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Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

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Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#31

Post by cwal37 »

grownseed wrote: post #17
krschultz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard the argument that current wind turbine are unsustainable before. I don't see why that would be so. The base is concrete, the tower is steel, neither of which is exotic. The generator is pretty standard. All of that is industrial tech we invented a century ago, and we know how to maintain it for the long haul. The blades themselves are composite, that may have some longevity issues (you typically need…

Thank you for your reply. I used to live in Scotland where there are a lot of wind turbines and I remember controversy in the news about the fact that while the expected lifespan of a wind turbine should be around 20 years, the actual lifespan ended up being in the region of 12 years, and the long-term maintenance costs ended up being higher than expected. There was also controversy about the environmental damage don…

It's a bit odd to be attempting to inform yourself of pros and cons you don't know, but also make a very strong opening statement about wind power. I work in the energy industry and I can honestly say I've never heard someone refer to wind turbines as "effectively unsustainable." Maybe, as a joke? But certainly not in any serious way.

If you want to learn more about wind in general you can cherry pick sections from the recently released Wind Vision[1]. It should be able to answer most anything you'd wonder about.

[1] http://www.energy.gov/windvision

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#32

Post by correlator »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #28

I think this is pretty cool, but several questions spring to mind which I haven't found good answers for. The first is what sort of density can you get out of these? How many per acre/hectare? 1? 3? California has a number of wind installations and some of them are pretty dense [1]. The second is what sort of radar signature does this thing have? Probably not a navigation hazard but should be interesting on the weath…

The density was the first thing that came to my mind as well. I would not want to be on the team responsible for untangling those cables!

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#33

Post by jdmichal »

giggles_giggles wrote: post #20
krschultz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard the argument that current wind turbine are unsustainable before. I don't see why that would be so. The base is concrete, the tower is steel, neither of which is exotic. The generator is pretty standard. All of that is industrial tech we invented a century ago, and we know how to maintain it for the long haul. The blades themselves are composite, that may have some longevity issues (you typically need…

My understanding is that, among other things, the generators come under extreme stress during exceptionally windy occasions, causing a lot of wear and tear that happens way up at the top of these giant windmills. These require a lot of manual maintenance, which is dangerous and expensive due to the nature (and location) of the work. Additionally (and as a demonstration of just how much stress they come under), while…

> Additionally (and as a demonstration of just how much stress they come under), while coming under said strain, they've been known to burst into flames

I thought all wind turbines were built with brakes now exactly to prevent this and other more spectacular failure modes, like the blades fragmenting. They have a defined operating range, and if the wind isn't in that range the brakes engage and the blades don't move.

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#36

Post by grownseed »

cwal37 wrote: post #31
grownseed wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your reply. I used to live in Scotland where there are a lot of wind turbines and I remember controversy in the news about the fact that while the expected lifespan of a wind turbine should be around 20 years, the actual lifespan ended up being in the region of 12 years, and the long-term maintenance costs ended up being higher than expected. There was also controversy about the environmental damage don…

It's a bit odd to be attempting to inform yourself of pros and cons you don't know, but also make a very strong opening statement about wind power. I work in the energy industry and I can honestly say I've never heard someone refer to wind turbines as "effectively unsustainable." Maybe, as a joke? But certainly not in any serious way. If you want to learn more about wind in general you can cherry pick sections from t…

I honestly wasn't trying to make a strong statement, but given the reactions and the downvotes, it does seem like I didn't come across as intended, my apologies for that.

And thank you for the reference, I will make sure to read through it as soon as I get more time.

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#37

Post by scholia »

untog wrote: post #34
callesgg wrote: post #10

Good, could people just stop messing with how scrolling works.

I agree, but I'm starting to get sick of every Hacker News discussion talking about this rather than the actual content of the page.

It's always worth complaining about this sort of crap, even if it doesn't have any impact on the ardent followers of web design fashion....

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#38

Post by dredmorbius »

callesgg wrote: post #10

Good, could people just stop messing with how scrolling works.

Christ on a stick. I don't usually flag posts for how utterly broken the sites are, but this is beyond utterly fucking broken.

I saw the comments about iOS, it's no better on Chrome.

Re: Google Makani – Wind Energy Kites

#39

Post by beat »

jemofthewest wrote: post #21
grownseed wrote: post #4

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that wind turbines were effectively unsustainable due to the materials they are made of and their actual lifespan not offsetting the initial financial and environmental costs. Now, I understand that this project is supposed to provide greater versatility and efficiency using cheaper materials, but it seems to me (by no means an expert on the subject) that…

One of the bigger issues with wind energy (solar also) that this solution doesn't address is the distribution. These energy sources don't have consistent output, and definitely do not match peak requirements. In other words, at times they will produce far more than needed and others far less. The solution to this could be smart grids and energy storage, neither of which are really at a feasible point at scale yet. Bu…

Baseline + peak load grids is a much more complex problem. But that said, it doesn't mean wind isn't helpful or useful - it just means some grid design change.

Consider this - any energy captured from wind can be stored, at some known percentage of loss due to thermal and other inefficiencies. Heck, wind a spring with it! This is going to be less efficient, but not orders of magnitude so - and it still keeps us on clean and relatively inexpensive wind, as opposed to dirty and increasingly expensive fossil fuels.

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