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Giant Floating Windmills To Launch Next Year
pacroon writes "StatoilHydro is building the world's first full-scale floating wind turbine, Hywind, and testing it over a two-year period offshore of Karmøy, Norway. The company is investing approximately $80 million. Planned startup is in the fall of 2009. The project combines existing technology in innovative ways. A 2.3-MW wind turbine is attached to the top of a so-called Spar-buoy, a solution familiar from production platforms and offshore loading buoys. A model 3 meters tall has already been tested successfully in a wave simulator. The goal of the pilot is to qualify the technology and reduce costs to a level that will mean that floating wind turbines can compete with other energy sources."
Indeed, Denmark already has extensive offshore windfarm resources, and they produce a good percentage of their power from wind as well. A small country like Ireland could well produce most or all of its power with this technology.
This also solves the issue with noise from wind generators anchored in deep water, which the Danes have estimated could cause problems for whales - sound travels much farther in deep water.
And can we please spare the feckless comments on injuring birds, large size windmills move much too slowly to cause a bird damage unless they ploughed into it headlong, and any bird that would do that will have difficulties with flying into cliffs as well.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
the majority of the surface area on a wind turbine is tilted at an angle unsuitable for that. the only place that would make sense is probably the top of the cabin. The Blades are subject to a lot of stress/deformation, might also be that solar cells don't handle that well.
I don't get this bird killing thing. I've spent lots of time walking amongst the giant wind turbines around Tehachapi, CA where I grew up. I never saw a dead bird out there nor had I ever heard of these things killing birds until just a few years ago. Does anyone actually have any data on this? So far it sounds like an urban legend.
the latest generation of windmills produce electricity by wind speeds up to 30m/s, and at higher speeds, they just turn the blades out of the wind, so they won't get damaged.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Of course the windmills will produce traffic (a service technician coming to control them every now and then), power lines (obvious) and high-rise buildings (for the companies who build and operate those windmills). Possibly they'll also produce hunting (I can't currently find any link, but I'm sure with enough creativity, you'll find one). So you have to add all those birds killed by those activities to the numbers of windmills. You'll see immediately that the resulting sum is larger than the effect of any activity you mentioned.
And don't tell me that this calculation is not serious. After all, the RIAA gets away with this type of calculation all the time!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Here is an old article I remembered about and fortunately google brought it up http://www.coxwashington.com/reporters/content/reporters/stories/2005/11/13/BC_WINDMILLS_BATS_ADV13_COX.html
From the article
" Towering up to 228 feet above the Appalachian Mountain ridge, far above the tree line, windmills are lined up like marching aliens from War of the Worlds.
Up close, they emit a high-pitched electrical hum. From a distance of a few hundred yards, their 115-foot blades make a steady whooshing sound as their tips cut through the air at up to 140 mph."
"A study conducted at FPL's Mountaineer Wind Energy Center here this year indicated that its 44 turbines may have caused between 1,300 and 2,000 bat deaths in a six-week period. That study was led by Edward B. Arnett, a scientist with Bat Conservation International, and financed largely by the American Wind Energy Association and its 700 member companies."
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Thanks.
I found a better article that explains the concept with better pictures.
hilarious
Why not include a wave generator as part of the system?
For the rare individual who does not know. A wave generator in this context does not make waves but uses the motion of waves to generate electricity.
>How exactly they are going to manage a good reliable power transmission
>with the kind of floating power station, Any idea?
The subsurface structure:
Water depth: about 220 m (approx. 720 ft); buouy is a cylinder standing vertical in the water, the draft is about 100 m (305 ft);- buoy diameter, say 10 m.
Topside structure/turbine data:
Operating wind speed: 3-27 m/s; about 40 m long blades; rated capacity and speed: 2.3 MW; 5-15 rpm.
Mooring system:
Attached to buoy at about mid-point (say at depth 50 m); 3 mooring lines.
The power transmission system, the electrical cable:
The cable is attached to the buoy at either depth 50 m or at buoy bottom. The buoy will be subjected to both dynamic and static motion due to waves, currents and wind. The static motion is mainly horizontal offset caused by the static loads that are counteracted by the mooring system. The cable arrangement is able to adjust to these buoy motions without mechanical overload, this is achieved by the following methods:
1. Bend stiffener in the interface with the buoy (a 2-3 m long conical plastic thing which main purpose is to avoid overbending and associated fatigue damage in the interface with the buoy.
2. The cable is arranged in a compliant riser configuration between seabed and buoy, this allows the spar buoy to move without causing excessive tension and bending in the cable. This effect is achieved by "storing" over-lenght in a buoyant cable section. Hence - when the buoy moves - cable lenght is simply "paid" out (or in) from the buoyant section. Starting at the buoy there is a bend stiffener followed by say 150 m cable, then perhaps 60 m cable equipped with buoyancy until eventually there is cable to the seabed. There is of course an anchor somewhere at the seabed to keep the cable fixed.
The above technology is well known from the oil industry, the described riser configuration is a so called "pliant wave" or "lazy wave configuration". The main challenges with this concept is that it is new uncharted territory and that we do not yet know the actual parameters. Our experience is from the oil business, where such cables between platform and seabed are routinely used.
Greetings from a member of the engineering team within Nexans Norway AS, the Halden plant, which will design and manufacture the power transmission for the Hywind project.
Now it's time to use their own bullshit against them. It is time to shut down every idiotic "green" project by any means necessary. Building a wind farm? Expect to hear every single lie told about conventional power thrown back in your face.
All those power lines leaking radiation into the environment!
Wind turbines have huge carbon footprints because of their refined metal content. The only carbon-neutral wind turbines are made of wood.
The iron used in wind turbines has a half-life of billions of years!
The quantum flux caused by their rotating magnets makes eggshells thinner.
The vanes mix the air and cause acid rain.
Electricity from wind turbines has been shown to cause moleculitis in kids.
Using dozens of tiny generators instead of one big generator puts tons more negative ions into the atmosphere. Or is it positive ions? It better not be neutral ions, because those are pure poison.
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Usually, I am against using lies to counter lies. The corrective for lies is truth. But in this case, I expect the creative use of lies to illustrate previous lies will be funny as hell, because it is so deserved.
Hoist by their own petard. Hehe, I said "petard."