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Only the fact that they in fact aren't doing what you're suggesting, because as mentioned in the very article, gearboxes aren't that significant of a problem because wear and tear hits the rest of the wind power plant at around the same time, so you have to replace most of it anyway. And wind turbine with a gearbox is far cheaper to run, far lighter, and GE and Siemens still overwhelmingly use wind turbines with standard gearboxes. Because efficiency.

For example, here's GE's current list of wind turbine offerings:
http://www.ge-energy.com/wind
Let's pick some plants and look into them, shall we?
http://www.ge-energy.com/produ...
"Higher AEP than its 1.x predecessors by incorporating a larger gearbox scaled from GE’s 2.x platform and longer 52.2 meter blades"
Oh look, not only are they not dropping gear boxes, they are enlarging them to fit larger blade.

Surely, the smaller ones will have none then?
http://www.ge-energy.com/produ...
"Higher AEP than its 1.5 predecessors by incorporating GE’s 1.6-100 gearbox"

In the end, I have only one question for you. Your experience in the industry, was it in marketing or unrelated thing like running the office or cleaning toilets? Because I know people who used to work for Winwind, and even their marketing people aren't as ignorant of reality as you are, so I'm starting to think you're more of a toilet cleaner type.

Only the fact that they in fact aren't doing what you're suggesting, because as mentioned in the very article, gearboxes aren't that significant of a problem because wear and tear hits the rest of the wind power plant at around the same time, so you have to replace most of it anyway. And wind turbine with a gearbox is far cheaper to run, far lighter, and GE and Siemens still overwhelmingly use wind turbines with standard gearboxes. Because efficiency.

For example, here's GE's current list of wind turbine offerings:
http://www.ge-energy.com/wind
Let's pick some plants and look into them, shall we?
http://www.ge-energy.com/produ...
"Higher AEP than its 1.x predecessors by incorporating a larger gearbox scaled from GE’s 2.x platform and longer 52.2 meter blades"
Oh look, not only are they not dropping gear boxes, they are enlarging them to fit larger blade.

Surely, the smaller ones will have none then?
http://www.ge-energy.com/produ...
"Higher AEP than its 1.5 predecessors by incorporating GE’s 1.6-100 gearbox"

In the end, I have only one question for you. Your experience in the industry, was it in marketing or unrelated thing like running the office or cleaning toilets? Because I know people who used to work for Winwind, and even their marketing people aren't as ignorant of reality as you are, so I'm starting to think you're more of a toilet cleaner type.

Only the fact that they in fact aren't doing what you're suggesting, because as mentioned in the very article, gearboxes aren't that significant of a problem because wear and tear hits the rest of the wind power plant at around the same time, so you have to replace most of it anyway. And wind turbine with a gearbox is far cheaper to run, far lighter, and GE and Siemens still overwhelmingly use wind turbines with standard gearboxes. Because efficiency.

For example, here's GE's current list of wind turbine offerings:
http://www.ge-energy.com/wind
Let's pick some plants and look into them, shall we?
http://www.ge-energy.com/produ...
"Higher AEP than its 1.x predecessors by incorporating a larger gearbox scaled from GE’s 2.x platform and longer 52.2 meter blades"
Oh look, not only are they not dropping gear boxes, they are enlarging them to fit larger blade.

Surely, the smaller ones will have none then?
http://www.ge-energy.com/produ...
"Higher AEP than its 1.5 predecessors by incorporating GE’s 1.6-100 gearbox"

In the end, I have only one question for you. Your experience in the industry, was it in marketing or unrelated thing like running the office or cleaning toilets? Because I know people who used to work for Winwind, and even their marketing people aren't as ignorant of reality as you are, so I'm starting to think you're more of a toilet cleaner type.

While 35% is definitely possible, I think it's probably above average. I doubt that most wind farms achieve that.

It's not clear where your claim comes from either. It's not like you can just say, "I think [35% is] probably above average. I doubt that most wind farms achieve that."

Googling it, average wind farm capacity factor seem to be around 27-40%, depending on turbine, location etc. Newer model turbines like the GE 1.6-100 claim over 50% CF thanks to design improvements.

Search for "hydrogen cooled electrical generator" .. you statement 'Hydrogen and electrical generation generally do not mix' is really really wrong. Don't like giving GE free adds, but.. http://www.ge-energy.com/produ...

Excuse me, I never claimed to be an expert, and worded my posts carefully not to make that impression. Now about your expertise: personal observations often have an anecdotal character. Utilities count in 100s of MW if not GW; the 16MW provided by an Avon engine is small change. Maybe browse this lineup instead. For example. And yes, do run on stuff other than kerosene.

Excuse me, I never claimed to be an expert, and worded my posts carefully not to make that impression. Now about your expertise: personal observations often have an anecdotal character. Utilities count in 100s of MW if not GW; the 16MW provided by an Avon engine is small change. Maybe browse this lineup instead. For example. And yes, do run on stuff other than kerosene.

Let's supposed your "final" exit temperature is 90C. Also let's assume the cooling reservoir is around 10C. Let's also assume that the final stage takes steam from 200C down to 90C. That give it a theoretical Carnot limit of 110/363 ~ 30%.

Turbines have been doing much better than that for decades. Steam goes into a modern 1 gigawatt GE turbine at 260 bar and 610C. Bear in mind that the thermoelectric system gets no benefit from pressure. You don't want to use it on steam; that would be wasteful of energy stored in the compressed steam. The thermoelectric system has to work off hot water, which means < 100C.

How many houses and businesses could that power?

About 60k homes at 1.5KWh average per home. At 2.6 people/home you get a Springfield, MA sized city.

100MW is a small power plant. There are models of GE gas turbines making that much power.

Most of these PLCs were simply too successful for their own good. Many of these designs were created in the 70s with no real intent of ever having then live in an on-line environment, but rather to be isolated in machinery as simple as pumps, motors, and simple stand along controllers for a variety of machines.

The problem lies not with the PLCs but the questionable decision to wire these things into the network.

Some of these things are extremely simple controllers. Others, like the mentioned D20 ME are micro computers onto themselves. These devices are built from a long line of simple process controllers, which grew to their current state from simply hanging more and more interfaces, better processors, and a mountain of legacy software, onto what started life as a very simple device.

None of them were ever intended to be put directly on the wild and wooly net, even when the did contain Ethernet ports, modems, and radios. Everyone assumed these were on their own in-plant network and that no one would hook them up to even their general purpose lan, let alone to computers accessible to the internet.

Anything less successful would have been replaced by a total redesign and rewrite from the ground up.

If only they had major consequences for those who benefitted the most.

Most panels are able to withstand hail stones of up to 1" in diameter , or more with a thin (0.188") acrylic cover sheet.

The damage, if any, will likely just occur to the glass cover, which could possibly be replaced without replacing the whole panel.

According to their own site GE is the last company in the U.S. making light water reactors.

There was a time the U.S. was the big man on campus for nuclear technology. I think that time has passed.