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Floating Wind Turbines
The Great Pulgoso sends us word that Norwegian energy group Norsk Hydro has signed an agreement with Siemens to develop floating wind turbines. The companies agreed on a schedule that would see a prototype in the North Sea by 2009 and a working wind farm using 5-megawatt generators by 2013. (Norsk Hydro unveiled the design in 2005.) Inhabitat.com has taken the giant illustrations from the Norsk Hydro site and reproduced them at a reasonable size. The design features a steel tube 200 meters long. It extends 80 meters above the sea surface and has three 60-meter blades. The whole thing is anchored to the sea floor by three tethers. The developers expect to be able to install the turbines in waters up to 700 meters deep.
The article says "Norsk Hydro expects to be able to use this technology on sites located 50-100 miles off shore, and with a depth of up to 500 meters" Where does the summary get 700 meters from? Adding the 200m steel tube to this number isn't correct.
The cables are there to keep generators stationary. The waves aren't much of a problem when you center of floatation is 60m below the waters surface. You don't see oil platforms bobbing up and down or blowing away for these reasons. Rubber coated copper is very good at getting the power to shore.
We are all just people.
If you had RTFA (it's not very long) you'd have seen that one of the ideas behind these is that they can be placed outside migratory bird routes. Also they float, so there'll be very little contact with the sea bed, apart from some anchors. The tethers they are using are similar to what oil rigs use; even the most ardent anti-green campaigner would probably agree that a wind turbine creates less environmental damage than an oil rig.
Here's a simple explanation why ocean waves aren't a problem at deep levels:
Ocean Wave Motion
As depth increases, their effects slowly decrease until completely disappearing about half a wavelength below the surface.
And since it's anchored to the sea-bed, there's no danger if it being moved by tidal currents either.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
This development is really a matter of combining existing offshore wind energy expertise and spar or tension leg platform (TLP) technology already well used by the oil & gas industry.
/*shudder*/
/*I'm a Mech Eng and closet greenie (actually more of an Olduvai doomer) and work in the O&G engineering and construction industry.*/
I had this concept going through my mind over two years ago. I've got a stack of papers and specs accumulated looking at the details of the technolgy. I was intending (dreaming) of starting a company to develop a proposal to place a wind turbine field in Bass Strait. Such a venture might be useful in offsetting the impact of Steve Brack's enormous desalination project.
I think all the technology is well developed and in place. The problem is that it is distributed amongst several disparate industry groups, and just needs to be successfuly combined, which is more of a human resource problem than anything technical.
Good on these Norwegians for pursuing this. I hope they are successful.
well the gulf stream is considerate enough to pass there, bringing Mexican heat. Not sure how many degrees it works out to but its huge.
While maintenance is ofcourse best avoided, theres a pretty big industry already in place on Norways west coast servicing oil rigs, so shouldnt be too much of a problem.
- That is so off. From here, wind is 7.5 vs's subsidized coal's 4.5. But if coal is required to clean up its' act (i.e. clean coal, bury the CO2, etc), then the costs will be about 15.Points out that all of the power is subsidized
- Yeah, this is true. Most of these plants are located in places where the winds blow 70-90%. Sadly, when they are needed most (high temps), is when they are likely to be at their worse. That is why I keep saying that our research dollars should go into energy storage (heat, capacitors, etc).
As to wind not catching on, that is absolutely false. Just about every state (excluding the south east) has major programs going on. Step out of the USA, and you see LOADS of wind catching on. Many of these are private Enterprise, rather than the large monopolies. Heck, even with that, Xcell in Colorado is starting to build plants as well as resells others electricity. In fact, they are counting on these to save them loads of money.Now the trick is to get Xcell to use nukes for their base plants, rather than the gas or coal that they want.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That's mostly because they gather strength along the way. If you could alter it so they don't start, it should keep them from ever getting to a serious threat, or possibly lessen how much they'd manage to grow, at least in theory.