Floating Wind Turbine Platform

Sterling D. Allan writes "Inventor Tom Lee is nearly ready to strike a deal to install a flotilla of offshore wind turbines, combined with hydrogen-generating capability and battery storage, which he says will enable them to have the consistency needed to be a primary grid energy provider, and not just supplemental to the gird. The floating platform enables them to take the turbines to where the wind blows and birds are few, and people even fewer. His objective in commencing this project 12 years ago was to come up with a power solution for developing nations."

Comments

What about the cost

[Barkley44]

How much will it cost to build though? And would it have any impact on the environment under the water, when placed in lower water levels? Perhaps it's not a major concern? I could just see the great lakes covered by hundreds of these ;)

Re:What about the cost

[80 85 83 83 89 33]

i'm sure that sucking the energy coming off the ocean that powers weather must have SOME effect. not that i am preaching doom and gloom... who knows, maybe they could be usefull for sucking the energy out of tropical storms and hurricanes?

Re:What about the cost

[Propagandhi]

How much will it cost to build though?

About 540 Energy and 60 Metal IIRC. A little more if you're CORE.

Re:What about the cost

[lheal]

How much will it cost to build though?

Amortized over the life of a power plant, the startup cost is negligeable.

The real gotcha will be maintenance. What happens when one of God's happy sea creatures swims afoul of the power plant, taking it offline on Super Bowl Sunday? Or more pointedly, foul weather at sea is not like foul weather on land. There's no place to get away from it, except perhaps underwater.

I guess they'll have to have a fleet of submarines for maintenance. Maintenance is where the real costs will be, too.

Re:What about the cost

[rsborg]

I was wondering this too, so I googled "cost of off shore wind farm" and came up with Cape Wind. Pretty interesting. Still haven't managed to price it out though. It only mentions that this farm is privately funded... which may just work.

Re:What about the cost

[robbak]

Or maybe make them submarines, so they can sink below the waves when the wind gets too bad!

Re:What about the cost

[Rude Turnip]

And don't forget 75 for the SCV.

Re:What about the cost

[StarvingSE]

I LOVED that game!!! Funny thing is that the first thing I thought of when I read the article was the commander bot spraying green nano-bots to create these things...

Re:What about the cost

[Mars Ultor]

Try to think about the size of a wind turbine in comparison to the SURFACE AREA OF ANY MAJOR OCEAN. Seriously, for a just a moment. Quick google facts:

Surface area of the Pacific:
166 million square kilometres, 64 million square miles

Typical size of a wind turbine:
Blade span (total diameter): 200 - 350 feet
Mast height: 150 - 300+ feet

Arranging 4 of these together on a platform the size of a (american) football field (360*160 = 57600 sq. ft.) would mean that you could cover the Pacific with these if you managed to produce a hair under 31 billion platforms...

Let's say you want to have a total of 1000 platforms, each with 4 turbines. This would require (approx) 0.00000322% of the surfacea area of the Pacific. It is unlikely that such turbines would have a measurable effect on global weather patterns.

I'm not trying to flame you here, just want to underscore that the amount of energy contained in global weather patterns and the size of the oceans (from which much of this energy flows from) completely dwarfs almost anything we can realistically throw at it right now. It has been estimated that it would require thousands to millions of times our current planetwide energy output to reach a level where weather patterns could be altered.

Re:What about the cost

[TheUz]

you've seen that taylor is working on a new game, i hope?
http://pc.ign.com/objects/755/755287.html

I can't wait. TA was one of the best games ever made. Still is. = )

Re:What about the cost

[Omicron32]

You just made my morning with that comment.

TA is awesome.

Re:What about the cost

[Anonymous Coward]

If your base has no drone riots, you could also try to hurry production if you have surplus energy, and insufficient minerals.

Re:What about the cost

[famebait]

Part of the point of the idea is that it will cost much less than current offshore wind parks: you don't need to build rigid bases underwater on the seabed, you just need a sturdy mooring. Everything can be built on land and tugged out. Unlike those resting on the seabed, you can cheaply place it at depths (and distances from shore) where only a oilrig-sized cashflow would justify the cost of solid pylons up from the seabed.

Re:What about the cost

[bpowell423]

The platform can be moved. It has propulsion, an anchor that can be lifted, the ability to reel the cable in and out for movement up to 3 miles, and the ability to detach from the cable, leaving the end floating on a buoy, and move at up to 20 knots to get out of the way of a storm. All via remote control. Presumably there will be some maintenance required, but it looks like they've covered dodging storms.

Re:What about the cost

[itwerx]

The platform can be moved. It has propulsion, an anchor that can be lifted, the ability to reel the cable in and out for movement up to 3 miles, and the ability to detach from the cable, leaving the end floating on a buoy, and move at up to 20 knots to get out of the way of a storm. All via remote control.

This, combined with the fact that one of the target markets is developing nations, makes me wonder how long it will be before they are hijacked and either taken somewhere else (e.g. third world dictator's private island) or black-marketed and/or sold for scrap value. (Many miles of telephone and power line were torn down in Africa because the natives, who weren't using those services themselves, wanted the metal for other things...)

Re:What about the cost

[eronysis]

I will be waiting for the Moho version myself.

Re:What about the cost

[LaCosaNostradamus]

(Many miles of telephone and power line were torn down in Africa because the natives, who weren't using those services themselves, wanted the metal for other things...)

Well, let that be a lesson for all of us. An "infrastructure" devoted to the elite will simply be destroyed by the majority who are being starved by said elite.

Re:What about the cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Fully functional Vulcan cannon, mmmm...

Re:What about the cost

[Wesley Everest]

Arranging 4 of these together on a platform the size of a (american) football field (360*160 = 57600 sq. ft.) would mean that you could cover the Pacific with these if you managed to produce a hair under 31 billion platforms...

So, what you're saying... is... that the individual platforms should have 64 bit IDs?

Re:What about the cost

[macdaddy]

Given the size of these things and the slow speed at which they can be moved (including pulled) there's little chance of these things being stolen and towed off to Giligan's Island without someone noticing. As soon as a that part of the grid input went down the CO would know and could dispatch a tech. The barge could only move so fast so determining a search area would be triviall. Really I don't think it's a problem. They can always be outfitted with homing beacons that report their current location every couple of hours. That would suffice. I would find it more likely that these would be easy targets of attack by even the lowest tech of assailants.

Re:What about the cost

[grmoc]

Furthermore, most oceangoing ships are likely to cause more effect on the wind than a turbine-- ships are basically big, massive walls through which the wind does not pass...

  The blades on a turbine generally have far less area.

Re:What about the cost

[instarx]

Try to think about the size of a wind turbine in comparison to the SURFACE AREA OF ANY MAJOR OCEAN. Seriously, for a just a moment.

Do you work for the Outdoor Advertizing Council? I ask because that has been their arguement for no restrictions on billboard placement for years. How can anyone object to billbords in scenic locations, they ask, because they take up less than one tenth of one percent of the available view.

Here is some real reality as opposed to PR reality. These platforms will be placed where power is needed (isnt that obvious?) and no one needs power in the middle of the North Atlantic or North Pacific. Power is needed where people are and that is along the coasts.

These things may be a good idea, I don't have enough information to make up my mind about them yet, but one thing I know is that using false statistics to justify them on a square meter basis vs the entire planet's ocean area is useless.

Let's say you want to have a total of 1000 platforms, each with 4 turbines. This would require (approx) 0.00000322% of the surfacea area of the Pacific. It is unlikely that such turbines would have a measurable effect on global weather patterns.

They used to say that about jet contrails' effect on global weather patterns too, and look how wrong that was. Maybe it would be hard to effect global weather patterns directly with these things, but I can see them effecting the local marine life and ecology such as coral reefs, fish spawning grounds or whale migratory or mating patterns (shadows, electric fields, noise, etc). And then I can easily see how the loss of coral reefs, or a decline in fish stocks or the whale population COULD have global consequences. The platforms also might be good for these things but we don't know that either.

Again, I'm not saying these are a bad idea, only that we don't have enough information yet to be assured that they are harmless. The parent post had a reasonable concern about possible negative effects of these platforms and your off the cuff dismissal of even the POSSIBILITY of negative effects is missplaced.

Re:What about the cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, offshore turbines would need to be placed relatively close to shore to minimize transmission line losses. They might therefore take up the more valuable coastal real estate, which is often more productive biologically than deep sea.

Re:What about the cost

[Mars Ultor]

Do you work for the Outdoor Advertizing Council?

With spelling like, I assume that you don't. Nor do, but thanks for asking.

The parent post had a reasonable concern about possible negative effects of these platforms

Do me a favour, please READ the parent post. You'll see it said this:
          i'm sure that sucking the energy coming off the ocean that powers weather must have SOME effect

Now go and READ my response, which dealt entirely with the effect of wind turbines on weather patterns and energy transfer from the sea. Did I mention coral reefs, or whales? Did the parent? No.

The sole context of my disagreement with the parent post pertained to kinetic energy transfer from the ocean to the wind turbines (I'm simplifying this pathway, I know, but I'm trying to help you follow me) and how this might affect weather patterns. This was certainly an appropriate thread in which to post your concerns about the environmental effects of these platforms. But please, next time, make sure YOUR off the cuff dismissal of an argument is on topic.

PS - do you have any stats or research that has examined the environmental effects associated with large platforms in the sea, such as oil platforms? Would that research be valid in this situation, given the large sea floor footprint that such platforms possess, a trait not shared by a floating powerstation tethered to an anchor?

I don't have enough information to make up my mind about them yet

Oh nevermind, just enough lack of information to pick a fight. Gotcha.

Re:What about the cost

[instarx]

My, my, techy ain't we?

PS - do you have any stats or research that has examined the environmental effects associated with large platforms in the sea, such as oil platforms? Would that research be valid in this situation, given the large sea floor footprint that such platforms possess, a trait not shared by a floating powerstation tethered to an anchor?

Oh, you don't REALLY want to use the environmental record of offshore drilling platforms to bolster your arguement that the power stations won't have an effect, do you? I can't imagine a worse example for you to have chosen...but of course you missed the point entirely that there simply is no data to say the power platforms would be harmless as you insisted. And that INCLUDES your pseudo-data that because they would only take up 0.0000037% (or something like that) of the world's total ocean area they just haaaaave to be harmeless. What a ridiculous statistic THAT was. How embarrasing.

Oh, and as for my "advertizing" misspelling, not everyone is as provincial as you to assume that the AMERICAN way to spell is the only way. How embarrasing for you, again! You must get out more often - broadens the mind, don'tcha know. Moron.

Large areas required

[Cave_Monster]

I'm all for alternatives for energy production but would it be logistically feasible to conduct such a venture? Wind farms on the land take up massive amounts of landspace, I just don't know how you could acceptably occupy a similar amount area on water. That is unless the technology has advanced somewhat and not as many windmills are required to produce the same amount of energy.

Re:Large areas required

[Robocoastie]

Ok first off in order to do this one would need some extremely long chains hooked up to extremely gigantic concrete anchors. They'd likely make ones that hold bouies down look like mere bricks. Secondly, how would the generated power get to land where it can be used? Third, who would maintain these? The Coast Guard (I'm a USCG vet btw) maintains aton currently with their many 180' bouy tenders but those don't go that deep and the vast majority are by the nature of aton relatively close to port not in the ocean deep where these would be. The chains and anchors which need regular maintenance would require an ocean going tender to maintain these at the cost of several million dollars to build and multi-millions to maintain the ships and her crew each year. I'm not saying its not worth the money I'm just pointing out that there's a lot more to it than a bunch of floating windmills. I don't think an oil-like platform to put them on would work due to the sheer size they'd have to be - and with potentially incredibly small returns.

Re:Large areas required

[washley]

In case you haven't noticed, most of the Earth is covered in water.

Re:Large areas required

[ToasterofDOOM]

Yeah ... And less would be needed in some cases as the winds over open water dont have to deal with the land getting in the way and dissipating its force. (sounds silly but it happens) But sometimes land features can cause wind to bottleneck and concentrate in a certain area. This doesnt increase the energy, actually it decreases it as much is dissipated by the land but the energy left can be harnessed much more efficiently by a fewer number of turbines

Re:Large areas required

[Chalex]

There is far more uninhabited water surface on this planet than habitable land surface.

Re:Large areas required

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering there is 3 times as much area available over water than on land, something like 80% of land area cannot be used due to topographic challenges, 80% of the ocean surface is biologically inactive (and therefore has no environmental concerns), and wind currents over water are often far more steady than those on land, It's hard to understand why we *wouldn't* want to build wind farms on water. If you build it within +/- 5 degrees latitude, it isn't even subject to cyclonic (i.e. hurricane/tropical storm/tornado) storm threats.

Since the best place to build would be over deep (2000+ meters) water, you could incorporate a thermocline generator into the anchorage and generate even more power (indirect solar in this case) and grow food as well (deep-water nutrients brought up by the thermocline generators would support aquaculture in water that has no significant lifeforms otherwise). All of these characteristics combine to make this a great project for a developing nation near the equator, like Chile, the Philippines or India. The fact that it's designed to generate hydrogen, which could easily be sold to wealthy countries in America and Europe for automotive fuel, makes for a nice bonus.

Re:Large areas required

[Anonymous Coward]

Uninhabited by whom?

Re:Large areas required

[Chuckstar]

Have you ever seen how big oil platforms are? BP's Thunder Horse is 112m wide, 136m long, and 130m high. It weighs 60,000 tons. GE's biggest turbines are 75m tall at the hub and weigh 300 tons. You could easily place one of these turbines at each of the four corners of Thunder Horse.

All the technology to build large and tall platforms, anchor them to the ocean floor, connect them under the sea to the land, disconnect them when a storm is coming so they can be moved out of the way, reconnect them, maintain them, etc. already exists in the oil platform industry.

These things probably are not as tall as oil platforms. They connect to land through cable which is relatively cheap to manufacture and install compared to pipelines which have to be carefully laid on the ocean floor and have to be designed not to leak oil all over the place. Living quarters would be drastically simpler because turbine maintenance takes many fewer workers than oil drilling (Thunder Horse has facilities for 229 workers to be stationed there semi-permanently). They don't need the same level of safety as oil rigs since they are not pumping and storing an environmentally sensitive substance. They don't need all the drilling and pumping equipment that oil rigs do (wind turbines are vastly less costly/complicated than oil rig equipment).

Can't comment on cost/return. Clearly if there's no return they won't get built, but the technology all exists and these things would be much, much cheaper than oil platforms.

Re:Large areas required

[HermanAB]

Well, 3/4 of this planet is covered by water...

Re:Large areas required

[TapeCutter]

"But sometimes land features can cause wind to bottleneck and concentrate in a certain area."

Tidal rips are formed in a similar manner.

Re:Large areas required

[Anonymous Coward]

Wind farms on the land take up massive amounts of landspace

That's not entirely true. While the newer turbines are quite massive, their actual footprint isn't any worse than electric tower (about a 1/4 an acre). The absolute best senario for land-based turbines is to place them on farms. As long as a farmer is fairly compesated for "renting" his land, many don't mind (most agreements give the farmer about 2k/year/turbine). In fact, given the current state of agriculture, most welcome the additional source of income. Of course this only works in windy areas that are fairly close to a population center (eliminating many farms).

This movement of placing turbines on farmland is already underway and if funded better (tax-cuts, whatever) could really take off. Not only does it get around the NIMBY stuff (most of the farmers don't care/ it's not "pristine" land anyways), but it provides agriculture with another source of income (possibly allowing us to reduce other farm subsidies).

Re:Large areas required

[TapeCutter]

The thing looks credible and as you say the market will decide if it is cost effective. However I can't see this as a "breakthrough" (let alone 45 patents!), rather it looks like a neat package of existing technologies (perhaps it needs an LED clock before the US companies jump in?).

I have been up close to a large oil rig in a 20m trawler, I was expecting it to be big but I was still awestruck by it's sheer size. I don't think this thing will be teaching platform designers anything new.

Re:Large areas required

[Belseth]

Obvious point, most of the world's surface is water. Also there's a reason why many of the new projects are in or near water, the wind is more consistent. Perfect energy source? There is none, even fusion has downsides and byproducts. Wind has some of the fewest downsides next to solar. There are ways of limiting the bird damage which is one of the biggest downsides. The big plus of the floating planets would be flexsiblity. It's possible to move them in and out of bird migration routes even. The technology hasn't changed much in the last ten years but the costs of traditional energy sources keep going up where as alternative sources like wind are slowly going down. I'd rather see a thousand large windmills than one nuclear plant. A thousand years from now there won't be a trace of the windmills but we'll still have to store the nuclear waste. Windmills are a 100% recycleable. The only way to recycle most nuclear waste is in dirty bombs. If we produced 50% of our power with nuclear power we'd be hip deep in radioactive waste. If we produced 50% with alternative sources some people would complain about them being an eyesore. I've driven countless times past the windmills in the CA desert and they look more interesting than that stretch of desert so I think they are an improvement. I'll take eye sore over radioactive waste any day.

Re:Large areas required

[Chuckstar]

No "breakthrough" required for patents. You merely need to invent something new and non-obvious. An example I reference occassionally is a guy that invented a cam shaft that results in up to 3% more fuel efficiency. Its not a breakthrough, he just designed a slightly more efficient cam shaft.

Also, its not 45 patents, its 2 patents that include 45 claims. The number of claims in a patent is effectively meaningless. Its just the list of what the invention consists of. Also remember that this thing includes hydrogen generation, battery storage of the power and is self-propelled for moving out of the way of storms. There's plenty of places where someone could have come up with a better way to do something or other. Its not clear that you couldn't make off-shore floating wind turbines work without those patents, though.

Re:Large areas required

[TapeCutter]

"its not 45 patents, its 2 patents that include 45 claims"

Yeah, my bad.

Re:Large areas required

[lazybeam]

If we produced 50% of our power with nuclear power we'd be hip deep in radioactive waste.

Well it is measured in shipping containers per year, only a few per large city it is producing energy for. So it's not too much nuclear waste with no other real emmissions. AFAIK some European countries produce 70% of their energy with nuclear stations.

But I do agree, any waste is not a long-term solution - waste we can't use means we are burning something finite. There might be plenty of different energy sources - uranium, coal, oil - but each of these will eventually run out if we let them, as well as all the bad effects of mining, processing and moving it.

Wind has some of the fewest downsides next to solar.

I would say wind has even fewer downsides to solar. It takes more energy to make a solar cell than a wind turbine. Solar is great if you can't get on the grid, but it doesn't save any real energy, at least with current technology. Something like: http://www.abc.net.au/newinventors/txt/s1487858.ht m might start to help with the solar problem, though. Solar is better used to create hot water (eg for normal home use or heating the swimming pool) than to create electricity.

The best energy device would be a Mr Fusion like in Back to the Future, but that is still science fiction...

Re:Large areas required

[/Wegge]

Have you ever seen how big oil platforms are? BP's Thunder Horse is 112m wide, 136m long, and 130m high. It weighs 60,000 tons. GE's biggest turbines are 75m tall at the hub and weigh 300 tons. You could easily place one of these turbines at each of the four corners of Thunder Horse.

Not really. Wind turbines need to be spaced at least 5 times the rotordiameter to be cost efficient. Primarily because of the wind shadow behind each turbine, but also because of the increased stress on rotor and tower from turbulent air. So a platform that could acommodate 4 turbines af the size you mention would have to be half a kilometer along each side.

Re:Large areas required

[Anonymous Coward]

If we produced 50% of our power with nuclear power we'd be hip deep in radioactive waste.

Actually, only the US will have that big of a problem. What america sees as nuclear 'waste' after ONE TIME USE, other countries see it as 'still hot, still dangerous, still full of power, and re-use that "waste" over and over and over resulting in probably 1/8th the amount of true 'waste'.

All that nuclear crap the US government wants to bury under mountains and 'has' already 'stored' in the deeper waters of countries like The Bahamas, coulde have been used maybe 6 more times before it was useless.

Re:Large areas required

[clonan]

Umm, you did READ the article right?

Undersea cableing is very easy. Theya re talking about situating these guys up to/around 1000 miles out to sea.

They also will not need much of an anchor either. You are essentially making a very BAD sailboat. Wind doesn't typically have that much force, but it is consistant. Therefore a relativly small anchor (one that can be hauled up as they mentioned) is all you would need for normal operations. Plus they mentioned being able to let out line for the anchor and bring it in again. Therefore if there is a sudden gust you can play out line based on the tension on the anchor them reel it back in after....minimal energy use

As for maint. that is a mjor reason they are using the horizontal style windmills rather than verticle ones. We know much more about the horizontal ones and they are very low maint. Plus the coast guard wouldn't maintain them unless the Government owned the platforms (like they own the bouy's) and were making money off of them OR they were hired by the owners. Actually it would be MUCH cheaper to simply own a boat with a single maint. crew and send them out to service all several hundered platforms. So one ship, one crew.

As far as the admitidly minimal information in the article goes, it seems like a well thought out and practicle plan. All the technical problems seem to have been addressed, the only remaining problems are financial....can they make money at it?

I say let them try!

Re:Large areas required

[luisdom]

Wind farms on the land take up massive amounts of landspace
There are a lot of places where that doesn't matter, as the land is still suitable for agriculture...

Re:Large areas required

[Chuckstar]

Oh, didn't know that. I looked it up and you might be able to do as little as 3 diameters, but your point stands.

However, you'd have other options besides just making the rectangular platform bigger. You could use smaller turbines. You could change the shape of the platform (long and narrow so the turbines are in a line instead of a square). You could mount a single turbine on a much smaller platform and run cables between the platforms so that only one platform would need the battery and hydrogen generation stuff.

There's still no new technology required to do any of those things. The engineering work would be straight-forward (although non-trivial).

Re:Large areas required

[/Wegge]

Oh, didn't know that. I looked it up and you might be able to do as little as 3 diameters, but your point stands.

  Taking advantage of the manouverability, it would be possible to position the turbines so they interfere with each other least. However ...

However, you'd have other options besides just making the rectangular platform bigger. You could use smaller turbines. You could change the shape of the platform (long and narrow so the turbines are in a line instead of a square). You could mount a single turbine on a much smaller platform and run cables between the platforms so that only one platform would need the battery and hydrogen generation stuff.

  You got the point. Smaller turbines is not the right way to go, but humoungously large turbines placed on individual platforms would be just the ticket. A large (by todays standards) wind turbin is close to the 10 MW limit. With turbines this size, I think the H2 generating plant could be cost-effectively distributed.

There's still no new technology required to do any of those things. The engineering work would be straight-forward (although non-trivial).

  In fact, there is an engineering challenge: How to make longer wings. Currently, a single wing weighs around 20-30 metric tonnes for a length of 60 meters. Given that the rotational speed is chosen so the the wing tip moves just below the speed of sound, the current bottlenec is to make a wing that doesn't disintegrate under the centrifugal forces imposed on them. From a price/kWh point of view, you want your WTG to have as large a rotor diameter as possible. The increased cost of gearing and generator is a decade lower than the increase in power output. So the main reason WTG's have the size they have now is stress on the wings and for land based turbines, also the logistical problem of getting the wings moved around on the roads.

Re:Large areas required

[Chuckstar]

The engineering challenge you site is not required to make floating wind turbines cost effective, it merely makes them even more cost effective.

Re:Large areas required

[macdaddy]

There's no reason why the land under land-based wind farms can't be simultaneously used for something else. I've been talking about doing this for about 10 years now. I want to buy the 27,000 acre ranch north of my parent's ranch and put a windfarm on it. I would then graze the pastures underneath the windmills with cattle or buffalo. There's no reason why this can't be done. I could easily pay off the land in 10-15 years or so with a well-managed herd of 750-1000 head of buffalo. Imagine how using one investment to fund the other until both were supporting themselves. Wouldn't that be nice.

Re:Large areas required

[sterlingda]

The Norsk Hydro floating design has one turbine per post, no batteries, no hydrogen. It is basically a simplified version of Lee's design. (By the way, Lee sent me an email saying that the Norsk design impinges on his pending patent. I encouraged him to seek for cooperation rather than litigation.)

It seems to me that the wake issue, and 6D separation factor is the weak point of Lee's design. Too inefficient to build a platform that would enable a saparation of 6D.

Then again, mabye a combo of Lee and Norsk would be the ideal. For every 6 pillars, individually moored, you could have one floating H-gen / battery platform.

But then you loose the advantage of portability.

It Doesn't Matter

[geomon]

I know that the article summary took great pains to point out that few birds are out this far from land, but you just know that one or two will be killed by one of these turbines. It is inevitable.

That said, no matter how much alternative energy sources are promoted by one faction of the environmental movent there will always be the fringe who hates any energy source that benefits humans. It is as if humans are not part of nature and that we are just a fucking infection that is destroying the Mother Earth (Matrix Agentism). It is chilling how much the rhetoric of Earth First! and other enviro-whackos mirrors that of fundamentalist theologies.

I hope this project can get funded. We need energy and there is no reason for us to not develop these resources for human use.

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[gijoel]

"I know that the article summary took great pains to point out that few birds are out this far from land, but you just know that one or two will be killed by one of these turbines. It is inevitable."

I also think that it's likely that birds will become attracted to the platforms because of the fish that will gather to feed and hide around the platforms. Plus there are other denizens of the deep who will see this as a great place to rest and mate.

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[NMerriam]

Yes, it's a shame that fringe reactionary groups have such a strong hold on our nation's energy policy. Why, just the other day ConocoPhilips was asking congress to allow them to use some of their tens of billions of recent windfall profits to research and provide clean, renewable energy. Wouldn't you know it, that huge Earth First! lobby managed to block any progress, just as they have for years and years!

I remember back in the 70s when Chevron's big solar arrays in Oklahoma were being continuously sabotaged by Greenpeace activists. The National Guard couldn't even hold off those lunatics long enough for Dick Cheney to finish cleaning the baby seals!

When will the insanity stop? When will the multinational megacorporations ever have a chance to be heard?

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[geomon]

Yes, it's a shame that fringe reactionary groups have such a strong hold on our nation's energy policy.

Yes, let's look at how many new refineries have been constructed in the US in the last 30 years. And how many nuclear plants have been constructed in the same timeframe.

Your sarcasm doesn't measure up to reality, does it? The fact is, if the US had been continuing to build out its nuclear power capacity we may not be discussing energy strains the way we are today.

The primary contributors to the crash of oil prices in the mid-1980's was conservation measures combined with the expansion of US nuclear energy.

Conservation will only take you so far. After that, you have to develop new sources.

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[geomon]

Holy crap! No wonder they took over the marina: people were feeding them. You can tell people all day not to feed wild animals and they won't listen. That is why you have attacks at Yellowstone.

Some folks just learn the hard way.

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[NMerriam]

Yes, let's look at how many new refineries have been constructed in the US in the last 30 years.

Yeah, those pesky environmentalists in control of all the oil companies decided that it made more sense to use old, grandfathered refineries than actually make new ones that complied with modern air regulations. The fact that it chokes off supply occassionally and raises the profits is a horrible side-effect for the poor companies.

And how many nuclear plants have been constructed in the same timeframe.

There are certainly many people who have an irrational fear of nuclear power, but I think the nail in the coffin of that particular enterprise was that nuclear wound up being no cheaper than anything else, and every plant would have been losing money if it weren't for the huge government subsidies.

The fact is, if the US had been continuing to build out its nuclear power capacity we may not be discussing energy strains the way we are today.

Indeed, and had we been continuing to build out wind and solar power, we would be even better off than with nuclear! But of course nobody is protesting wind and solar power, I wonder why we haven't invested in those with half the gusto we've spent trying to find a few million nonreplaceable barrels of oil off the coast of Florida? I've never heard of anyone getting sick from living next to a windmill.

Conservation will only take you so far. After that, you have to develop new sources.

Indeed -- and building more oil refineries is not "new sources". Drilling in Alaska, drilling off Florida, drilling anywhere is not "new sources". Call me when ConocoPhilips builds their first tidal generator in the Gulf of Mexico, and then I'll shed a tear for the Cato institute bravely fighting the environmental lobby that has been holding us back from any "new sources" of energy. I mean, it's not like we've had over 30 years to work on this stuff.

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[clem]

I believe the scarcity of refineries and nuclear plants has more to do with rampant NIMBYism than any love of environmentalists by the United States. I don't think you'll find many liberals or conservatives who want a nuclear reactor in their backyard.

Now the conservatives might want it in someone else's backyard, but not their own.

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[LS]

Why is it that every time there's an article about alternative energy sources someone comes out cursing and spewing venom against some mysterious environmental faction that is theoretically against said technology? Where does your anger come from? You are going nuts before even hearing a single environmentalist rail against this tech. Is this leftover hatred regarding the nuclear energy thing? Whether your are right or not, your attitude only reinforces the behavior of those who like to bash anything "environmentalist", whether the idea makes sense or not.

What if every time there's an article on the GPL you post

"That said, no matter how much the GPL is promoted by one faction of the open source movent there will always be the fringe who hates any restrictive license that benefits humans...."

or take the recent article on telecommuting taxes - you could just come out railing against taxes in general. Or everytime there's an article on the ipod you post about how there's 50 other devices that are better and cheaper.

It's OFFTOPIC you anti-enviro-whacko. You only get modded up because there are a lot of other whackos on Slashdot who think like you.

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[geomon]

Why is it that every time there's an article about alternative energy sources someone comes out cursing and spewing venom against some mysterious environmental faction that is theoretically against said technology?

Because they exist.

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah. I really want (or expect) companies whose entire business is based on petroleum energy production making the primary investments into altnerative energy. Like a fox guarding the hen house, or better, Microsoft having the leading, government mandated open source license. Right...we won't reamed a new one from them holding the patent rights on the new tech, nah.

Are you freakin nuts? Wait, you were saying you like these fringe groups. (rubs eyes)

re fanaticism--The number one reason that energy use gets extended is economics, followed closely by technology and research. Not fanaticism.

Higher gasoline yield per product, including cracking? Chemists. Better gas mileage? Engineers. EPA decisions? Think less dependency or the nation's economy more so than the EPA folks listening to these fanatics. Many other reasons but just a few to throw out there.

More so, I would say fanaticism pushes people away; environmentalists of all stripes are often hated because the movement is hallmarked by these fanatics, who overshadow even when the more moderate environmentalists who may have correct but controversial proposals.

Worse, fanatics employ tactics on areas which are already recognize or solveable; the issues lie elsewhere. Sort of like the anti-hunger charities asking for donations when the problem with world starvation is not longer about availability of food but food being used as a governing or social and political tool.

re those record profits--A for-profit company making...profit. Shocking. They have a product in demand with supposed dwindling, even according to /.ers who state the world's reserves are on the decline. Supply, demand. Of course they are going to make more money. But that's the way of ALL industry, not just the energy market.

Further, just because a profit is posted doesn't mean it all goes to dividends. You might want to follow where the money goes before you bitch. Profits are used in many ways--dividends to investors, some as cash reserves, some are invested in looking for new oil/gas reserves, plenty is put into research, albeit to keep the energy competitive with alternatives.

You really want to make an impact? Form a company making home energy products on the cheap. Tell the government to take the immense tax revenue from fuel taxes and instead of spending it on pork and highways where none are needed, to invest it directly into alternative energy research. Combat the transportation and auto and airline lobbiests and force new standards on fuel economy for trucks, cars, and airplanes (yes, airlines suck fuel bigtime). That'll do a lot more than burning SUVs, hijacking fishing trawlers, or demanding solar grids be built on acres of land in the midwest.

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[geomon]

I believe the scarcity of refineries and nuclear plants has more to do with rampant NIMBYism than any love of environmentalists by the United States.

Possibly, but there is a great deal of "politics disguised as science" associated with nuclear power.

I don't think you'll find many liberals or conservatives who want a nuclear reactor in their backyard.

I'd take one. They provide power and jobs.

Now the conservatives might want it in someone else's backyard, but not their own.

You mean 'conservatives' or Republicans?

I doubt you mean conservatives.

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[Anonymous Coward]

"The primary contributors to the crash of oil prices in the mid-1980's was conservation measures combined with the expansion of US nuclear energy."

You're on crack. Nuclear plants didn't expand in the 80's. There was this thing, called the Irag-Iran War, where both countries far exceeded their OPEC quotas to fund their efforts. And then the Saudi' s decided to put a stop to it and dumped 10M/barrels a day on the market to pull the rug out from under them.

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[hador_nyc]

But of course nobody is protesting wind and solar power, I wonder why we haven't invested in those with half the gusto we've spent trying to find a few million nonreplaceable barrels of oil off the coast of Florida? I've never heard of anyone getting sick from living next to a windmill.

Clearly, then you don't live near where they're trying to build them. I live in Manhattan, and they've been trying for several years now to put a big wind farm off the Long Island coast; also another one off Cape Code; I think Near Martha's Vinyard. Anyway, there have been many protests about these wind farms citing a variety of issues. First, they will hurt the birds. Both LI and Cape Cod are in migration routes. Second, many rich folks such as Senator Kennedy don't want their view tainted. Thirdly, I've read in the NY papers that people say the moving blades of the windmills create sub-sonic sounds that make them sick.

Now, for the record, I disagree with all of that. I think a few dead birds are worth the impact of less oil. One of the big problems with these kinds of enenergy alternatives is NIMBY. I don't know the answer here, but I'm all for giving these wind farms a shot.

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

No I think Reagan pushing coal power had more to do with it.

Re:It Doesn't Matter

[dptalia]

The environmentalists have sued to shutdown windfarms. Again, there is a fringe movement that is against anything positive to humans .

Gelling and Spammar

[Bullseye_blam]

...which he says will enable them to have the consistency needed to be a primary grid energy provider, and not just supplemental to the gird.

I, for one, welcome our new gird overlords.

Re:Gelling and Spammar

[unitron]

"I, for one, welcome our new gird overlords."

Time to change overlords again? Pardon me whilst I gird my lions.

Re:Gelling and Spammar

[Anonymous Coward]

>>gird my lions

Those lions must be really friendly :)

Re:Gelling and Spammar

[JohnnyLocust]

And all they have to do is reverse the flow of the current and they have one REALLY big fan boat..... vroooom!

Re:Gelling and Spammar

[cloudmaster]

And I still think that expression is amusing in a juvenile way.

I don't get it.

[Xarius]

Supplementing the gird is a commendable achievement.

Where are we keeping the real editors?

Re:I don't get it.

[LordMaxxon]

you must be new here...

Re:I don't get it.

[umbrellasd]

We keep them in the jale for refusing to divulge proper spelling.

Re:I don't get it.

[Scrameustache]

Where are we keeping the real editors?

In the real newspapers ;-)

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

These are the real editors. You can start worrying when everything is spelled correctly.

I don't quite understand...

[fermizhang]

I don't quite understand...What 'gird' means here?

Beowulf cluster

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a Beowulf cl... oh wait never mind.

Where the birds are few...

[MicroPat]

enables them to take the turbines to where the wind blows and birds are few

See this Wired article: Unexpected Downside of Wind Power

If only...

[parasonic]

...his name were Tom Berners Lee, someone might take him seriously...

I know, I know

Re:If only...

[dangitman]

...his name were Tom Berners Lee, someone might take him seriously...

I thought the article was talking about that drummer from Mötley Crüe. Never thought percussion and wind power went so well together. You live and learn.

Re:If only...

[93,000]

I thought this was a dupe -- Tommy Lee has been using variations of that floating drum platform since about '88. Then I read TFA.

Birds

[Tim2005]

According to this study reported by the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4072756.stm) windfarms pose a low risk to birds. I believe buildings in general are far more of a threat.

And even if windfarms did pose a danger to birds, the benefits of a clean, sustainable energy source so far outweigh the downside of a few dead pigeons here and there, that it's silly to even contemplate the matter.

Re:Birds

[geomon]

Here is a fairly comprehensive study of hazards to avian populations from wind farms.

The threat isn't as small as a few pigeons, but it is an area where active research in avian behavior could reduce the number of impacts.

There isn't a single "zero impact" energy source. An environmental price for any energy source can be found if you look hard enough. The challenge is learning how to balance our need for energy with the size of the threat to the environment.

Re:Birds

[Tim2005]

Great. Just make sure when you 'balance our need for energy with the size of the threat to the enviroment' you take into account the far more serious effects that traditional energy sources all ready do pose to the enironment and wildlife. No serious person can argue that windfarms aren't far more friendly to wildlife in general (and when you take into account habitat destruction from oil spills, deforestation, etc... to even birds in particular.)

Re:Birds

[mboverload]

Besides, if that many bird are killed I guess they will just have to evolve to not be stupid enough to fly into multi-ton blades that measure 100+ feet across and spin at 100+ RPM. I mean, jesus. Talk about a class *cough*biology class*cough* not worthy.

Heh

Re:Birds

[geomon]

you take into account the far more serious effects that traditional energy sources all ready do pose to the enironment and wildlife.

I do. The energy per pound of fossil fuels is a consideration when evaluating energy sources. I would rather we didn't rely so much on fossil fuel, but there is a vocal minority who has pumped the general public with excessive fear of nuclear power.

Re:Birds

[unitron]

"... the far more serious effects that traditional energy sources all ready do pose to the enironment and wildlife. No serious person can argue that windfarms aren't far more friendly to wildlife in general..."

Now wait a minute. If it weren't for all those power lines to perch on the birds would have to keep flying until they dropped from exhaustion. :-)

Re:Birds

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody will really give a damn about pigeons, but some of the species higher up the food chain can be key to their ecosystem.

The new designs have larger blades that don't rotate as fast and have nowhere near the same kill rates as the older models.

Not only that, smokestacks kill as many or more birds. Birds just bump into them. And the radioactive, heavy metal and particulate pollution from coal are probably worse than a few well placed turbines.

Silly is a good way to describe the argument. Uninformed or trolling could also apply.

Re:Birds

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget about Randy Johnson.. if there is any real threat out there, it would be him.

Re:Birds

[aussie_a]

I would rather we didn't rely so much on fossil fuel, but there is a vocal minority who has pumped the general public with excessive fear of nuclear power.

I believe they're called oil companies.

Re:Birds

[flutkatastrophe]

The dead birds could be turned in to Biodiesel http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=26177

Re:Birds

[Starker_Kull]

Indeed - I wonder how many thousands of turbines would have to be spinning how many hundreds of years before it matched the number of dead birds from one Exxon Valdez incident. Not to mention all the other critters. And while people bitch about nuclear power, it has the beauty that its (albiet highly) contaminated wastes are concentrated in one place, whereas most other power sources distribute them thinly into the atmosphere where they are virtually impossible to control, assign blame for or otherwise put EFFECTIVE mechanisms in place to account for their impact. So, while nobody likes living next to a nuke plant, wind turbine or biodiesel farm (they SMELL), you have to make tradeoffs. I'll take a few dead birds over owing my soul to a medieval kingdom any day. (hyperbole intentional)

Developing Nations

[rsborg]

His objective in commencing this project 12 years ago was to come up with a power solution for developing nations

Jeebus, is that what the US is now? With all the bass-ackwards energy policy combined with a very aging grid control system, and nuclear paranoia (why the hell don't we reprocess like France/Japan?)... perhaps we're ready for some serious diversity to increase the power stability of this country.

Re:Developing Nations

[nametaken]

(why the hell don't we reprocess [pbs.org] like France/Japan?)

You start by not mentioning that France and Japan do it.

Frighteningly, I'm quite serious.

Re:Developing Nations

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as your reprocessing doesn't threaten to spill into the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean because you insist on sailing through those waters during hurricane season. http://archive.greenpeace.org/pressreleases/nuctra ns/1998jan28.html

Re:Developing Nations

[Anonymous Coward]

Well these fat yokels are going to outlast you because we have the money and stuborn mentality to keep living after you all give up. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Re:Developing Nations

[Anonymous Coward]

How timely. I asked this question of a fellow "in the know" last Thursday. Simple answer; We don't reprocess because it's trivial to extract bomb material while doing it and we don't want to enable such technologies in certain countries. A decision made long ago.

I pointed out that the French were doing it. His answer; Yup, kind of dated isn't it? Might want to talk to your congress-critter. Ask them to lift the laws regarding the positioning of hitching-posts while you're at it. Good luck. Get back to us when you have something to report?

money?

[floppypond]

His objective in commencing this project 12 years ago was to come up with a power solution for developing nations. Hardly seems affordable. And what about developing nations not near water?

Re:money?

[huhwhatduck]

That's what really, really long cables are for. Come on. Haven't you thought this out? He's had twelve years to.

Re:money?

[whimdot]

Once global warming cuts in they will all be near water, don't worry.

Re:money?

[Grishnakh]

Yeah, and he even had some time in jail to think about it, after he beat his wife Pamela Anderson.

So that means...

[SamAdam3d]

"nearly ready to strike a deal to install"
in technology terms, you have got nothing.

I was ready to make a deal with a nice Nigerian fellow, but that doesn't mean a darn thing.

Orders of Expense

[twitter]

Expensive: Electronic Goods.
More Expensive: Marine Goods.
Even More Expensive: Aero Goods.

Aero, electronic goods exposed to a marine environment ... Could we make that Monopoly Nuclear running NT too? Now that would be expensive.

Really, who knows, clever people can make anything work.

Re:Orders of Expense

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, who knows, clever people can make anything work.

I dare you to find some clever person to make my perpetual motion electric generater work.

Re:Orders of Expense

[putko]

Yeah -- that's the first thing I thought when I saw those machines sitting in the salt water. The turbines, rotors and so on will get bathed in warm salty vapor all the time -- how long will those things work under that abuse? 5-10 years?

Boats require legendary maintenance in order to survive such exposure. I can't believe those things will last. And they don't have precise moving parts, like this thing.

If it were made of plastic/composite it might have a chance -- but Oy Weh -- so much money.

Re:Orders of Expense

[Spy der Mann]

Even More Expensive: Aero Goods.

You tell me! The price tag on the Nike Air was atmospheric, but something kept telling me to "just do it".

Yawn

[Kyeetza]

"He has approached a number of power producers in the U.S., but has thus far been met with a yawn."

He must have been talking to VP Cheney and his Haliburton buddies....

Re:Yawn

[Moridineas]

OMG LOLZ!!! Wow, take that CHENEY and Halliburton CORPORATE BASTARDS!! You sure showed the system, what a biting indictment of the American political system.

Wait, you mean Halliburton does construction on Offshore Windfarms too?? Well shoot, that's 6 seconds of googling for you..back to the basement!

http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/2004/kbrnw s_011204.jsp

Re:Yawn

[floormasn56]

Halliburton stocks did BETTER under Clinton/Gore than Bush/Cheney. You can ALWAYS make more money running a UN oil for food scam. That bringing freedom to a people. The most profitable business model is a Master/Slave one.

Correct me if I'm wrong...

[ta ma de]

But shouldn't we be working to eliminate those pesky migratory birds; especially since H5N1 is milling about. Mulching birds should be listed a feature, a feature that is part of the fight to stop the bird flu. It could be a War-on-Avian flu, to be waged at sea, stopping migration before it starts. All good now.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[geomon]

Shit! I shot coffee on my computer screen.

You, sir, owe me one screen cleaning.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[dfjunior]

Don't you really mean delicious migratory birds?

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[mishagam]

I applaud you comment. I would also add that we will be feeding fishes with these killed birds. (and also protect fishes from being caught after few fishing boats will drown after collisions with out wind farms).

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we sure that aerosolizing infected birds high in the air is a good idea?

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[ShieldW0lf]

Dude... the plural of fish is fish. Unless you're three, in which case I suppose it might be fishies...

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[Jeremi]

Dude... the plural of fish is fish.

According to the dictionary, fishes is an acceptable plural of fish also. If you're going to be pedantic, rule #1 is to be correct :^)

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[ShieldW0lf]

It might be technically correct, but it does make you sound like a bit of a redneck if you say it aloud. Try it. Say "Hey Mom, I got the fishes."

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[derubergeek]

But shouldn't we be working to eliminate those pesky migratory birds

African or European?

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know that-- Aiiiieeeeeeeeeee!

This is not feasible today

[Yartrebo]

The electricity->hydrogen->electricity cycle is only about 50% efficient using utility-scale 100MW plants (slightly lower for 1MW or so sized plants, and much lower for lab-sized plants). Right now there is so little wind power installed that the grid can easily handle large amounts of extra wind power. When 20% of electricity is coming from wind, then they'll start to be substantial benefits to power storage (though I see hydroelectric storage as a more practical form of storage than hydrogen, and that's good until renewables cover 100% of electricity demand and we're at the stage of needing liquid fuel for airplanes and vehicles).

Second, I believe that using a floating platform with very tall (~400 feet or so) structures is asking for trouble. Something floating is far more vulnerable to storms than a securely grounded pile. There must be a good reason it's not being done now.

Thirdly, why have the things so far from shore. Transmission losses (if undersea cables are employed) are large over such distances, and it does take quite a bit of aluminum to make such long wires. If a ship must come to load the hydrogen every once in a while, then you just added a large operating expense (and one of the nice things about wind and solar is very low operating expenses).

So why not stick to tried and true near-shore and land based wind turbines?

Re:This is not feasible today

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you are going out to sea, why limit yourself to wind? Why not use the currents as well?

Re:This is not feasible today

[bcattwoo]

So why not stick to tried and true near-shore and land based wind turbines?

Because the rich beachfront property owners (yeah, yeah, yeah I know they are not all rich) don't want the former ruining their view of the water and the latter usually irk enough of the landlocked masses that they even have enough clout to keep them away.

By the way, don't assume that just because something has not been done before that there must be some good reason. Sometimes the reason that an idea has not been tried before is that people are lazy, uncreative, or afraid that there must be some good reason that it has not been tried before.

Re:This is not feasible today

[Highrollr]

There must be a good reason it's not being done now.

I shudder to think what the world would be like if, to pick a random example, da Vinci thought the way you do.

Re:This is not feasible today

[dbIII]

Transmission losses

Any decent sized power generating facility will supply power to a large area, so you are always going to get line losses. The only other way is lots of little generators, but they are far less efficient.

Re:This is not feasible today

[Admiral Llama]

I still don't get the idea for having battery storage on the platforms. Wouldn't centralized storage be more efficient? Ever percent of line loss to the mainland means less storage infrastructure is necessary for the given amount of storage capability. Toss in that whole economy of scale and less to maintain on the platforms and I think storing electricity on the platform isn't the greatest if ideas, unless there is some unknown factor lurking in those patents.

Re:This is not feasible today

[James McP]

The electricity->hydrogen->electricity cycle is only about 50% efficient using utility-scale 100MW plants

True, it is not the most efficient. However it means you can get energy (cracked hydrogen) to inland facilities without building a huge power infrastructure. Trucking the fuel in is not as efficient but sometimes you accept less power later in return for some power now. Remember, "perfection is the enemy of the good."


Second, I believe that using a floating platform with very tall (~400 feet or so) structures is asking for trouble. Something floating is far more vulnerable to storms than a securely grounded pile. There must be a good reason it's not being done now.

Oil rigs are already several hundred feet tall and they have much more mass at altitude than a couple of turbines. As for storms, the power pods can move at 20 knots and can get to a dock in just a few hours. During the storm there wouldn't be any pow.... wait.... Oh yeah! They have stored hydrogen that they can use to provide power during emergencies! Wow, what foresight!


Thirdly, why have the things so far from shore. Transmission losses (if undersea cables are employed) are large over such distances, and it does take quite a bit of aluminum to make such long wires

We're only talking about a mile or so of shore. Trading a mile of undersea power cable for buying fuel every year starts getting pretty appealing.

As to why, if you RTFA wind power is much greater once you get about a mile off-shore. Soil causes a lot of drag, interfering with wind patterns. Anyone who's been on a very large lake can tell you there is more wind at the center than at the edge. More wind = more power. Sufficiently more wind than you would have for the power loss for a measly mile of cabling.


If a ship must come to load the hydrogen every once in a while, then you just added a large operating expense (and one of the nice things about wind and solar is very low operating expenses).


Hmmm. Let me think. I can a)buy fuel oil or coal with the cost of materials and shipping or I can b)send a tanker no more than 10 miles round trip (1 mile out to sea, about 4 miles out of the sea lanes) to pick up fuel my turbines made for free. Hmmmmm......


So why not stick to tried and true near-shore and land based wind turbines?

• Better power efficiencies - more wind a mile out to sea
• Reduced risk - fixed turbines cannot be towed out of the way of storms
  
• Loss of property - developing nations' only tourism may be beaches
  
• risk to animals - many ocean/land transitions are nesting grounds. Migratory birds are evolved enough to be lazy, using major wind currents to boost their efficiency and aiming them right at many turbines
  
• Reusability - if a nation uses a set of these to get their economy going enough to build permanent power facilities they can tow them to another region. Alternately they could be resold or moved to areas suffering from natural disasters. You can't resell a wind turbine easily.
• Reduced military targets - a lot of regions are prone to violence and infrastructure is a big target. A mile of ocean can provide a surprising amount of defense. (Yes, the US military would SEAL right in there but I'm talking "freedom fighter" types who probably don't even have access to a Zodiac.)
  
• Safety - Hydrogen production may be seen as a risk to some groups. Putting it a mile out to sea pretty much cuts loss of life down to any onboard staff.
  

Re:This is not feasible today

[macdaddy]

There must be a good reason it's not being done now.

Can you imagine what the world would be like today if every inventive mind rationalized new concepts the way you just did?

Eh?

[Chuck Chunder]

Wind farms on the land take up massive amounts of landspace, I just don't know how you could acceptably occupy a similar amount area on water.

Surely there's much greater demand on land space than water space, especially at sea.
These windmills should produce more energy as there should be more wind available to them without land getting in the way.

WHo is this guy?

[jcr]

Are we talking about another Moller here or what? "About to strike a deal?" In other words, no deal exists yet, and this is wishful thinking.

-jcr

chilling? not really.

[xilmaril]

they're fundamentalists. people who believe their view is right, and anyone who would dare question it must die. funny thing, though. it doesn't really matter what their views are, the 'must die' thing is what's important and scary.

Read article 15min. ago--BS detector still blaring

[Tsar]

Has anyone with knowledge of actual power generation systems looked at this article?

• The submitter is apparently the owner of the site where the article is posted--also of other "Free Energy" and survivalist supply sites.
• The article gives no details about a technology which seems sketchy at best and pure BS at worst. This gap is covered by the ever-popular "U.S. companies had better hurry up, the Europeans and Asians are about to pay me BIG MONEY for my wonderful ideas!" Come on.
• The only Dr. Thomas L. Lee I could find is an MD in Texas, and the only Stanbury Resources I found sells real estate in Montana.
• In the final analysis the idea sounds like a 7th-grade science fair project. Does he really think Slashdot readers will think that venture capitalists are lining up around the block to pay for this "idea?"

Sorry if I sound sarcastic, I must have gotten up on the non-gullible side of the bed this morning.

This is soooo stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

These foolish ideas are always getting headlines. If this design were truly feasable - it would be in practice now. I work in wind energy and there are numerous reasons why a floating platform will never work.

1. The platform will be too heavy. Lifting an 80 ton generator and blades is impractical. To provide enough lift to keep this thing in the air and not have it blown back down would be nearly impossible.

2. Wires? Hello... did the inventor consider the additional weight of the wires to interconnect this thing?

Anyway - look at what is working now. There are countless "wackos" out there with a better idea... but very few of them are practical. The Vertical Axis (eggbeater type) of turbine is a perfect example. Great concept - has too many engineering problems.

Re:This is soooo stupid.

[dangitman]

These foolish ideas are always getting headlines. If this design were truly feasable - it would be in practice now

That doesn't make a lot of sense. there are many feasible designs that have never been made. Just because something is feasible, doesn't necessarily mean it will be produced.

Re:Where the birds are few...

[oneiros27]

Gotta love when the 'environmentalists' find problems with a 'green' energy source.

But ... if we kill off the birds who are ultra-focused on their prey, and don't pay attention to their environment, wouldn't have leave a less crowded habitat for the non-stupid birds to thrive in? That would make the endangered species stronger in the long run.

(if we have creationist environmentalists, we can just tell 'em that it's part of a greater design, and it's beyond our understanding to try to make sense of it)

a la Total Annihilation:

[greatgreygreengreasy]

Floating wind turbines are fine, but only until you can get your tidal generators up, and those become obsolete after underwater nuclear is built. They are quite fragile, however, so be sure to protect them with Scooters or floating Defenders, to ward off trigger-happy Scouts... ;)

Re:a la Total Annihilation:

[Frogbert]

Actually it was more efficient to build a heap of sonar stations and turn them off, free energy!

What stops it being blown away

[weharc]

Hhhmmm, a giant floating thing out in the ocean, in windy spots. What stops it being blown away? Does it have some kind of motor to position itself? And what about ocean currents for the same matter. I suppose I'd better RTFA.

Re:What stops it being blown away

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm.. an anchor?

Re:What stops it being blown away

[dangitman]

Arrrr, that's not an anchor! - The Sea Captain

Fish

[Chuck Chunder]

Maybe benefits to fish could mitigate any problems for birds for people who are overly worried about this sort of thing. If a bunch of these were in an area and the area were off-limits to boats, in particular trawlers, then perhaps the sea underneath them would act as a reserve and mitigate over-fishing? I suppose it depends if these things would be deployed in a group over a large enough area or just dotted about the place individually.

They have the platform, deversify!

[transami]

There's more they can do to increase to cost ratio. First, You're out in the middle of the ocean, plenty of sunlight out there, so cover the thing in Solar Cells. Secondly, you're out in the middle of the ocean, plenty of waves out there, why not pick up the wave energy. Third, you're out in the middle of the ocean, thers's a significant surface to deep ocean temperture differnential out there, pick that up with a sterling engine. And number four, if you produce the hydrogen/oxygen under water rather then on the surface you can allow it too rise to the surface and harvest bubble energy! ;)

Aside, I'm not so sure about the battery thing, unless they've improved battery technology there is low return on high cost. Hydrogen seems the better storage mechanism. And, uhm, how are they getting the electrcity to the grid if it's out in the middle of the ocean? Do they sail in and out to unload?

Re:They have the platform, deversify!

[IamTheRealMike]

Sterling engines don't exploit water/surface temperature differences, you're thinking of a different scheme. Sterling engines are a type of solar power based on focussing the suns rays on a central spot.

This is great until the next Cat 4 Hurricane..

[kevlar]

This is great until the next Cat 4 Hurricane, then the whole system goes to hell. The problem with floating platforms is that if they are connected directly to the grid, then they are connected via a cable. You can't just drive something that tethered out of the way of a hurricane.

On the other hand, if you do not have them connected directly to the grid and generating power that way, then they'd need massive batteries to store energy until they can be shipped elsewhere.

I suppose if they are devoting all their energy towards electrolysis to make hydrogen, that that could be a solution, but I'm not entirely buying the idea.

Re:This is great until the next Cat 4 Hurricane..

[KylePflug]

Or you could just float it somewhere where you don't get hurricanes. Say the strait of juan de fuca or something.

Re:This is great until the next Cat 4 Hurricane..

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, this will obviously not be of any use to the 90% of the world that will never be affected by a hurricane..

Re:This is great until the next Cat 4 Hurricane..

[Anonymous Coward]

This is great until the next Cat 4 Hurricane

Oh! Thanks! On the behalf of wind power advocates, thank you for pointing out this potential risk. Somehow we missed this and had not planned for WIND in our wind turbine plants. Cheese, no we must start all over again. Any place where it would never blow? Moon, perhaps? Safe wind power, straight from Moon. Would you like to join our research team?

Re:This is great until the next Cat 4 Hurricane..

[Chuckstar]

Sigh ... disconnect cable, attach cable to buouy, raise anchor, tow platform away (or include propellers on platform to sail away). This is the same process used by oil rigs.

Re:This is great until the next Cat 4 Hurricane..

[dangitman]

This is great until the next Cat 4 Hurricane, then the whole system goes to hell.

Sorry, I don't normally get this venomous, but you are being fucking retarded. What's your problem - do you have terror-fear on the brain? Sucked in by the New Orleans sensationalism that hurricanes are going to spring up everywhere and eat our children?

Seriously, what the fuck? Is your mind programmed by the tabloid media? I guess if this had happened during the Superbowl, you would be asking "But will this be safe from Janet Jackson's nipples?"

Re:This is great until the next Cat 4 Hurricane..

[Surt]

A hurricane is a big wind storm. This is a wind power generating platform. Hurricane == no more need for nuclear power this year. Suddenly, everyone wants a hurricane to come to their town.

Re:This is great until the next Cat 4 Hurricane..

[goofin]

Actually, I'm wondering how many of these we'd need to place in the intertropic convergence zone to reduce the number of hurricanes each year?

Re:This is great until the next Cat 4 Hurricane..

[JediTrainer]

How 'bout if they had ballast tanks? If these things are unmanned, would it be possible that if a storm were coming, they could just submerge the sucker and bring it back to the surface (by emptying those tanks) when it's clear?

Sea salt would be a bitch, but I wonder if that could be easier than towing it away. At least that way the anchor can stay put.

Re:This is great until the next Cat 4 Hurricane..

[kevlar]

Yeah but an oil rig is a centralized system. There are only a handful of oil rigs to move when something bad is coming their way.

Also because oil rigs are big, huge machines devoted to a specific area, with a staff of a 50 people or so, it is extremely expensive and extremely durable.

In order to use wind power in the ocean, you need to have a decentralized system with hundreds (if not thousands or tens of thousands) of platforms working autonomously. You can't even devote 1 person per platform without completely ballooning the cost of the system. Now because its a decentralized system, how do you move a hundred platforms out of the way of a large storm?

Security Cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not forget the cost of security for the operation and the high susceptability to terrorist attacks.

USPTO Search

[Anonymous Coward]

Zip on Stanbury Resources.

If this is such a great technology, why isn't it covered under a patent?

As long as its out there...

[Analogy Man]

As long as you have a platform out there a number of systems could be added without compromising the turbines...

• solar panels (or simpler reflectors heating water)
• Thermal heat pump from heat differential between surface and deep sea
• Extract energy from wave/tidal movement
• aquaculture platform

Re:As long as its out there...

[Yartrebo]

- solar panels. Pricey even in land based use. Marine use would be even more expensive. Still the least ludicrous of your ideas. Might only cost $10B per GW of capacity, not counting platform cost, which is about 10x the cost of a coal plant and 30x the cost of a gas plant considering a generous 33% use factor. At least this option is low maintainance, and since you're using battery storage, you don't even need to spring for a pricey inverter and the control equipment is simpler than directly driving an electrolysis machine or the grid.

  - solar thermal. A 1 acre platform can produce about 100-500 kW of power, but you will need a steam engine or steam turbine (at this power range and using steam around 300 degrees centigrade, both steam engines and steam turbines are worthy of investigation and have similar efficiencies once you take into account the ability of steam engines to accept saturated steam efficiently and work at less than full throttle efficiently). Small steam machines require tending and maintainance just like their larger cousins in coal plants (or land based solar thermal plants), but they don't get any economy of scale. Setup cost could be reasonable, so long as you avoid expensive or unfit technology (avoid using an organic rankine cycle turbine, and don't use any glass [no mirrors or vacuum tubes around the collectors], as I guarantee that the sea will break them). Cost is probably around $3-5B per GW, but maintainance will be quite steep, probably on the order of 50 cents per kilowatt-hour.

  - energy from ocean heat content. Maintainance, as determined from trial land-based installations, is prohibitive. You will also need a massive steam turbine, as the pressure differential is just a few dozen millibars. Efficiencies are on the order of 1-2%, and massive amounts of water must be moved. Maintainance is at least 1 order of magnitude larger than solar thermal for the same power output, and space constraints will limit the effective power to a few MW (for hundreds of millions sunk into the plant - particularly the turbine, no less the platform). Storms also have a tendancy to destroy the pipes used to get the cold water from below. For costs, take the numbers for solar thermal, and multiply them by 10x for both capital and maintainance. That's $30-50B per GW of capacity and about $5 per kilowatt-hour in maintainance and operational expenses.

  - aquaculture platform. Now we're getting silly. It's much easier to raise your shrimp and salmon in land-based ponds or in next-to-shore enclosures. That way you can get the food to your animals by truck instead of by supply ship, and operations are much easier than on a cramped platform deck (which wouldn't support a very large pool anyway). As far as farming algea goes, first develop a method to use the algea, and then I'm sure it'll be a whole load cheaper to use fresh water ponds than try growing them in tanks on a platform.

Based on my extensive research, land based solar thermal and conventional wind are the most promising of the renewables (nuclear isn't renewable, though it sure beats organic fossil fuels). Wind is nearly as cheap as conventional power (less than 2x pricier in the USA, and we have no carbon tax). Solar thermal is pricier than wind currently, but I believe that it has more promise because there is far more suitable land for solar than wind, and improved material science (particularly if the stirling engine could ever be perfected, but just better heat transfer liquids, structural materials, and turbines would be a big help). Also, there is more room for cost reduction through more efficient engineering in solar thermal than in wind power, and solar thermal could theoretically scale to the 200MW per turbine range (where the efficiency of scale seems to peter out).

Article Text

[Anonymous Coward]

A vision to alleviate poverty.

RAPIDS, MICHIGAN, the E.E.U.U. -- twelve years ago routinely, when he lived in Africa, the Dr Thomas that L. Lee wished to do something to help to solve to the intermittent problem of the energy that he experimented. It felt that just he must have a way so that the energy is more reliable, buyable, and more accessible to people in the poverty-pressed areas of the world. After years of the investigation and the development, it now has arrived a point where it is ready to put his solution in execution, that he thinks could be one the most significant progresses of the world, "to give to developing countries the same advantage that now we have." The use would not be limited the underdeveloped countries. The green energy and the savings of the energy fuelless would be from interest to the countries also developed. All the nations are looking for effective ways to eliminate their dependency to not hardly contaminate fossil fuels and of suplementales sources, but for the primary capacities of the energy. The commercial energy of the wind in general reached the previous tug east year to down become competitive with conventional power plants of the grid, entering the 4-6 cents by range of the kilowatt-hour. (reference.) The invention of lees of a floating platform of wind-hydrogen with the storage of the battery, developed by its company, Stanbury Inc. Resources, obtains three things to push yet beyond that.

The Advantages
First, their turbines are designed to install on a floating platform, like an oil equipment, so they can go to where it is the wind -- it foments towards it go to the sea -- in the resistance to present/display the turbines outside coast of the wind, which they are due to locate near the coast in quite low waters to construct a platform on the floor of sea. The lees refer in a "shade of the wind" that extends between of a quarter of one mile as much as one mile complete towards outside the coast, dampening the wind force whereas it comes in earth. "we can go distant towards outside beyond that one, where it is the wind," to him we said. the "resources coast outside of the wind can be extremely more productive energy than terrestrial winds, if influenced particularly or affected by the great Earth they do not form". "in addition to the global oceanic unfolding, this technology also is satisfied ideally for the unfolding in the Michigan lake, in the Ontario lake, and other Great Lakes", he adds. If the tracks that they send allow, this one would allow the development of the energy without needing to use upon valuable earth in this high-populated region. Secondly, the company has a propietary method to slightly strike the energy of the turbine of the wind to efficiently turn the water of sea hydrogen, with a by-product of pure oxygen. Third, rather which the energy of the wind that is transported directly in the grid, is stored in a battery system so that he is available continuously and it can be used like primary system of energy of the grid. Whereas the batteries make the system more expensive than other systems of the wind, what it has been for the system able to be a system of primary energy, rather that suplemental just. Now the system can provide a continuous flow of the energy. But more importantly, a battery-based system has the advantage of being able to provide the energy in answer to the necessities with the grid. It can respond to the tips and to the valleys, rather which it had incline until load and then maximum sweepings everything, that is the case with atomic energy, and in an inferior degree with the coal, the natural gas, and the hydraulic electrical power stations of the grid. (reference.) "whereas the technology is new, one is based on well-proven principles of generation of the capture and energy of the energy, and is protected by at the moment until they finalize clear," it said lees. The two limaduras of the patent contain 45 demands around.

Aboard the platforms.

Although hydrogen it is burned clean, its

Why not put the turbines underwater?

[KylePflug]

So I'm reading the article thinking "what keeps the platform from floating away?" and of course I think "Duh, anchors." So then I'm thinking "if we have a giant powerplant tethered securely to teh seafloor, why not put the turbines UNDER the water and harvest energy from tidal movements rather than wind? Surely there's more to be had there.

Re:Why not put the turbines underwater?

[Anonymous Coward]

what about the little fishies? there's no fish-flu i ever heard about!

Re:Why not put the turbines underwater?

[slim]

So then I'm thinking "if we have a giant powerplant tethered securely to teh seafloor, why not put the turbines UNDER the water and harvest energy from tidal movements rather than wind? Surely there's more to be had there.

Congratulations on inventing offshore tidal turbines. Although I do wonder, if you're building something out at sea anyway, and running a power cable to it, why not pop a windmill on top for good measure?

wow

[circletimessquare]

that Tommy Lee is amazing

i thought he just played drums and made, ehem, peivate videos

Maybe we're looking at this wrong

[MechaShiva]

Perhaps there is a way to use pigeons as energy. They may not burn as clean as oil but who cares. It'd still be two problems solved in my book.

Kinda missing the point, isn't it?

[aiken_d]

The floating platform enables them to take the turbines to where the wind blows and birds are few, and people even fewer. His objective in commencing this project 12 years ago was to come up with a power solution for developing nations.

If it's for developing nations, why not take it where the wind blows and the birds are many. He could provide power and an unlimited supply of pre-diced stir fry at the same time!

Cheers
-b

Re:French Orders and Civil Unrest Expense

[Anonymous Coward]

In the slums of most French cities, they would turn your perpetual motion car over and burn it. Stupid Eurotrash animals. Are all Europeans this uncivilized and all their government officials that inept at resolving it?!? Do we need to send American troops over to France now as well? Wtf? Get your shit together Europe, and quit acting like the brutish teenage drunkard always calling to your reliable parent mother America to bail you out yet again.

Real Advantage - Law of the Sea

[Doug Dante]

The real advantage of this system is that it's governed by the law of the sea. These vessels can fly flags of convenience and simply import Hydrogen. You want to complain that they're killing birds? Too bad They're bothering your politically-connected and oh so expensive Cape Cod view? Thanks for playing "We don't care".

And if one of our friendly, small, and oh so bribable CAFTA partners such as Costa Rica offers the flag of convenience, guess what? That hydrogen is entering the USA duty free! Don't try to stop it, or you'll end up in a corporate friendly and politically insulated CAFTA court.

The sad part is that just like Sea Launch, it's getting so that you have to move out of the country to avoid all of the hassles and get 'er done. Thus the biggest joke of the recent energy bill. A $500 million grant to pay for people to deal with the nuclear power bureaucrats in Washington so that we might ~think~ about making another nuclear power plant.
(Well, perhaps second biggest after that Alaskan bridge fiasco)

Which brings up a good idea. You might as well cut out all of this hippie wind power BS and build a nuclear power plant out at sea to generate electricity to distill water, split it, and make hydrogen. We must have a spare nuclear aircraft carrier around here somewhere. Sell it to Costa Rica and they can rent it out to "Clean Hydrogen At Sea Corp"

Business method patent pending. Send $100,000 and you can have it.

Re:Real Advantage - Law of the Sea

[mcrbids]

The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.

Maybe offtopic, maybe not. But, your sig got to me. What a steaming load of bullsh17!

So, your world isn't better because of the technology of electricity powering your computer? Or the vaccines that you've taken since birth to prevent terrible, painful, and deadly diseases? What about the air conditioners that keep your house at a desireable temperature, year round? Or the lights by which you type this evening?

Come on, man! Technology is an integral part of humanity! Many think of humanity as what you are when you are naked in the shower, without any clothing or technology Except, that the use of tools (technology) in our genetic line comes before modern man, as does the clothing! Technology is not only one of the factors that makes us human, it has allowed our very species to evolve to make us who and what we are.

The chair you sit on as you read this is as human as the finger you use to type your response to this post. And, if being here, posting on /. is not making the (your) world a better place, why the !@#!@ are you wasting your time reading this post?

Re:Real Advantage - Law of the Sea

[the_2nd_coming]

If you ever ask RFK, Jr. what his issue is with the wind farm, it is that there are other locations to place the farm that are not in the state park.

Re:Real Advantage - Law of the Sea

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya know, this is what attack submarines were invented for... stealthily dealing with floating things.

Re:Real Advantage - Law of the Sea

[brufleth]

If you take a minute to actually research the Cape Wind situation it's a little more complex than rich political connections. I grew up a member of the working class on the Cape and one of my old bosses (small landscaping company) even took me out fishing where they want to put the wind turbines.

A very smart (read: self serving) group of businessmen are looking to exploit the public resource (Vineyard Sound) for their own gain while raising the cost of electricity on the south shore of MA. There is already a power glut in the area. There is a nuclear plant in Plymouth and a natural gas plant on the Cape Cod Canal. Power is already being exported from the area even during peak summer usage. Under MA energy law utility companies would still be required to buy power from wind turbines because it is a clean energy source. The price of that power would not be competitive and would drive up the cost for utility companies since they'd have to buy this expensive power they can't use in the area.

Some people have the perception that everyone on the cape is rich and can pay a bit more for "cleaner" power. That's far from the truth. The people who would be paying the most would be the people who live on the Cape year round. These are the teachers, the shop owners, the trades people, etc. These are normal, hardworking people, who are already paying a lot for power, property tax, etc. The cost IS an issue for these people.

I think most sane people would like to see more clean power. There are all kinds of arguments that putting wind turbines in might cause quite a bit of environmental damage, all that aside it just does not make economic sense. This is ignoring the immense costs that will spring up from maintaining massive moving parts in an extremely harsh and corrosive environment. Oh yeah and it won't be possible for it to fail since utility companies will have to buy power no matter how expensive it ends up being.

Re:Real Advantage - Law of the Sea

[Doug Dante]

Technology helped build the holocaust gas chambers. Technology allowed the East Germans to make automatic machine guns to fire at anyone attempting to escape to West Berlin. Technology allowed the Kamar Rouge to kill with ease and impunity.

It's what we do with the technology that makes the world better or worse.

Thus I could use technology to mail you a steaming pile of pooh (if I knew your snail mail address), or build a catapult to fling it at you, but I won't to that. I'll just explain that in this instance you're mistaken.

Have a nice day!

More Bullshit

[geomon]

But of course nobody is protesting wind and solar power,

I can't take anything you write seriously.

You are so full of shit that you can't escape your own narrow-minded rhetoric.

The ones I've cited were just the first three entries.

Re:More Bullshit

[mkw87]

OMG Internet Fight!!!

:grabs popcorn:

The hard part's done

[tchdab1]

Now he just needs to make them self-replicating and he can harvest them at sea using the remains of the soviet/japanese whaling fleets.

Whew! Glad the power issue is finally fixed.

Sounds Like a PHISHING Scam to me..

[TheCeltic]

Weird. Just plain strange. They seem to think that the USA will react to "Europe and China want it". While it's still never been tested, could be copied if it did work.. etc. Very odd article. Surprised Slashdot posted one of such poor quality.

Must be an ex-NASA employee ...

[DrJimbo]

From a caption in TFA:

Stanbury Resources Inc. does not mount wind turbines on the sea floor, but deploys them on floating platforms on bodies of water of any depth, from 15 meters to 15,000 feet.

Nothing says bogus quite like changing units in mid-sentence.

Re:Must be an ex-NASA employee ...

[ronanbear]

Just started to read TFA. It's embarrassingly bad even for a hoax. I particularly liked the reference to Mary-Sue Haliburton and the complete lack of understanding of how fuel cells worked.

A second article from this Bullshit site?

[obby.net]

Guys, wake up.

This article is barely worth discussion. These are the same clowns who set off our collective bullshit alarms in a previous Slashdot article. It's a shame they ganked that domain name(opensourceenergy.org), it would have made a great name for a collaborative site for use by actually reputable people.

Re:Where the birds are few...

[Walker2323]

"where birds are few" - You mean in your average Slashdotter's bedroom?

Re:Read article 15min. ago--BS detector still blar

[Anonymous Coward]

While not an expert in the field, I know a guy who is, and from discussions with him, have gained some knowledge.

Wind turbines are more a 'feelgood' measure than a power generation system. They are, primarily, made from high grade Aluminium, which requires very high amounts of electric power to produce. How much? Well, you're average generator doesn't become energy positive for about 8-10 years. ( est. lifespan 20-35 ).

I would imagine that a floating turbine would require considerably more construction materials, so the maths becomes even worse, especially after taking into account the power transmission/storage requirements.

Like most forms of alternative energy, it's a good idea, but needs more work to be truely viable.

DOE feasibility study

[Chuckstar]

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory did a feasibility study on these types of floating turbine farms and found that they could be built using existing technology and provide electricity at approximately $0.05/kWh. The turbines studied did not include the battery storage and hydrogen production described in the article above.

Re:DOE feasibility study

[mprinkey]

What is the value of putting the batteries and the hydrogen production facilities all on the same platform with the turbines? It is not like water is hard to come by on land. 1-5 mile transmission lines can move the power ashore very efficiently. Storing large quantities of hydrogen just makes the entire thing 10x less safe. Even with fuel cells, the conversion to hydrogen and back to electricity ruins the system efficiency. The situation with batteries isn't any better.

Certainly, there needs to be batteries in place to power and navigate this thing when the wind is low or so high that they can't run the turbines, but large scale battery/hydrogen storage systems are best left on the beach. Perhaps this is a bit to untether the platform and let it wander the open sea charging and electrolyzing and then return to port to drop its energy cargo. Though that seems in direct conflict with the "continuous energy supply" bit.

Re:It Doesn't Matter: Plan: shortage ... profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, let's look at how many new refineries have been constructed in the US in the last 30 years. And how many nuclear plants have been constructed in the same timeframe.

At the moment, lack of online refineries is to oil companies what lack of online generators in California was to Enron: profitable artificial (plus windfall) shortage in the energy market.

Motivation to kill profit advantage while it lasts?

This should help cool that Global Warming

[dangitman]

Pathetic human! Windmills do not work that way!

- Morbo

So, where are all the people complaining that it

[mikefe]

... won't work for inland developing nations?

I smell BS, but there is a point

[Ogemaniac]

The Great Lakes, particularly Lake Michigan, have some tremendous wind resources. Unlike the open ocean, one would not have to worry about hurricanes. Unfortunately the lakes are extremely deep in most places, making ground-mounted wind unfeasible.

There is potential for this type of technology, whether this particular article is all hype or not.

Re:I smell BS, but there is a point

[WizardOfZid]

Have you looked at Lake Erie? Its barely 30' deep in many areas and has to have channels dredged for lake freighters. Yes, Superior is 500' and more but that is not the only lake available.

Alternative viewpoint.

[katharsis83]

"Yes, let's look at how many new refineries have been constructed in the US in the last 30 years. And how many nuclear plants have been constructed in the same timeframe."

Instead of blaming the relatively weak and powerless environmentalists (how many seats does the Green party have in our beloved Congress?), maybe you should consider that Texaco, Unocal, Chevron, etc, don't exactly want to see cheap and safe nuclear power crushing their sale of natural gas/coal. It's also more than likely that by keeping refining capacity at artifically low levels, that they can string along the public for a longer period of time on a dwindling supply of oil.

"Your sarcasm doesn't measure up to reality, does it? The fact is, if the US had been continuing to build out its nuclear power capacity we may not be discussing energy strains the way we are today."

It's far more likely that a paranoid public, feeding on information from hyped up reports from 3-Mile island, is taking a "not in my backyard" approach to this.

Think hard.

How much power does the environmental lobby really have in this country?
Facts:
1. No Kyoto Treaty
2. Current administration/party in power refuses to recognize global warming, and went as far as to hire a guy to CENSOR reports on this topic.
3. Scaled back clean air regulations.
4. Not a SINGLE Green Party Senator (check out the Bundestag for comparison)
5. Massive subsidies for an energy sector that's been posting record profits.

Re:Alternative viewpoint.

[Just Some Guy]

maybe you should consider that Texaco, Unocal, Chevron, etc, don't exactly want to see cheap and safe nuclear power crushing their sale of natural gas/coal.

That argument still doesn't stack up. You just listed several energy companies that happened to be profiting from the energy stored in oil at present. They would be every bit as happy to sell you solar, tidal, or nuclear wattage when those become common.

I'm not sure why everyone seems hung up on "Big Oil" when we're really talking about "Big Energy".

Re:Alternative viewpoint.

[barawn]

They would be every bit as happy to sell you solar, tidal, or nuclear wattage when those become common.

But they'd have to pay for those new plants. They don't want to do that. The reason no new nuclear plants have been built isn't just because of regulation (though that's a convenient excuse for them to give) - it's because they aren't that profitable.

Equations of wind energy storage.

[fluffy666]

The problem with making Wind energy into a baseload power source is it's intermittancy. To overcome this without using a fossil fueled backup system (which completely defeats the purpose of having wind power in the first place, you need a storage and backup system). Probably the most energy efficient backup system we can have is a reversable fuel cell system (H2Electricity), with 70% efficiency. A good wind turbine installation will generate electricity around 33% of the time. Hence the installed capacity required becomes: N = 1 + ((1-C).(1/(E.R)))/C Where N = Capacity multiplier, C= Capacity Factor, E=H2 generation energy efficiency, R=Electricity generation from hydrogen efficiency. Putting in our numbers above, we get: N= 1+(((1-0.33).(1/0.7x0.7))/0.33) =1+((1.33)/0.33) =5 This means that you need to install 5MW of wind turbines to get 1MW baseload power. So you can take wind power cost estimates, and assuming that your fuel cells and hydrogen storage systems are free, multiply the cost by 5 to get a realistic cost. The above also assumes that hydrogen storage is lossless, which is generally not the case. If, as may well be the case, hydrogen needs to be stored on a season to season basis (i.e more wind in winter), this may make the system physically impossible. Furthermore, the above uses lab fuel cell efficiencies; reducing to 'real world' 40% efficiencies means that N=13, i.e. no less than 13Mw of wind generators are required for 1MW baseload. In short, wind power shows no sign of ever being able to economically fulfill our energy requirements.

Re:Equations of wind energy storage.

[slim]

Only today, the Guardian published a rebuttal by Jonathan Porritt, to objections of this kind.

Excerpt:

Much is made of its intermittent nature, but wind is more predictable than people assume. Advanced forecasting makes wind output from across the country much easier to anticipate. Bearing in mind the huge minute-by-minute shifts in power supply and demand, wind is just another cog in the system.

Jenkins claims that wind will require "dedicated backup", but this is not the case - and our view is supported by the National Grid, which runs the electricity system. Dedicated backup is not required for wind because backup supplies are provided for the whole electricity system, not for each individual plant. If this weren't the case, we'd need backup for every plant in the UK: nuclear and coal also have unplanned shutdowns, and when they do the effect is more dramatic than for wind.

So to summarise (or paraphrase, if I get too verbose):

• Wind is indeed intermittent, but (demonstrably in the UK, Porritt's commission published a study; and surely in somewhere as large as the USA) it's windy somewhere almost all the time. The purpose of the grid is to flatten out regional variance in supply and demand.
• Yes, backup is required, but this applies equally to other sources.

Re:Equations of wind energy storage.

[fluffy666]

Firstly, it's quite possible for a high pressure system to drop wind speeds all over the UK (And bring in a very cold snap at the same time); not the best scenario for a blackout.

Secondly, the point that I raised about baseload generation was and has not even been addressed. Wind power still gets a 'free ride' at the moment - wheras a gas powered station, for example, can be switched on to provide backup for an unplanned outage elsewhere, a wind farm cannot. So you do indeed need installed nuclear/hydro/fossil capacity equal to total maximum demand+20%. Wind power cannot be counted into this.

Normal thermal power plants act as both contricutor and backup. Wind can only ever be a contributor, unless you implement the system in my first post, which makes it fantastically expensive. Switching NG plants on and off (especially newer combined-cycle ones, ironically), is also quite wasteful even if you can predict when you will do it.

Third, we don't usually try and balance electric grids over too huge a region, as it is very hard from a technical viewpoint. Doing this specifically to accomodate wind power should be chalked up as another extra cost. And in the UK, wind power will add to the existing imbalances - most generating facilities are in the North and West, which are also the best wind sites, and most usage is in the south east.

To summarise: Wind power does require more backup building, unless it only makes a trivial contribution. The article you quote tries to dodge issues more than address them.

Re:Equations of wind energy storage.

[petermgreen]

the things i remember seeing reckoned they could get wind up to 20% of total generation without too many problems and that i belive.

but even 20% is still dicking arround at the edges. If we wan't to get to the point where renewables are the MAIN source of power then we are going to have to seriously reconsider our grid structure.

Re:Equations of wind energy storage.

[slim]

To summarise: Wind power does require more backup building, unless it only makes a trivial contribution. The article you quote tries to dodge issues more than address them.

It depends what you consider trivial. The article I quoted is talking about wind as a source of 20% of our needs. I think most of the arguments against probably break down when you're only talking about 1/5 of the total supply, but organisations such as Porritt's renewables commission find themselves having to argue hard even for that.

Re:Read article 15min. ago--BS detector still blar

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in the wind energy industry and the above comments strike me as misinformed.

Wind turbines are not generally made from Aluminium. Towers are typically rolled steel, and blades are usually glass fibre or other composite construction. It was estimated some time ago that wind turbines became energy neutral in about four months, including manufacture, transport, construction and desposal. They are essentially extremely energy efficient generators. This is in sharp contrast to PV for example.

Lee (and the parent) assert that wind power does not constitute not serious generation. Denmark forms an excellent counter-example, approaching 30% wind energy penetration on windy days. They have the advantage of grid stabilisation from Germany, but even the UK government estimated that 20% penetration would pose no serious problems in grid stability terms.

As for (non-floating) offshore devices, the UK is gaining experience fast. Round 1 projects are in construction or operational, and round 2 are in planning. Several round 2 projects are rated around 1GW, equivalent to a large conventional power station, however, the economics are fairly tricky, even in areas unaffected by Lee's "Land Wind Shadow".

My personal feeling is that if battery technology or hydrogen conversion were economically viable, the vastly lower cost of on-shore construction would more than outweigh the additional wind speeds obtained off-shore, especially if the turbines were put on a hill. Power storage systems tend to be done on a smaller scale (one turbine and a backup generator) for island communities, but this is driven by the high price of energy in these locations.

Lee's design strikes me as perculiar:
1 Wake losses. turbines are usually placed atleast 6 rotor diameters downwind of each other in prevailing directions, to avoid onerous fatigue loads. Lee's machines are 1D apart.

2 Why have the battery storage off-shore? Could there not be a more efficient, and easier to maintain on-shore facility?

Re:Read article 15min. ago--BS detector still blar

[Alioth]

Where did you get THAT information from? Wind generators are steel (usually with fibreglass blades). The energy payback is around 6 months which is pretty damned good. Germany is already generating 12% of its power demands from your so called "feel good" measure.

But I'm not convinced the floating platform idea will work - tall, floating structure = asking for trouble.

Flotilla

[llebegue]

Flotilla ... anything to do with any other "...illa" related projects ?

omg

[mike_sabatino]

omg

We must move upwards not forwards!

[Timberwolf0122]

This may sound like the over simplification of a simpleton but why not stack the tubines ontop of each other? You could get many more turbins/m^2 that way or better still make a wall of smaller turbins that all link up, a small blade could survive much rougher conditions that a hulking great one.

Re:We must move upwards not forwards!

[brufleth]

The more individual turbines the more moving parts you have. The blades aren't what wear out. True larger blades cost a lot but the long term costs come from maintaining the machinery in the turbine. So fewer larger turbines is a more cost effective way of gathering wind power.

As far as stacking, you're already really high up. I know the turbines they are proposing to put in Vineyard Sound are 120m tall or so. I think that's just the tower too. The blades up higher. So the tower would have to be twice that and much stronger since you'd be applying force even further from the base. Maybe they do this with smaller turbines but I'm pretty sure costs get out of hand quickly.

Wind power project goes deeper out to sea

[GPaL]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9897250/

Re:Sterling Engines

[Migraineman]

Sterling engines are "heat differential" engines. They require a hot-side, and a cold-side. It doesn't matter where the "hot" and "cold" come from. A cup of coffee or your hand (relative to ambient air temperature) works great for small Sterling engines. The solar focusing technique is just one implementation.

Re:Sterling Engines

[barawn]

Actually, Stirling engines are "heat differential" engines.

A sterling engine probably has something to do with silver, got me. Common mistake, though. Google automatically corrects it for you, though I think it'd be nice to Rev. Stirling (and his brother) to actually get his name right.

Mod parent -69, Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Wind turbines aren't typically Aluminum. (They're steel and fiberglass)

2. If Aluminum production were that damned energy-intensive (Reynolds Wrap is just as hard to melt as exotic aircraft aluminum), then you sure as hell couldn't buy Costco soda for $6/crate.

3. Who in the hell Mods this informative?

Love,

AC

Mod parent down (-1) dipshit

[Anonymous Coward]

If parent is serious he's a dipshit. If parent is t3h funnay, he is not.

"Produces Hydrogen cleanly"

[trigeek]

From TFA: "Though hydrogen burns cleanly, typically its production is tied to polluting processes, and is accompanied by a net energy loss, requiring more fuel to create than it gives off. Lee's system produces hydrogen cleanly, with no pollution, from energy that is free for the taking - wind. Their system does not go straight from the turbines to electrolysis, but involves batteries. Though proprietary, Lee said that the process was 'embarrassingly simple.' He is not permitted to elaborate further, but states simply: 'Our new hydrogen system has solved the net energy deficit dilemma.' " This is the real news here. However, he conveniently can't talk about it. I call BS.

Re:Read article 15min. ago--BS detector still blar

[Anonymous Coward]

* The submitter is apparently the owner of the site where the article is posted--also of other "Free Energy" and survivalist supply sites.

Survivalist does not equal nut job. Look at the impact of the hurricanes on the gulf coast. Look at the impact of the tsunami in India. Look at the effect of the recent heavy rains on the northeastern US. Look at the fact that, in many locations, it's common for power to be lost during the winter.

Survivalism, when taken in reasonable doses, is not harmful, and does not indicate that someone is a nut. Just because you want to live does not mean you're crazy, and just because you're taking measures to increase your odds of living (like wearing a seat belt) does not mean you're crazy.

The article gives no details about a technology which seems sketchy at best and pure BS at worst. This gap is covered by the ever-popular "U.S. companies had better hurry up, the Europeans and Asians are about to pay me BIG MONEY for my wonderful ideas!" Come on.

Agreed. That sounds like an awful weak reason for investing in a technology. However, I did not read the article, so I'm taking your word that that's the actual content.

The only Dr. Thomas L. Lee I could find is an MD in Texas, and the only Stanbury Resources I found sells real estate in Montana.

Can the reference not be old? Could Lee not telecommute? What kind of search did you do? Could he have an unlisted number? Could he be a physicist? Could he be regularly listed without the Dr. title?

In the final analysis the idea sounds like a 7th-grade science fair project. Does he really think Slashdot readers will think that venture capitalists are lining up around the block to pay for this "idea?"

They may be, but, if your insinuations are correct, then he has not provided any real evidence. Only once he starts getting money - and proving it - should we start to believe that he's getting money :)

Offshore Windfarms are not new

[fiannaFailMan]

See Collaborative Offshore Wind Research Into The Environment (COWRIE) for details of existing offshore windfarms in the UK. See also, Cape Wind, America's first offshore windfarm on Nantucket Sound.

Nothing new here. Try a google for "Offshore Wind Farms."

Backup doesn't matter.

[bluGill]

Who cares? Just keep a few backup gas plants around for when the wind doesn't blow.

There is only so much gas in the world. If the gas plant has to operate 1 day per year because there isn't enough wind, than is 364 extra years of gas supplie to run that plant.

Yes you need to maintain that gas plant even when idle, but even with that, I'd prefer to save gas where we can.

Re:Backup doesn't matter.

[fluffy666]

Who cares? Just keep a few backup gas plants around for when the wind doesn't blow.

Well, here's the dilemma: If you install wind capacity equal to the entire requirements of a country, you will still onl yend up supplying 35% of requirements (ignoring the fact that wind supply may not match demand). So gas would end up supplying 65% at reduced efficiency; in other words, you would save less than 35%. At, I may add, vast expense. And you don't need a few plants, you need enough for the worst case, which means that some would be very rarely switched on indeed.

An all-nuclear solution, by way of contrast, would always be available to supply, AND provide a large amount of very cheap off-peak electricity to run things like fertilizer plants and synthetic fuel facilities (in both cases, saving even more CO2 emissions).

Re:Alaska Bridge Fiasco

[srvivn21]

Lots of misinformation on this one...

Here's rebuttle from a (biased the other direction) source:
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/knik/story/7153327p -7062460c.html

To paraphrase the story, speakers in the Senate (and the House for that matter) quite often don't know what they are talking about and frequently engage in hyperbole. There's a shocker.

Yeah, it's off topic. Misinformation needs to be stopped, irrespecive of the cost.

nutbags

[raygundan]

I suppose they're "environmentalists," but they're also idiots. The Altamont pass windmills are 30 years old, small, short, and fast-spinning. Newer turbines keep the blade tips so high that the lowest point is over 100m off the ground (above the flight paths of birds), and spin *much* more slowly. Even Altamont's small windmills are being replaced with much larger, modern windmills.

Altamont pass has its issues with bird kills, but it's not an issue with new windfarms.

An environmentalist who opposes all windfarms on the failings of a single one, despite repeated demonstrations that the issue is now resolved is an idiot. I've never seen a better second use for middle-of-nowhere midwestern cornfields.

Power dams as wind energy buffer?

[ekc]

When there is excess wind energy, why can't they shut down some hydroelectric turbines and allow reservoir levels to recover? I remember reading that hydroelectric power here in Ontario had fallen 15% over the past summer, thanks to a combination of high energy demand and low precipitation. Any new energy source--even a highly variable one--could, in theory, help keep hydroelectric running at its peak, so there's an energy buffer or sorts. I'm just not convinced that saving electricity in giant floating batteries is the way to go...

Why a new platform? Recycle, reuse?

[fygment]

Why not refit old super tankers, aircraft carriers, oil rigs? Why spend time, effort, and money on a new platform (which from the look of the drawing has a long ways to go before being seaworthy)?

Re:Sterling Engines

[Migraineman]

Damn, I didn't even realize I'd typed it wrong. And I *know* it's "Stirling." I've built several Stirling engines, and they're cool little devices.

Mea cupla.

Thanks for the Norsk Hydro floating turbine story

[sterlingda]

Thanks for pointing out the MSNBC story, based on the Norsk Hydro press release.

I've publish a version here:

Wind power project floating out to North Sea - Norwegian utility envisions a floating 660-foot-tall tower, tethered to sea floor, supporting 95-foot-long blades. Scaled-down 3 MW demo with 14-foot' blades expected in 2007. If the concept works, Norsk Hydro envisions parks of perhaps 200 windmills, in waters 700-2,200 feet deep. (OSEN; Nov. 3, 2005)

You've gotta see their video (linked in above story). It's like watching a 5-star movie trailer.

Sterling

This is a special case (old design)

[Ken Erfourth]

Here's the money quote from the ariticle linked above

• Stengel also said the Altamont site is an anomaly. Besides its poor location, he said many of the turbines there, some decades old, use older designs, with faster-spinning blades that reach closer to the ground than recent models -- where birds are more likely to be flying as they hunt for prey.

Old designs, with low level, fast spinning blades, and guy wires to stabilize them, are responsible for a lot of bird kills.

New designs use self-supporting tower, redesigned blades that rotate more slowly (and more quietly), and don't hug the ground as much (more to access the energy of higher level winds than to save birds--removing guy wires and slowin the blade speed does most of that).

About a month ago, here in Madison, we had a major bird kill (several hundred in a night) around radio towers (and their associated guy wires) when a flock flew into them on a foggy night. We never have similar bird kill problems associated with unguyed water towers.

I can also testify that old designs are quite noisy, and that rural neighbors get very bent out of shape about the "woosh, woosh" noise of older turbines. The new ones are much less noisy.

The evolution of wind turbines is a perfect illustration of how an environmentally sensitive approach can improve both the efficiency and reduce the impact of a technology. Imagine what we'd be seeing today if the traditional energy and mining industries had employed a similar synergy, instead of bulldozing all opposition under (sometimes literally).

Imagine a Beowulf Cu

[Yanray]

I can't believe it hasn't been said yet..

Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these.

What Wake? Why wake from the vision?

[sterlingda]

Tom responded saying, "Our turbine spacing on the four turbine platform is amply adequate to avoid wake problems. Our patent covers single turbine platforms as well as multi-turbine platforms."

He doesn't seem to think that wake is a problem for shortly spaced turbines. I disagree.

He sent me an image of two rows of 9-10 turbines on one platform that resembled a fat aircraft carier. The turbines are less than 1D apart. The image assumes that the wind is blowing in one direction. It assumes the whole craft would move to face the wind. I don't want to be too hard on him, but it seems that he was having fun with some image program without thought for the physics involved.

He's a dreamer, with no real world experience in the field. The Norsk Hydro crew, on the other hand, has vast experience, and has designed something far more simple.

The world needs both the dreamers and the realists.

Re:What Wake? Why wake from the vision?

[Chuckstar]

"The turbines are less than 1D apart. The image assumes that the wind is blowing in one direction. It assumes the whole craft would move to face the wind. I don't want to be too hard on him, but it seems that he was having fun with some image program without thought for the physics involved."

How inefficient would that spacing be? (Not sarcastic, I really don't know.) If its just "somewhat less efficient", but would be much cheaper to build and operate, then it might work out. Sometimes engineers get focused on only one side of the problem (most efficient turbine placement) and ignore the other side of the problem (most efficient to build and maintain). The best engineers balance cost and efficiency to get something that makes the most economic sense.

"The world needs both the dreamers and the realists."

Hear, hear.

I often think about Columbus. His contemporaries knew the earth was round, they just thought you'd never make it across all that ocean. And they would have been right, except there happened to be a continent less than a third of the way along. In hindsight, its a little weird that they thought there would have been nothing out there, but if there hadn't been at least some islands to stop at, Columbus never could have made it all the way across (not enough provisions).

Re:Sterling Engines

[IamTheRealMike]

My mistake, thanks for correcting me (politely ;)

Utilizing Higher Altitudes Off Shore

[David Spoey]

My first post. These questions have been on my mind for a few months now... Would silica aerogel be appropriate for floating power plants? Could you tug these power platforms around on a barge? Could you turn these offshore power plants into tourist attactions? How much energy could a hugely scaled up version of a renewably diversified power plant produce? Could you integrate hydroponic biomass producing areas into them? -Could you integrate H20 desalinizing plants on them? Could you integrate OTEC (ocean thermal energy conversion) columns? Could you integrate piezoeleectric elements into the pressured points of these power plants? Could you integrate hydrokinetic elements below the floating platform? Could you use horizontal turbines (torque fueled) on the outside of these platforms and use vertical axis (drag fueled) turbines in their wind shadows? Would it be feasible to scale these floating platforms up to higher altitudes, or combine them with high altitude kites? Would it be possible to instead build in the Sahara desert 10 mile domed power plants from ultrastrong carbon nanotube fibers , silica aerogel, and biopolymers? How about combining all of these with massive amounts of rain and photon collecting QD= Multi exciton generation philm? I think we are onto something! -- http://spoey.com/ --> A light in the darkness. The only constant is delta. http://www.spoey.com/RNT.htm ---> Grid of Renewable Integrated Networked Technology