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

IEEE Spectrum published this piece recently

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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.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
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Bill Sloman
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Mikek

Reply to
amdx

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** All marketing hype.

** Way back in 1946, the Rolls Royce Limited ran a turbine engine called the Avon. By 1950 it was powering aircraft like this.

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The engine measures under 1m in diameter and a tad over 3m long.

It weighs about 1300 kg.

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Current models put out 21,000shp operating on natural gas and are used for generating electricity and gas compression.

Generator sets with the engine output 15MW, nice and steady, all day.

No wind necessary, around 30,000 hours (3.5 years) between overhauls.

Huge, ugly wind mills have some catching up to do.

.... Phil

..... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

Bill Sloman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

GE already produces a 12MW wind turbine.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

Bill Sloman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

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offshore-turbine

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

amdx wrote in news:qpd7c1$nsh$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Why would you want to throw one away?

Old planes get sold to smaller companies.

Old turbines would get sold to smaller customers.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

Two US windfarms are using GE's 12MW version: Ocean Wind,

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    - Win
Reply to
Winfield Hill

ortly, and 12MW isn't much further away.

hinks that it is some way off.

I assume the blade length and so the tower height scales with the square ro ot of the power? That means 100 MW turbines would need to be over four tim es 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 someth ing approaching a mile in height to collect 100 MW? I suppose the swept ar ea 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 objectio nable. 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 bl ades would be sweeping nearly a half a mile wide at the quarter mile height .

Wow!

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  Rick C. 

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Rick C

shortly, and 12MW isn't much further away.

thinks that it is some way off.

This seems to be a fluff piece. There is only one paragraph in the whole a rticle that has any real information content about the problem.

"The high-tech blades used in wind turbines contain exotic compounds that a re laborious to recycle. These rotor blades use carbon fibers and glass, an d give off toxic gases and dust ? which means burning them is not a n option. Additionally, the concrete bases used to uphold wind turbines can go as far as 30 meters deep into the ground, making them very difficult to fully remove."

So they are worried about something giving off gasses??? They don't explai n that very well. Certainly the glass fibers don't outgas and I don't thin k carbon does either. Generally when refuse is burned it is done at a high temperature so toxic residue is not produced.

Then they seem to be worried about massive amounts of concrete being left i n the ground. I wonder if they are ever going to remove the concrete flak towers around Berlin, Vienna...? Maybe they can put windmills on top of th em?

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  Rick C. 

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Reply to
Rick C

Economically, it's cheaper to just scrap the mill vs take it apart piece by piece.

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

--------------------

st.

** So how many do we need operating off the coast of NSW to eliminate coal power ?

Allowing for lots of battery capacity for windless days and nights.

Currently installed coal generation is about 10,000 MW.

Lets see you get the math even slightly right.

..... Phil

Reply to
Phil Allison

Lol! No one is going to do either if it still worked. They will run them until they aren't working well enough and then they will be scrapped becaus e no one will want them. Just like we do with the millions of worn out car s each year. Why doesn't anyone get upset about that?

I remember seeing a photo of some hundreds or more likely thousands of cell phones laid out for the photo to make the point that we toss out some hund reds of millions of cell phones each year. Not really anything wrong with them. They just aren't new anymore.

So a few thousands of these windmills vs. a billion cell phones. Which is the worse ecological disaster?

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  Rick C. 

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Reply to
Rick C

Actually the blade leading edges wear out first. All because of airborn dust, interesting.

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

That's actually a picture of a part that is going to go into a 12MW wind turbine.

It's a part for one of the 12MW wind turbines that the article said were in the pipe-line.

You should pay closer attention.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
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Bill Sloman

Wind velocity and constancy improve at higher elevations.

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Reply to
Winfield Hill

m until they aren't working well enough and then they will be scrapped beca use no one will want them. Just like we do with the millions of worn out c ars each year. Why doesn't anyone get upset about that?

ll phones laid out for the photo to make the point that we toss out some hu ndreds of millions of cell phones each year. Not really anything wrong wit h them. They just aren't new anymore.

s the worse ecological disaster?

Neither is any kind of ecological disaster. If some cheapskate tried to dum p them where the nastier stuff inside could get out, you could create anoth er Love Canal, which wouldn't a good thing to do, but falls well sort of an ecological disaster.

Everybody seems to feel a need to get emotional about the environment, and bleat about catastrophes and disasters. Crying wolf isn't a great strategy.

John Larkin complains that he isn't seeing the disasters he's been lead to expect - the problem with being a gullible twit is that you give equal cred it to the fatuous over-sell from both sides.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
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Bill Sloman

Sadly, they have a unique selling feature that gas turbines can't match - they don't dump any extra CO2 into the atmosphere.

You may not believe in anthropogenic global warming, but you probably do believe in bush-fires, and burning more fossil carbon to dump even more CO2 into the atmosphere is a royal road to larger and earlier bush-fires.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
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Bill Sloman

Rick C wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

You not very bright and quite presumptive.

Maybe. Not likely.

Use some common sense. We will not likely be building mile high towers any time soon.

No, just more laminar wind.

You have no concept of what it will be either.

Maybe two 50MW gen rings and two three blade rotors back to back.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

Martin Riddle wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

kee

hit

I disagree. Cranes are cheap, and new production is not. Scrapping is also not cheap.

So even though profit would be hit by the logistics of disassembly, it would still be better than scrapping, which also requires (piece by piece) disassembly.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

Phil Allison wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Let's see. Wind is free, coal is not, and wind does not pollute and coal does. So 100 100MW turbines would have a better impact on the planet than hunreds of tons of polutants in the air.

The wind is here. We should use it.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

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