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Offshore wind will be a $1T industry by 2040, but it's needed now

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Re: Offshore wind will be a $1T industry by 2040, but it's needed now

#21

Post by ScottBurson »

jandrese wrote: post #4
account73466 wrote: post #2

Will wind turbines accelerate climate change? edit: during its exploitation I was involved in design of Wind Farms and they affect wind directions at least locally. Naturally, they change climate locally. The question is how local is not global enough.

In terms of pulling out excess energy from the atmosphere then yes. But the effect will likely be too small to measure on a global scale. Note that the acceleration in here will be in the reverse direction. Plus the heat will eventually be re-released back into the atmosphere thanks to thermodynamics. The majority of the savings will come from offsetting carbon emitting sources of power.

No, pulling out excess energy from the atmosphere will not accelerate climate change -- quite the opposite, though I don't know that the effect will be significant.

Re: Offshore wind will be a $1T industry by 2040, but it's needed now

#24

Post by tda »

macspoofing wrote: post #10
peteradio wrote: post #7

How easy to maintain are these? Have they gotten better in the last decade? I see these things failing all the time around me but perhaps they are just shitty and better manufacturing saves the day?

>How easy to maintain are these? The current lifespan of wind turbines is around 20 years (but 15 years is closer to reality). So ... not great.

Do you have some sources? All windfarms I know of are designed for at least 25 years. Not many have reached that age yet, so if they last is yet to be seen.

The first offshore wind farm Vindeby was decommissioned in 2016 (after 25 years) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindeby_Offshore_Wind_Farm

In 2015 Yttre Stengrund (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yttre_Stengrund_offshore_wind_...) was decommissioned after only 14 years in service. But that was a really small park and the decision to do so was mainly economical as the turbines were rare and thus spare parts expensive. had just a few (<10) and really small (<2MW) turbines. Currently parks are designed/built with perhaps 100x9MW turbines. Because fo the scale differnece, older parks are reach end of life more for economical than purely technical reasons. The same reason why computers only lasted a few years in the early 2000's: they just became so much better so quickly that there was no economic point in holding on to them for more than that.

Re: Offshore wind will be a $1T industry by 2040, but it's needed now

#25

Post by xwdv »

cagenut wrote: post #12
peteradio wrote: post #7

How easy to maintain are these? Have they gotten better in the last decade? I see these things failing all the time around me but perhaps they are just shitty and better manufacturing saves the day?

remember how there used to be articles about how google wouldn't bother to replace failed hardware in racks because it was easier to just map around it? thats what wind and solar are like for the grid. its pets vs. cattle gone terrawatt.

They won’t replace it right away but a spelunker will eventually get to it after some years.

Re: Offshore wind will be a $1T industry by 2040, but it's needed now

#26

Post by OnlineGladiator »

hirundo wrote: post #22

How many birds is it worth sacrificing to build huge wind turbine farms instead of compact nuclear reactors? Is the worst case of a Chernobyl or Fukushima worse than the expected case from square miles of spinning blades?

I don't mean to insult your comment, but this is the first time I've heard someone say "think of the birds!"

How many birds are the turbines killing and what kind of impact is it having on ecosystems?

Re: Offshore wind will be a $1T industry by 2040, but it's needed now

#27

Post by tda »

So disappointing journalists never understand the difference between power and energy. The opening sentences make me cringe so much I don't even want to read the rest of the article

> Last month the American wind industry hit a major milestone — 100 gigawatts of total installed capacity. That's enough electricity to power the state of California and New Jersey combined for one year.

Re: Offshore wind will be a $1T industry by 2040, but it's needed now

#28

Post by throwaway5752 »

hirundo wrote: post #22

How many birds is it worth sacrificing to build huge wind turbine farms instead of compact nuclear reactors? Is the worst case of a Chernobyl or Fukushima worse than the expected case from square miles of spinning blades?

You've got to be incredibly concerned about feral domesticated cats and window collisions, which kill 1,000-10,000 times more birds annually (on the upper end between the two orders of magnitude) between them.

Re: Offshore wind will be a $1T industry by 2040, but it's needed now

#29

Post by bryanlarsen »

tda wrote: post #15

By far the most wind turbines have been built on land and for good reason: it's much cheaper. As long as there is space/not too many people complaining it makes more sense to build on land. Not sure exactly but on land installed wind is probably ~10x the installed capacity offshore. However on land turbines are pretty much maxed out at about 7,5MW, due to logistical difficulties of getting larger blades, towers and n…

It was my impression that the main reason for building offshore is because the winds are much more steady there. The definition of trade wind is a "permanent prevailing wind"; building someplace with "permanent" winds sounds like a good idea to me.

Re: Offshore wind will be a $1T industry by 2040, but it's needed now

#30

Post by jlangenauer »

hirundo wrote: post #22

How many birds is it worth sacrificing to build huge wind turbine farms instead of compact nuclear reactors? Is the worst case of a Chernobyl or Fukushima worse than the expected case from square miles of spinning blades?

Not many at all. Wind turbines pose a negligible risk to birds:

http://theconversation.com/wind-farms-are-hardly-the-bird-sl...

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