There is no mafia. (in fact never was) The kind of people who people think of as "the mafia" have long moved on to government.
And I oft find the government to be irrational, so if there was a body call ed the mafia in existence, I would pretty much rather deal with them. Contr ary to popular belief, no businessman wants to kill off his customers and a ssociates. Now if you are talking about the old protection rackets n shit l ike that, well that is exactly what the government does now isn't it ?
True, and if you factor in 15-30% ash, it's even less. The CO2 number
The CO2 was estimated from the energy equivalent value of 718g of
depending on where you look - some seem to factor plant and distribution efficiency in - which could be anywhere from 20% to 95%.
So, more than 550 tonnes of coal would be needed. And a place to dispose of the ash. And more heavy metals, including arsenic, cadmium and mercury plus a bit of thorium and radium to get into the fish.
But the fact that something uses more energy than its manufacture (or the other way around) is irrelevant to its utility. It matters if the purpose of the widget is to produce energy, not so much if it's for
*any* other purpose. The energy(manufacture/use) of a screwdriver is nonsensical, which is essentially what "Legg" is arguing.
Right. The US is very different to here geographically. Here the very few l ocations where windspeeds are high, more or less no-one lives there.
why does state interference so often produce a waste of people's time, mone y and materials. We should try to import some of the private sector realiti es into state business, like awarding contracts to more than one company wi th the proviso that future %age of business depends on how well each does.
I guess it's far from a mature technology. I'd love to see the day windmill s really work & make sense all round, but we don't seem to be anywhere near that, and building lots of problem machines doesn't seem to get us closer to it. Build experimental ones that show real promise, yes.
They seem to have truly amazing fields of big wind turbines just a bit south of Chicago. I couldn't find any data newer than 2013, but it is pretty clear from driving past them that they are still adding turbines. Some of the farms extend for miles. In 2013 they were making about 5% if the state's electricity from wind. I did find a statistic saying there were
2348 wind turbines in Illinois. The first IL wind farm opened in 2003, so it is 12+ years old. So, I really don't think they are non-functioning make work projects.
lls really work & make sense all round, but we don't seem to be anywhere ne ar that, and building lots of problem machines doesn't seem to get us close r to it. Build experimental ones that show real promise, yes.
It might have been less than mature back then
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claims that Denmark produced 42.1% of its total electrical consumption with wind power. It probably shipped a lot of what it produced over its borders when it was producing a lot of it, and powered the country with imported p ower when it wasn't, but wind power does seem to be making sense for the Da nes and their neighbours. The Dutch are less ambitious and may get to 14% o f their total power consumption by 2020, but there are a lot of wind turbin es all over the Netherlands and a couple of big off-shore arrays.
k of as "the mafia" have long moved on to government.
lled the mafia in existence, I would pretty much rather deal with them. Con trary to popular belief, no businessman wants to kill off his customers and associates. Now if you are talking about the old protection rackets n shit like that, well that is exactly what the government does now isn't it ?
One of the better definitions of government is "the biggest protection rack et in town". Working on the assumption that the government is a protection racket generates pretty accurate predictions of how they are going to react .
Cyril M. Kornbluth wrote one of his better science fiction novels around th e premise.
OK that's a bit of a stretch to what I would normally call energy costs.
No idea of the costs for public transport. (Real costs.)
(aside) Unfortunately there aren't many public transport options in my neck of the woods. A few years ago my car died and I went looking at taking a bus into the city for a while. Turns out that there are no express buses going into the city in the morning. They take forever. And none in the evening leaving the city. There are however express buses from the city to suburbs in the morning and the other way in the evening.
locations where windspeeds are high, more or less no-one lives there.
ney and materials. We should try to import some of the private sector reali ties into state business, like awarding contracts to more than one company with the proviso that future %age of business depends on how well each does .
This is ancient work, 15 kW turbines was common in Denmark 30 years ago.
lls really work & make sense all round, but we don't seem to be anywhere ne ar that, and building lots of problem machines doesn't seem to get us close r to it. Build experimental ones that show real promise, yes.
It is a perfectly mature technology. I worked at Vestas for some years. The turbines were big business way back in the 90'ties. In the 00's it was bas ed on double fed converters. In about 2010 they released their first 3MW fu ll scale converters (I worked on that one). Now they are up to 8MW full sca le converters. Siemens and other manufactors has been in the same game alon g side Vestas
The first closed-loop thing I ever designed was the throttle control system for the 32,000 horsepower LASH ships. I was a Freshman at Tulane, 18 years old. I looked about 14 then, and had to convince a bunch of crusty old chief engineers and owners that I could control the turbines. I simulated the control loop on a PDP-8 and plotted the transient response sideways on a teletype machine. One old guy said "that's exactly how an experienced operator would turn the steam valve manually" and we got the job. A dumb PID loop would wreck the boilers.
It was fun for a kid, going on sea trials, turning 32,000 horsepower trimpots. I got a cabin, not a cot in the hold.
--
John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement
jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
This was just after the energy crisis of 1973-74. There were plenty of "big" wind turbines at the time: but they were not what I would call production quality, synchronized to the utility grid power, or particularly reliable. Most lasted no more than 10 years or the first major wind storm, whichever came first. At the time, we didn't have a nacelle big enough to handle the generator and associated control system. The best that could be done at the time was a gearbox and generator on the tower, and a motor generator on the ground to synchronize the AC.
The system I helped throw together was done with a very limited budget. The project was thoroughly polarized and politicized from the start, with the county planning bureaucracy siding with the incumbent utility and doing everything possible to obstruct progress. Fortunately, the project leader was an attorney, or nothing would have happened. In order to build the test wind turbine, we had to comply with county building code requirements. In order to avoid a public hearing, the biggest machine we could legally build was about 15kw. That's hardly enough to power one house, much less a small town. I won't disclose what we actually built, but it was far larger than
15kw.
Think again. There are plenty of rationalizations available for why wind power isn't a popular as one might expect. I suspect the main problem is the noise that they make. Do you want one in your neighborhood? I don't. It's much the same for almost any form of personal power generation. Except for solar, they all make too much noise. If you want wind power, put it some place away from the populated areas. We found such a place, but the noise still could be heard about 5 km away, especially down wind.
What amuses me is how so many designs repeat the mistakes of the past. Of course, we were not immune and also managed to reinvent a few non-obvious bad ideas. This might explain why wind power still seems to be far from a commodity item. Fortunately, the ever increasing size of wind turbines seem to indicate that wind power is not going to disappear in the immediate future. The economy of scale favors larger wind turbines (as well as favoring more wind at higher altitudes above the ground).
Nice. 8 MW. Bigger is better. To put that in perspective, an equivalent 25% efficient solar cell array, at 1 kW/m^2, would need at least 32,000 square meters area and only runs 4.5 hrs/day solar insolation, while the wind turbine runs for 24 hrs/day.
--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
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