Wind engineers: why isn't "save the birds" as simple as a ring-enclosed sandwich of mesh screen, blades, mesh screen?
Wind Power Without the Mills
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Re: Wind Power Without the Mills
#22Again? AGAIN? Another "no blades! save the birds!" technology that's little more than a concept. There are constantly amazing technologies just around the corner that will definitely totally be awesomely better than existing 3 bladed horizontal axis wind turbine technology. And they'll always be less expensive than current technology somehow. Trust me, getting the cost right at this stage of the technology curve is a…
Decades? I would say it took centuries at least. The basic design hasn't changed since the middle ages.
Re: Wind Power Without the Mills
#23This says 'Because there is no contact between moving parts, there is no friction. Therefore no lubricant is required. No replacement of spare parts either.'
However, there are animations that show it wobbling.
This implies that it's made of a flexible substance. I'm not being so pedantic as to suggest that the fibres or crystals etc. of the substance are moving parts (though surely there is friction between them), but I do have a query:
In my completely anecdotal and limited experience of household bendy objects vs. household hinges; hinges win the longevity battle every time, even without regular application of lubricants. Also, when a bendy object fails, the whole thing needs to be replaced. On the other hand, when a mechanical part fails, I can replace the part and keep the rest of the object.
Can these things therefore really be cheaper to maintain than a mechanical wind turbine?
Re: Wind Power Without the Mills
#24I have repelled (using Industrial Rope Access) off hundreds of multi-megawatt Wind Turbines on $1B+ wind farms around the world to inspect and repair the 13+ ton fiberglass blades and wanted to give my 2 cents. [A clarification: Wind Turbines generate electricity, Wind Mills mill flour. It's a small but important detail.] Operation & Maintenance expense is my biggest issue with new technology. I have met many design…
I try not to be pedantic, but I was really confused for a minute- I believe you mean "rappel".
(Or if you want to sound fancy, "abseil")
Re: Wind Power Without the Mills
#25Wind engineers: why isn't "save the birds" as simple as a ring-enclosed sandwich of mesh screen, blades, mesh screen?
Because generally the birds don't really need saving from wind turbines.
Numbers from an unverified source: http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science... (other sites seems to agree on the cats vs turbine numbers)
Alternatively, from a source you might expect to be very biased in favour of birds: http://www.rspb.org.uk/forprofessionals/policy/windfarms/
Re: Wind Power Without the Mills
#26I have repelled (using Industrial Rope Access) off hundreds of multi-megawatt Wind Turbines on $1B+ wind farms around the world to inspect and repair the 13+ ton fiberglass blades and wanted to give my 2 cents. [A clarification: Wind Turbines generate electricity, Wind Mills mill flour. It's a small but important detail.] Operation & Maintenance expense is my biggest issue with new technology. I have met many design…
It would be really cool if the mast could retract, either using some kind of collapsing structure or a hole dug out underneath the structure. Great for repairs, also would allow a farm to retract for extreme weather events.
Re: Wind Power Without the Mills
#27oscillating: https://youtu.be/2_5K4kmnsL4?t=75
Re: Wind Power Without the Mills
#28Wind engineers: why isn't "save the birds" as simple as a ring-enclosed sandwich of mesh screen, blades, mesh screen?
Because generally the birds don't really need saving from wind turbines. Numbers from an unverified source: http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science... (other sites seems to agree on the cats vs turbine numbers) Alternatively, from a source you might expect to be very biased in favour of birds: http://www.rspb.org.uk/forprofessionals/policy/windfarms/
A problem with the estimates in the U.S. is that turbines disproportionately affect legally-protected birds, and so the numbers are suspected to be severely under reported.
Re: Wind Power Without the Mills
#29The comments here are amazingly negative -- personally, if I was to live off the grid, the 4kW, 40', 220lb version sounds pretty great to me. At 220lb, you could easily raise/lower the thing as one person with some sort of mechanism for installation/service. I'm really curious how much it'd cost in comparison to solar. Maybe someone can estimate with the "80% less maintenance cost, 53% manufacturing cost" than wind turbines bit.
Re: Wind Power Without the Mills
#30I have repelled (using Industrial Rope Access) off hundreds of multi-megawatt Wind Turbines on $1B+ wind farms around the world to inspect and repair the 13+ ton fiberglass blades and wanted to give my 2 cents. [A clarification: Wind Turbines generate electricity, Wind Mills mill flour. It's a small but important detail.] Operation & Maintenance expense is my biggest issue with new technology. I have met many design…
> a 2MW "mast" that can compete with today's technology is going to be crazy tall
I wonder about how the power generated scales as the size increases. It's 100W at 9', and 4kW at 40'. At ~4.5x the height there's 40x the power generated. It's foolish to assume the same exponential gains apply continuously, but given the reduced footprint, is it possible that laying out five of the 40' units is sufficient for 2MW (edit: wait, I totally fudged that math, so this point doesn't really make sense), and at that size, you might be able to just use a bucket truck for maintenance?
We shouldn't assume just because it's a new technology that the same problems don't need to be addressed, but we also shouldn't assume the same problems need to be addressed in the same manner. This article doesn't do a lot to explain the details, and as you've explained I've heard that maintenance of wind turbines is where a lot of the money to run wind farms goes, so it's interesting to look at new designs from the standpoint of how it may radically change maintenance, not just scale with the current methods.
That said, you obviously have more experience with this than me, so hopefully you'll be able to provide some more perspective on the ideas here.
P.S. Something that occurs to me is that I have no idea how they stop the oscillation caused by the wind for maintenance on those. You can lock the turbine blades, but I'm not sure how you prevent something made to oscillate naturally in the wind from doing so, easily.
P.P.S I totally messed up my math because I wasn't thinking straight, 5x4kW is not even close to 2MW. I'll leave this here for historical purpose, but much of my point lacks any weight now...