power for the UK is around 3W/m2.
N.B. that "m2" is *land* area, not rotor area.

However, if there is a stronger winds higher up, this will compensate
for this.

Then there is the issue of wind shear. As a rule of thumb,
doubling the height (above the surrounding countryside)
increases the windspeed by 10% and the power available
by 30%.

Compare the wind speed forecasts for 1000FT and 2000Ft and check how
much more power is available.

Source, and FFI: the TAoE of energy use and generation,
"Sustainable Energy - Without The Hot Air" p263-268
http://withouthotair.com/cB/page_263.shtml

The (free) pdf is probably more readable.

 

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 1:25:46 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:

bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote...

You've been brainwashed into oblivion. Do you know you need
$3000.00 worth of solar panels installed to power your average
coffee maker! And you say nuclear costs too much?

Hmm, that'd get you six 300-watt panels installed.
Using my own roof measurements, they'd make 2300 kWh
a year. Is that what it takes to run a coffee maker?


--
Thanks,
- Win

LOL- I was going by the quoted cost of home solar at $3/Watt installed and any kind of coffee maker drawing 1000W, but only for a few minutes. That's $3000 worth of panels without some kind of storage which is not cheap either.

 

[whit3rd]

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 9:56:31 AM UTC-7, Rick C wrote:

> ... the single biggest drawback of nuclear is the overly high construction costs and the cost and schedule uncertainty.

Arab oil embargo proves oil-power uncertainty, Russia controls natural gas in Europe, and
is an uncertainty to be dealt with, and 'schedule uncertainty' can be dealt with on a political
level, if you care to do so. There's NEVER been certainty, except for death and taxes.

Every nuclear construction project...when they project to be done within a year they have
more schedule delays and billions more added to the costs.

The press coverage suggests that, certainly. Or, it doesn't cover the issue at all.

> Nuclear just plain costs too much in the face of ever lowering costs of renewables.

'ever lowering costs' suggests you will extrapolate to infinity? Why not postulate
the same for nuclear, that's NOT realistic.

 

[Rick C]

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 1:01:16 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:

bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote...

UK is used to paying exorbitant prices for everything,
they run 20 cents per kWH.

That's exactly what I pay in Stoneham, MA.

That's well above average in the US. Are you getting juice from a nuke plant? I see why you have solar.

Have you looked into time of use billing? Here it cuts the cost of a kWh by a third. Generation is cut in half but distribution is the same.

--

Rick C.

+-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Rick C]

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 1:25:46 PM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:

bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote...

You've been brainwashed into oblivion. Do you know you need
$3000.00 worth of solar panels installed to power your average
coffee maker! And you say nuclear costs too much?

Hmm, that'd get you six 300-watt panels installed.
Using my own roof measurements, they'd make 2300 kWh
a year. Is that what it takes to run a coffee maker?

He's talking about power, not energy. So you would need to have up to 1500 watts according to Keurig. Oddly enough they say their unit uses 60 watts even when not brewing or keeping anything warm. That's one power hungry clock!

--

Rick C.

+-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Michael Terrell]

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 12:24:09 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 00:48:26 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 10:08:13 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 7:31:59 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
IEEE Spectrum published this piece recently

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-turbines-just-keep-getting-bigger-but-theres-a-limit

Individual wind turbines go up to 5.6MW at the moment, should hit 10MW shortly, and 12MW isn't much further away.

The article contemplates what a 100MW wind turbine would look like, but thinks that it is some way off.

I assume the blade length and so the tower height scales with the square root of the power? That means 100 MW turbines would need to be over four times taller than a 5.6 MW turbine. I found info on a 3.4 MW unit that is 809 feet tall (246 m). So we would be looking at a tower that would be something approaching a mile in height to collect 100 MW? I suppose the swept area could be less by finding more wind which I expect added height would do. So maybe half a mile tall? I have no concept of what that would imply in terms of visual impact or other problems.

I know some windmills produce low frequency vibrations people find objectionable. I'm pretty sure even at half a mile tall such a windmill would need to appear on maps for airplanes. It wouldn't just be a tower since the blades would be sweeping nearly a half a mile wide at the quarter mile height.


Towers 200 feet or taller require lighting, per FAA regulations. It is even lower, near airports. (Original call of WIYE) WACX-TV was denied 130 feet AAT at their original site, near Leesburg, Florida. Their new transmitter site had a 1700 foot tower that would never stand the wind loading for a windmill cost over $1,000,000 to build in the mid '80s.

Calculate the wind loading for a tower for a tower capable of supporting a 12MW windmill at that height. Don't forget the additional physical strength requirements for hurricane winds, or tornadoes.

WMRX in Destin was limited to 130 feet, because of the nearby Air Force Base.

We used to drive from New Orleans to Destin for vacation breaks.
Gorgeous dunes, warm water, and sugar-sand beaches, hardly anyone else
there. We'd never make a reservation, just drive up to some motel
across the highway from the beach. It was cheap.

When was this? I built a TV station (WMRX, Ch 58) in Destin almost 30 years ago. It was so crowded that it wasn't funny, and large areas of beach were off limits. They were either military property, or closed to protect the sea grass Ft. Walton Beach, and Sandestin were both tourist traps, and over priced. Anything along Highway 98 was expensive. It was so expensive that I lived in a camper, inside the TV station building while I installed and set up the transmitter.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Friday, November 1, 2019 at 12:08:54 PM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 09:11:38 -0700 (PDT),
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 9:31:55 AM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote...

Wind power is out, too wasteful and very expensive to procure,
install and maintain. Ocean environments are the harshest in
the world.

Tell that to England, where "Renewables provide nearly a third
of power in the UK and half is generated from wind." And more
massive additional offshore wind farms are coming online soon.
"The cost of new offshore wind has fallen by 50% since 2015."

UK is used to paying exorbitant prices for everything, they run 20 cents per kWH.

https://www.energycentral.com/c/ec/average-price-electricity-country-country

Germany is ridiculous.

They're going to look puuuuretty stupid when small modular reactor (SMR) technology is finally accepted. SMRs don't cost billions and take decades to construct.


There is such fear of radiation that 5G is hard to sell. Neighborhood
nukes are impossible.

Natural gas is great clean fuel, and people keep finding more.

Burning natural gas releases less CO2 per kilowatt hour generated that burning coal - a bit more than half as much (490 gm per kW.hr versus 820).

It's not compatible with slowing down anthropogenic global warming.

John Larkin isn't worried about anthropogenic global warming, but less gullible people take it seriously.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Friday, November 1, 2019 at 2:18:09 AM UTC+11, Piotr Wyderski wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote:

Individual wind turbines go up to 5.6MW at the moment, should hit 10MW shortly, and 12MW isn't much further away.

Unfortunately, when there is no wind, both variants are 0MW turbines. So
you need a backup power plant to fill the gap. Greta wouldn't enjoy a
sudden blackout, I'm afraid.

Wind turbines and solar power are both intermittent power sources.

The answer to that is battery and pumped storage.

Geographical diversity and and an extended grid can help with wind power - the UK isn't big enough for this to work, but it has links to France, Ireland and the Netherlands and there's a new one under construction to Norway.

https://www.ft.com/content/52e957a6-b64a-11e6-ba85-95d1533d9a62

The back-up power plant already exists - even coal-fired power stations break-down from time to time and big fast-start gas turbines don't cost all that much to sustain in a ready-to-go state.

The existence of the kind of infrequently used back-up capacity makes a lot of difference to amount of stored power you need - a recent MIT study went into that.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 13:24:22 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell
<terrell.michael.a@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 12:24:09 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 00:48:26 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 10:08:13 PM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 7:31:59 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
IEEE Spectrum published this piece recently

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-turbines-just-keep-getting-bigger-but-theres-a-limit

Individual wind turbines go up to 5.6MW at the moment, should hit 10MW shortly, and 12MW isn't much further away.

The article contemplates what a 100MW wind turbine would look like, but thinks that it is some way off.

I assume the blade length and so the tower height scales with the square root of the power? That means 100 MW turbines would need to be over four times taller than a 5.6 MW turbine. I found info on a 3.4 MW unit that is 809 feet tall (246 m). So we would be looking at a tower that would be something approaching a mile in height to collect 100 MW? I suppose the swept area could be less by finding more wind which I expect added height would do. So maybe half a mile tall? I have no concept of what that would imply in terms of visual impact or other problems.

I know some windmills produce low frequency vibrations people find objectionable. I'm pretty sure even at half a mile tall such a windmill would need to appear on maps for airplanes. It wouldn't just be a tower since the blades would be sweeping nearly a half a mile wide at the quarter mile height.


Towers 200 feet or taller require lighting, per FAA regulations. It is even lower, near airports. (Original call of WIYE) WACX-TV was denied 130 feet AAT at their original site, near Leesburg, Florida. Their new transmitter site had a 1700 foot tower that would never stand the wind loading for a windmill cost over $1,000,000 to build in the mid '80s.

Calculate the wind loading for a tower for a tower capable of supporting a 12MW windmill at that height. Don't forget the additional physical strength requirements for hurricane winds, or tornadoes.

WMRX in Destin was limited to 130 feet, because of the nearby Air Force Base.

We used to drive from New Orleans to Destin for vacation breaks.
Gorgeous dunes, warm water, and sugar-sand beaches, hardly anyone else
there. We'd never make a reservation, just drive up to some motel
across the highway from the beach. It was cheap.

When was this? I built a TV station (WMRX, Ch 58) in Destin almost 30 years ago. It was so crowded that it wasn't funny, and large areas of beach were off limits. They were either military property, or closed to protect the sea grass Ft. Walton Beach, and Sandestin were both tourist traps, and over priced. Anything along Highway 98 was expensive. It was so expensive that I lived in a camper, inside the TV station building while I installed and set up the transmitter.

Late 60s, when I was in college.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

On Thu, 31 Oct 2019 09:11:38 -0700 (PDT),
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 9:31:55 AM UTC-4, Winfield Hill wrote:
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote...

Wind power is out, too wasteful and very expensive to procure,
install and maintain. Ocean environments are the harshest in
the world.

Tell that to England, where "Renewables provide nearly a third
of power in the UK and half is generated from wind." And more
massive additional offshore wind farms are coming online soon.
"The cost of new offshore wind has fallen by 50% since 2015."

UK is used to paying exorbitant prices for everything, they run 20 cents per kWH.

https://www.energycentral.com/c/ec/average-price-electricity-country-country

Germany is ridiculous.

They're going to look puuuuretty stupid when small modular reactor (SMR) technology is finally accepted. SMRs don't cost billions and take decades to construct.

There is such fear of radiation that 5G is hard to sell. Neighborhood
nukes are impossible.

Natural gas is great clean fuel, and people keep finding more.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

lunatic fringe electronics

 

[Rick C]

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 9:21:33 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:

On Friday, November 1, 2019 at 2:18:09 AM UTC+11, Piotr Wyderski wrote:
Bill Sloman wrote:

Individual wind turbines go up to 5.6MW at the moment, should hit 10MW shortly, and 12MW isn't much further away.

Unfortunately, when there is no wind, both variants are 0MW turbines. So
you need a backup power plant to fill the gap. Greta wouldn't enjoy a
sudden blackout, I'm afraid.

Wind turbines and solar power are both intermittent power sources.

The answer to that is battery and pumped storage.

What's wrong with gas turbines as intermittent backup? The main cost of gas turbines is the fuel. I would expect the cost of using them intermittently would be close to proportional to their use. Reducing the carbon footprint of gas turbines by not using them 80% of the time would be enormous.

Geographical diversity and and an extended grid can help with wind power - the UK isn't big enough for this to work, but it has links to France, Ireland and the Netherlands and there's a new one under construction to Norway..

https://www.ft.com/content/52e957a6-b64a-11e6-ba85-95d1533d9a62

The back-up power plant already exists - even coal-fired power stations break-down from time to time and big fast-start gas turbines don't cost all that much to sustain in a ready-to-go state.

The existence of the kind of infrequently used back-up capacity makes a lot of difference to amount of stored power you need - a recent MIT study went into that.

Ok, so it's not a terrible idea to use the gas as a backup for renewables. I know it really goes against the grain for a lot of people. Of course they just don't want to consider that we need to reduce our carbon footprint.

--

Rick C.

++- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Friday, November 1, 2019 at 3:51:53 AM UTC+11, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:

On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 11:03:41 AM UTC-4, Rick C wrote:
On Thursday, October 31, 2019 at 9:02:21 AM UTC-4, bloggs.fre...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wednesday, October 30, 2019 at 7:31:59 PM UTC-4, Bill Sloman wrote:
IEEE Spectrum published this piece recently

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/wind-turbines-just-keep-getting-bigger-but-theres-a-limit

Individual wind turbines go up to 5.6MW at the moment, should hit 10MW shortly, and 12MW isn't much further away.

The article contemplates what a 100MW wind turbine would look like, but thinks that it is some way off.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

So what if Spectrum publishes an article on it, it's for simpletons.
Wind power is out, too wasteful and very expensive to procure, install and maintain. Ocean environments are the harshest in the world. .

Nuclear is one answer but it's pretty much being ignored.
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-problems-you-didn-t-know-nuclear-could-solve

Another answer is massive reduction of the population. Since people have been uncooperative about this, they're going to be reduced the hard way..

You seem to be a bit confused. You stated the limitations of nuclear but use the words "Wind power" with them. Same with the issues of wind power, but you used the name 'Nuclear".

Your link is to one of the lamest rationalizations of using nuclear I've ever seen. They talk about using nuclear for desalinization because nuclear produces energy. Duh! So does every other type of electrical generation. It even talks about producing hydrogen for autos even though we have no hydrogen cars, no hydrogen infrastructure and no proposed plans for putting any of this in place. I believe the hydrogen future is safely in the past.

In the immediate future, it's worth noting that hydrogen fuel cells are poised to be the backup storage energy technology of choice for all the intermittent renewables. This stuff with massive batteries made out of conflict minerals is idiotic. Same goes for all this other junk with hydro reservoirs.

The hydrogen fuel cell advocates go quiet when you ask them how much of the power you use to generate the hydrogen in the first place can be recovered from the fuel cells.

It's about a factor three less than you can get out of a battery system.

The Australian advocates want to liquify most of the hydrogen generated and ship it off to Japan and South Korea in tankers. Neither country is a great place for solar farms.

The Australian domestic market is going to rely on batteries and pumped hydroelectric storage, but the hydrogen freaks gloss over this.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney