Alternative energy - Windmills

[Walnut Beast]

 

 

[Mooseherder]

The Windmills on Mars Hill, Maine were not turning today.   Must be off on Sunday's.  ;)

[Hilltop366]

California edition..... is that smog or smoke from the forest fires in the back ground?

[Mooseherder]

That was tire smoke from the burnout.  :D

[Hilltop366]

Hmmm...never thought of that.

Did you ever watch any youtube drag racing vids of the Tesla plaid vs ...... 

[KEC]

I read somewhere that the blades on wind turbine are made of fiberglass and are a disposal liability when they are replaced.

[peakbagger]

I worked for windmill firm in VT about 15 years ago, so my info may be dated. 

There were two major types of turbines. Geared and direct drive permanent magnet (PM). Geared turbines have large speed up gearboxes in the nacelle hooked to an induction generator running at a synchronous speed. Induction generator rotors are energized by the grid so they run at synchronous speed and put out clean AC. 

Permanent Magnet turbines do not have a gearbox, the blades are direct connected to a generator similar to the old fashioned generators that used to be used in cars. The power generated is called "wild AC. The voltage and frequency varies all over the place. They are simpler but require a power converter to convert the wild AC to utility AC. The power electronics are similar to a variable speed drive. The power electronics can be in the nacelle or on the ground. The PM turbines are far simpler. A speed up gear box is a tough application, turbulence and gusts can really shock load the gearteeth. Many of the major geared wind turbine companies went through a lot of issues and long ago 5 or 6 years before a rebuild/replacement was normal. Rigging a new one in place required a large crane and some companies got in lot to trouble solving the gearbox issue and some never did. PG&E was in the news recently that at one of their major windfarms the interior of the nacelles are covered with oil and oil is leaking out and being thrown long distances. At least when I was working, the PM turbines were covered with patents owned by GE and my company (Northern Power). GE owned a large European turbine producer that made geared turbines so they were just sitting on the patents to keep competitors out. NP was building 100KW NorthWind 100 PM rugged turbines for cold climates (a lot deployed in Alaska). They were working on a 3 MW PM machine but the Wall Street folks who bought the company shelved that project in search for a quick buck on other tech. They went bankrupt, but new investors went after the big turbine but it was too late and they did not have the bucks to compete. The small turbine designs and manufacturing went to Italy and I think the big turbine went to Brazil.  

[Ianab]

I read somewhere that the blades on wind turbine are made of fiberglass and are a disposal liability when they are replaced.

That's basically correct, fibreglass / carbon fibre is very difficult to recycle. But at least it's relatively inert, so at least you can dig a hole and bury it. But that is a valid concern.
A local fertiliser company is planning to put in a wind farm using 4 mW turbines. They currently manufacture urea fertiliser from Natural Gas, but as you can imagine that produces a lot of CO2. The new plan involves making hydrogen from the wind generated electricity, and using that to produce the Urea instead (and also sell some of the hydrogen as fuel). 
The hydrogen stage gets around the "What if there is no wind?" problem, as it can be stored for later use.  I imagine there is various technical issues to work through, but the basic physics and chemistry are at least valid.

[Southside]

For reference, a gas turbine power station is expected to run for 30-35 years. They might not replace the building, but it will be a new power plant inside it

There is a facility about an hour from that builds and re-builds gas turbines, that's all they do.  A buddy of mine works there and was working on one from from the 80's a few weeks ago. 

[Ianab]

The gas turbines closely resemble jet aircraft engines, and will have a service life (x hours) between maintenance. I think it works out to about 10 years continuous running, but that varies depending on the type of service it actually sees. So the actual engines in a gas station could be swapped out with new or rebuilt ones a few times over the life of plant. Basically the same as the engines on an airliner get swapped out for major maintenance. 

[peakbagger]

The small gas turbine plants (4 to 7 MW)  I work on use A Solar Turbine brand gas turbine (Solar is owned by Cat). There is a major service at 5 years where they swap out the turbine rotating assembly with a rebuilt version. The cores can be rebuilt several times but there are wear components that get swapped out. Most large gas turbine power plants are combined cycle where the turbines generate power and lots of hot exhaust which is then used to generate steam to run a steam turbine. Even if the turbine is worn a bit, it may be less efficient but the hotter exhaust gas leaking through creates more steam so rebuilding the turbine is bit less critical than in a plane.   

[Al_Smith]

Okay now a story going back to around late 70's during a coal miners strike .They called for curtailment of large power users .Ford motor decided to take matters in hand and bought two gigantic diesel generators plus an old "peaker " unit  that used a free turbine .Pratt and Whitney serial number 0001 ,first ever .I was general foreman on the worlds record time of installing a gas turbine generator .We had it running in 20 days from the time it was removed from East Hartford Conn  until it was running in Lima Ohio  but the coal strike ended and never put it on the line .The unit eventually got scrapped and part of the tie down brackets are now on my bull dozer blade for the blade tilting assembly .That thing had an out put of 15,000 HP and drank 1000 gallons per hour of JP-4 fuel . I think it was between 2 and 3 million dollars at the time total money spent  
and believe it or not they recovered all the money by reselling the machinery .
Some place I have my notes on the start up procedures but I doubt I'll ever need to start up a jet engine again .

[Ianab]

Big offshore Wind farm being planned for the local coast. 

New Zealand's first offshore wind farm gets under way in Taranaki | Stuff.co.nz

900 MW is a sizeable chunk off NZ's power needs, and although it's not 100% reliable, it slots in with the large amount of hydro capacity. I'd also think the area is one of the more consistent wind spots in the World. I did some contract work out on the gas platforms there, and I don't remember it being totally calm ANY day I was out there. 

Add that to the now approved plan by a local fertiliser company for some onshore turbines. They currently make Urea fertiliser from natural gas, which as you can imagine has some pretty serious carbon emission issues. But you can also make Urea from hydrogen, which you can make from wind generated electricity. The generation then doesn't have to be 24/7 as some amount of hydrogen can be stored. 

Wind turbines reaching 206m tall proposed for Taranaki site as part of m green hydrogen project | Stuff.co.nz

[TN King]

Bovine burp and fart taxes to pay for windmill blades that can't be recycled.

[SwampDonkey]

I think it adds up as more go up, and storage improves. But we've got a heck of ways to go though. Plus the carbon foot print producing them and replacing them. After 20 years goes by, you get a backlog of replacements starting to build up. Industry draws a lot of juice and you need to keep the lights on at the factory to keep your job and your house. One pulp mill here draws as much juice as a small city of 60,000 residents and they generate some of their own, just for perspective. ;)

[Ianab]

There is energy used to build them of course, but that's basically paid back after 1 or 2 years. But if you build a gas or coal station, it's never going to get back to "neutral". 

Every piece of machinery has a "service life". Steam or gas turbines don't magically last for ever either.


Thing is, people are explaining why something that IS already working "can't possibly work", and has been working for the 20+ years. The economic numbers are pretty well known now. Companies aren't building wind farms on pixie dust and wishful thinking. They have the numbers, it will cost "X" million, and we will make "Y" million back over the next ~20 years. 

[SwampDonkey]

It's a long ways off from being mainstream energy. You need a lot of them to work reliably for 'advertised' output. There will be a heck of a lot more maintenance over the long haul, which will likely end up in lots of abandonment. The economics works because it is tied to government money at the hip. If it is such a cash cow in profits, why doesn't the construction cost stand on it's own without government handouts? Any wind farm sites that are 20 years old are about to cost a lot of money. Already I have seen 2 burn down and many being fixed with cranes and it's only 15 years locally. Usually a 10th of them not functioning when the rest are turning in a stiff breeze.

[Ianab]

7 to 10% of the country's power is now wind and increasing. Comparing that to fossil fuel at ~20%, so it's now becoming "mainstream", not some experimental fringe thing. 


NZ is maybe an edge case because of the amount of hydro, and relatively low population. But it's being installed because it actually works economically for the companies.  Sure if a turbine fails it's pretty obvious and makes the news. If a gas turbine generator fails, some plant alarms go off and it cost a few million $ to repair, but there is no sensational news coverage. 

[SwampDonkey]

In Canada, hydro, nuke and nat. gas electric generation is 85% of production. 5% is wind, 7% is still coal. A very long way to go for wind. I can tell ya if a gas plant burns town, it's not ignored. If a hydro plant needs refurbishment it's not ignored. If a windmill does, chances are it is ignored by national media, a small mention by local news. There is very little local news, it has been disappearing for years. The Observer, the Gleaner are both gone.

[TN King]

If folks want to install a solar power of wind turbines for their own personal power use. More power to them.
Just don't keep spreading lies about wind energy and solar power at tax payer expense. 
It's quite funny how many get taken in by the greenwashing, carbon feet propagandists. 
Don't fall for the big lie.
https://stopthesethings.com/2022/05/16/the-big-green-lie-why-well-never-ever-be-100-powered-by-wind-solar-power/

[SwampDonkey]

And with all these new forms of energy ramping up, plastic production is going to triple in the next 2 decades. Currently over $600 B in market value, industry forecast close to $900 B by 2030. And we recycle about 5% after 40 years? That means 95% of it goes into the environment as waste or burned to create electricity. Already large cities burn off tons of it as part of solid waste management and energy generation. Yeah, we've given up on fossil fuels. Nothing but a hoax. So you end up consuming fossil fuel to produce it and then burning it to get rid of it. I'm wondering if the physical structure of windmills can be reused, just replace the innards. And how long before it loses structural integrity and lies on a boneyard? Not enough time has passed to see what they come up with to manage the waste.

[newoodguy78]

That's a question I've got for the windmills, what happens to them when they're taken out of service? Seems like an awful lot of material that serves one purpose only, once it done serving that purpose it seems to become someone else's issue. 

[Al_Smith]

It is a big controversy of exactly what do you do with a wind generator after it becomes worn out because it will fail at some time or another .The steel and copper for the generator can be recycled but what about the fiberglass ? Old tires can be used for road coatings on a small scale but as of yet you can't recycle fiberglass turbine blades into a power boat hulls or a million fishing rods .It's going to create a problem if it isn't already .
The fiberglass would last a million years if you bury it .You could grind it up and burn it because the bonding agents will burn if it's hot enough .The glass will not burn but I suppose could be collected and make a zillion beer bottles .Nothing so far is doable unless for the intended humor talking about it .

[Hilltop366]

https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/articles/carbon-rivers-makes-wind-turbine-blade-recycling-and-upcycling-reality-support

Apparently fibreglass recycling technology exist.

[Al_Smith]

I think from a historical stand point they use creative methods to salvage just about anything .The slaughter houses of Chicago used everything in a pig except the oink .Spam for example ,parts and pieces in a tin can  .Henry Ford figured out how to use the mountains of sawdust  left over from the production of early automobile parts .It's called Kingsford charcoal these days .