The Rocky Road To Wind Power

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times has an interesting story on the logistical problems involved in transporting disassembled towers that will reach more than 250 feet in height from ports or factories to the remote, windy destinations where the turbines are erected. In Idaho trucks laden with tall turbine parts have slammed into interstate overpasses requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs. In Texas the constant truck traffic is tearing up small roads in the western part of the state where the turbines are being rapidly erected. And in Maine a truck carrying a big piece of turbine got stuck for hours while trying to round a corner near Searsport." "'It left a nice gouge in Route 1,' said Ben Tracy, who works nearby at a marine equipment store and saw the incident. On a per-turbine basis, the cost of transportation and logistics generally varies from around $100,000 to $150,000, said John Dunlop, an engineer with the American Wind Energy Association, and experts say that transportation logistics are starting to limit how large — and as a result how powerful — wind turbines can get. There is talk of breaking a blade up into multiple pieces, but 'that's a very significant structural concern,' says Peter Stricker, vice president at Clipper Windpower who added that tower bases were getting too large to squeeze through underpasses. But a partial solution may be at hand. While vast majority of turbine parts now travel by truck, in Texas and elsewhere, some wind companies are looking to move more turbine parts by train to save money. But even the train routes must avoid low overpasses when big pieces of wind turbines are aboard. 'It's not your typical rail-car shipments,' said Tom Lange, a Union Pacific spokesman."

Comments

Oh boo hoo

[caitsith01]

How much carnage does the average coal mine produce? Typically ripping apart a huge, huge chunk of the countriside (for open cut), innumerable trucks and other big machines trundling around, not to mention the massive construction required for the actual power generation plant itself.

This type of story strikes me as particularly stupid: "big objects hard to move around" doesn't equate to "wind power worse than other types of power" as the summary seems to imply.

I also find it hard to believe that the truck traffic for installing windmills is coming through at such a huge volume that it is actually degrading any half-decent road. That would involve tens of thousands of trucks, surely?

Re:Oh boo hoo

[Celeste R]

This is indeed a logistical problem, and not an inherent problem. It's also not a problem with weight.

Wind turbines and wind towers for those turbines are very different. Towers are large and bulky, built to be structurally sound. Interstate laws require that only so much weight can be put on any given set of wheels. Heavy, illegally-running trucks (liquid haulers, etc) can easily get much heavier, on fewer wheels. The weight problem is already managed, and oversize trucks are routinely checked, where other trucks aren't as much.

If smaller roads that happen to carry large amounts of truck traffic are getting torn up, then it's not surprising, given that trucks are trucks. This Texas road in specific is notorious for being undermaintained, and the Highway Department can whine, but they know they need to do something.

I seriously doubt that this remark about 'a big gouge in Route 1' was because of weight, but rather because of size. Perhaps it clipped an overpass. Perhaps (god forbid) it actually slid off the truck. Accidents are remembered, but gradual wear and tear on a road isn't an 'accident' that happens all at once.

Putting a truck laden with a section of tower can clog up a heavy construction area for hours. Can you plan around that? Yes, but only so much. Incidents will happen, and I distinctly remember one of these trucks knocking down all the cones in a construction area, because it was either the cones or the signs.

This is 'routine' logistical work for any oversize hauler. If someone's screwing up, fingers are easy to point. It may be the driver, or it may be that construction crew that was lazy with their cones, but it's manageable, up to a point. If you can't get it through no matter which route you take, it's too big to transport.

For states back east, it's messier still because the roads are smaller (you can't fit one of these around most of those corners) and the clearances are sized to match.

Eventually, wind tower construction companies are going to have to mobilize. Contract for several years here, and several years there, and it makes more sense to actually relocate the manufacturing facility for large products to save costs.

Re:Doing it wrong.

[Guysmiley777]

It's not just common sense, in most states oversize loads are required to have scout and chase vehicles. When I was a teenager a few times I drove a scout car with a flexible fiberglass pole the height of the load being carried plus one inch ahead of an over-height load. Supposedly the route was clear but it was still a required precaution.

Since when is a lazy/incompetent trucking company the wind power industry's fault?

Re:So....

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

It still is, I just went through one of those for "retraining" because I hadn't driven in over 6 months. All they taught was enough to pass the DOT backing, safety inspection, and road test. The rest of safe driving we were supposed to learn while team driving with a "trainer" for 30 days. The trainer was most likely a driver who had six months driving experience or a little more. The training consisted of the trainer sleeping until his shift to drive while I drove, then doing a little workbook review with me, then driving out his shift while I drove. As you can imagine, not very helpful.

The other thing people forget about the truckers is that they are also their own secretary, maintenance man, planner, etc. In a ten hour day driving, there is usually 2-3 hours more of work to do after that. Trucking is not just about driving.

And then there's the four wheelers.