Slashdot Mirror
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."
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 ;)
KeepTrackOfIt.com - Find the lowest gas prices in your area graphically
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.
Supplementing the gird is a commendable achievement.
Where are we keeping the real editors?
C17H21NO4
Imagine a Beowulf cl... oh wait never mind.
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.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
"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.
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. - Douglas Adams
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.
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?
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
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?
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.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
- 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.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... ;)
LRN 2 SWM
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.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
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
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
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.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
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.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Nothing says bogus quite like changing units in mid-sentence.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
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.
"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.
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.
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?