Slow, Costly and Often Dangerous Road to Wind Power

[phantom power]

As demand for clean energy grows, towns around the country are finding their traffic patterns roiled as convoys carrying disassembled towers that will reach more than 250 feet in height, as well as motors, blades and other parts roll through. Escorted by patrol cars and gawked at by pedestrians, the equipment must often travel hundreds of miles from ports or factories to the remote, windy destinations where the turbines are erected. In Belfast, officials have worked hard to keep the nuisance to a minimum, but about 200 trucks are passing through this year on their way to western Maine, carrying parts that have been shipped from Denmark and Vietnam.

Plenty can go wrong despite months of planning. In Idaho and Texas, trucks laden with tall turbine parts have slammed into interstate overpasses, requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs. In Minnesota last year, a truck carrying a tubular tower section got stuck at a railroad crossing; an approaching train stopped just in time. Also in Minnesota, a woman was killed last September when her car, driven by her husband, collided at an intersection with a truck carrying a wind turbine. (After a police investigation, local officials found that the truck driver was not at fault.)

Maine had a glitch of its own two years ago, after a truck carrying a big piece of turbine got stuck for hours while trying to round a corner near Searsport, a port near Belfast that receives many turbine parts from overseas.

“It left a nice gouge in Route 1,” said Ben Tracy, who works nearby at a marine equipment store and saw the incident.

On a per-turbine basis, the cost of transportation and logistics generally varies from around $100,000 to $150,000, said John Dunlop, an engineer with the American Wind Energy Association. Wolfgang Neuhoff, the project manager for TransCanada, which is developing the Maine wind farm, indicated that his numbers were probably above that range, though he declined to be specific.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/business/energy-environment/23turbine.html?_r=2&em

[Sal Minella]

1. Much better to build power plants that belch untold tons of mercury and CO2 into

the air we breathe.

Lets build the turbines and towers in Iowa so they don't need to be hauled through quaint coastal cities, shall we?

[kristopher]

2. I don't think that's the point.

I could be wrong but my take is that the issue of transporting these massive pieces of equipment is, at the very least, an interesting feat. The article focuses a bit too much on irrelevancies like accidents where the transport of the turbine isn't a factor, but in general it is relevant. The problem is real, but it isn't something that is important going into the future.

Small wind projects in densely populated areas aren't critical to wind performing the role we need it to. There are two major areas we need to really develop - the plains from Texas to Canada and the ocean off the east coast. That is where the bulk power from wind will be eventually be produced. The rest of these projects are a small fraction of what those two areas will yield.

[Sal Minella]

6. "Slow, Costly, Dangerous" are not descriptors of "an interesting feat," imho.

"Slow, Costly, Dangerous" are words geared to steering the reader away from thinking of wind power as an environmentally preferable energy source, imo.

The electric car was kept from us for decades because it wasn't "practical" -- just ask the Big Oil Boys.

We're now being told that on-site generation of electricity isn't "practical" by people who want to SELL us electricity they've shipped long distances (a la Enron and friends).

On-site generation requires buying equipment once. Electricity generated in the Atlantic ocean means life-long servitude to whomever owns the transmission lines.

Edited to add more mad ranting.

[kenfrequed]

8. Agreed.

I wish I could have been more focused in my argumentation to include what you did.

[Sal Minella]

9. Am afraid we'll both have many more chances to practice being articulate

on this topic.

The big money is with the guys who want to build the transmission lines, so the accusation of "not practical" will be their battle-cry for a long time, I fear.

Meanwhile, I keep reading about private homes that are selling their excess electricity back to the power company.

Thanks for the compliment, btw -- I usually veer wildly off-topic, but being angry enough to spit nails seems to help the focus.....:)

[kristopher]

10. All the incoherence of a rant, anyway.

Wind is a means of generating substantial amounts of electricity IF the turbine is located in an area where there is a lot of wind. I don't give a fig how many you build in areas where the wind is poor to non-existent, you aren't going to escape "lifelong servitude to whomever owns transmission lines". To do that the turbine has to do something more than reach for the heavens; it has to actually have a rotor that turns BECAUSE THERE IS WIND.

The future grid based on renewable energy sources is probably going to allow quite a few people to get off the grid entirely, but the intermittent nature of renewables and the distribution of the resources themselves DICTATE that most people are going to need to be part of a system that can transport the power from WHERE IT IS to WHERE IT ISN'T. They might be able to use solar for 80% of their power needs (including transportation, and they might be able to store a few days worth of power in hand-me-down Lithium battery packs from their electric autos; but there are going to be times when prolonged bad weather limits local production and then they will need a backstop. And that doesn't even get to the needs of urban dwellers and industry.


Moving the components of wind turbines IS slow, costly and dangerous. You don't get to pick and choose the truth, dude. As I said, the article has too much unrelated crap, but the main point is true.

[kenfrequed]

11. Is the mask off or is it still on...

Just checking.

So now what is the article and what do you suppose the reason for posting it was?

It isn't just moving heavy materials around... it is also that it can't help anyone?

You seem rather invested in this random article posted out in the ether. Phantom Power must be grateful for your justifications.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[phantom power]

13. I already explained my reason for posting it...

It's because I thought it was an interesting aspect of the wind power industry. It's pretty clear you think I'm pulling a drive-by hit on wind power, but that is not so. Wind power has some appealing properties and pointing out some of its less-flattering impacts doesn't mean it isn't worth adopting.

[kenfrequed]

3. BS alert

I unrec'd this because it was silly.

You can accidentally drive into an oil tanker truck too. A train carrying coal or petrochemicals can slip off the tracks. Natural gas could accidentally combust under the right circumstances too or be released if a Semi rolls over.

[phantom power]

4. As kristopher says, it's more of an observation than a value judgement.

The headline is interesting. It has negative emotional overtones, but I think it was meant to be pretty straight-up: transporting these large chunks of hardware is in fact done slowly, and it's costly for logistical reasons, and it can involve safety hazards.

[kenfrequed]

5. It's decontext/spin

It is entirely a decontextualized scrub job. No one even mentions the high costs of doing nothing or the high costs of petrol-culture. So this arranging of a few accidents IS a damned value judgement.

[NNadir]

17. Actually the operation of these giant hunks of metallic garbage in the sky is even more

dangerous than transporting them.

They last on average - from the Danish data 0 about 15 years before becoming giant chucks of greasy waste sort of like that other wonder of distributed energy - the automobile. (It's ironic I think that almost 100% of the "wind will save us" advocates here spend almost 50% of their time hyping car CULTure stuff.) When they fail - and some make it nowhere near 15 years - they often fail catstrophically, with ton sized chunks of metal screeching across the sky.





...etc...etc...

They have not even reached one exajoule of energy yet, and already they have easily outstripped 50 years of ten exajoule scale nuclear energy for deaths caused.

What the "wind will save us" cult is is now becoming readily apparent. It is gambling, gambling the future of humanity on a bunch of mindless wishful thinking.

[phantom power]

20. My company is prototyping systems to measure oncoming wind vectors...

for the wind turbine industry. Measure the wind vectors out about a kilometer or so, and use that information to adjust blade angles and such. It has two effects. The first is to improve the power output. The second is to reduce wear and tear. In the process of the marketing research and biz-plan drafting, we learned about high frequency of required maintenance for these gadgets. Regular maintenance is crucial, and it's a big operating expense. The torsional and vibrational stresses on these things are huge.

[kristopher]

21. It depends on what you mean by "high frequency"

If you compare actual use to the amount of required maintenance it works turns out to be the equivalent of running your car around 200,000 miles between servicing.

But the stresses are huge, you are correct. That's the main reason they are spaced so far apart.

What is the basis of your company's systems, radar?

[phantom power]

22. Doppler measurements from laser backscatter.

The wavelengths are a system parameter, but they're closer to optical than radio. It's quite clever how they pick off the small doppler shifts. The mathematics end of it is kind of magical too. The math guy they hired to make this all work is a monster. I am in fact so envious of his mad skills that I've been trying to teach myself variational calculus and hilbert space methods at night. It was either that or kill him and eat his brain, and our CEO wouldn't sign off on that.

[kenfrequed]

23. The story was about transportation

Blurring this into a discussion about how maintenance is nightmarish is goal-post moving. And back handedly presuming somehow that an article that was obviously identified as de contextualized swill-spin somehow means that I am refuting the cost of maintenance is an obvious straw-man.

[enviralment]

7. Pro nuclear

why don't we make the realization that industrial wind technology isn't what we assume it is. Considering the difference between capacity and output, wind only produces at 20-30% its projected energy capacity. Beyond this governments that invest heavily in wind technology (Ontario, Canada where I live) have decided to base-load with natural gas, which does nothing for Co2 reduction. Nuclear, which the Ontario government has let fall by the way side is the only viable solution to our energy needs!!!!

[Dead_Parrot]

14. Well, this is getting bookmarked...

It's not often you see people laying into Kris for not clapping hard enough.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the 6^th circle to show Dante how to skate backwards.

[phantom power]

15. Way true, that.

Welcome to my world.... bwahahahahahaa....!

[Dead_Parrot]

16. Nooooo.....

[Dogmudgeon]

18. Beware the GIANT SPINNING BLADES of DEATH!

:rofl:

(Notice for the Humor-Impaired: Yes, this has been a tongue-in-cheek post. Mainly, it's the subject line that's tongue-in-cheek. I'm imagining a Toho film, like Aeolaea, The Giant Spinning Blades Of Death. Like a Green version of Cloverfield. Imagine it: A giant wind turbine develops consciousness and psychic powers after being exposed to nuclear radiation when A-Rabbs fly a fleet of 787s into a top-secret reactor producing isotopes that bring sex dolls to life. After destroying Tokyo, the renegade turbine monster drops acid and goes on a mass-murder spree with his lesbian girlfriend, played by Hayden Panettiere. For release in summer 2011. Budget set at $35 million, still signing up investors -- here's your chance to get in on the ground floor!)

--d!

[Dead_Parrot]

19. The original was better...