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America's First Offshore Wind Farm In Pictures (businessinsider.com)
Last week, an anonymous Slashdot reader submitted a story from the Associated Press, detailing the United States' first offshore wind farm that is set to open off the cost of Rhode Island this fall. Business Insider issued a report today with some additional specifications and stunning pictures of the Block Island Wind Farm: "GE and Deepwater Wind, a developer of offshore turbines, are installing five massive wind turbines in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. They will make up the first offshore wind farm in North America, called the Block Island Wind Farm. Over the past several weeks, the teams have worked to install the turbines 30 miles off the cost of Rhode Island, and are expected to finish by the end of August 2016. The farm will be fully operational by November 2016." Fun fact: GE's offshore wind farm has turbines that are twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty. You can view the slideshow of images here.
"GE and Deepwater Wind, a developer of offshore turbines, are installing five massive wind turbines in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean."
The middle of the Atlantic ocean is thousands of miles from the nearest dense population center that needs that kind of energy. Why would they choose to place the wind farm there and then have to lay thousands of miles of high voltage undersea transmission line? And what of the safety issues with failed lines?
Seems that wind is not his thing...
These turbines are not 'in the middle of the ocean', they are 4 miles off shore and very clearly visible from the homes along the southeast coast. This project was rammed down the throats of Block Island property owners who, not being named Kennedy, were unable to block it as was done CapeWind's failed Nantucket Sound project (which the Kennedy family objected to because the turbines were clearly visible from their property).
I am all for sustainable wind-generated energy, but let's not take a dump in the waters directly off shore.
That was painful to read
The towering symbols of a fading religion, over 14,000 wind turbines, abandoned, rusting, slowly decaying. When it is time to clean up after a failed idea, no green environmentalists are to be found. Wind was free, natural, harnessing Earth’s bounty for the benefit of all mankind, sounded like a good idea. Wind turbines, like solar panels, break down. They produce less energy before they break down than the energy it took to make them. The wind does not blow all the time, or even most of the time. When it is not blowing, they require full-time backup from conventional power plants.
Without government subsidy, they are unaffordable. With governments facing financial troubles, the subsidies are unaffordable. It was a nice dream, a very expensive dream, but it didn’t work.
California had the “big three” of wind farm locations — Altamont Pass, Tehachapi, and San Gorgonio, considered the world’s best wind sites. California’s wind farms, almost 80% of the world’s wind generation capacity ceased to generate even more quickly than Kamaoa Wind Farm in Hawaii. There are five other abandoned wind farms in Hawaii. When they are abandoned, getting the turbines removed is a major problem. They are highly unsightly, and they are huge, and that’s a lot of material to get rid of.
Unfortunately the same areas that are good for siting wind farms are a natural pass for migrating birds. Altamont’s turbines have been shut down four months out of every year for migrating birds after environmentalists filed suit. According to the Golden Gate Audubon Society 75-110 Golden Eagles, 380 Burrowing Owls, 300 Red-Tailed Hawks and 333 American Kestrels are killed by the turbines every year. An Alameda County Community Development Agency study points to 10,000 annual bird deaths from Altamont wind turbines. The Audubon Society makes up numbers like the EPA, but there’s a reason why they call them bird Cuisinarts.
Palm Springs has enacted an ordinance requiring their removal from San Gorgonio Pass, but unless something else changes abandoned turbines will remain a rotting eyesores, or the taxpayers who have already paid through the nose for overpriced energy and crony-capitalist tax scams will have to foot the bill for their removal.
President Obama’s offshore wind farms will be far more expensive than those sited in California’s ideal wind locations. Salt water is far more damaging than sun and rain, and offshore turbines don’t last as long. But nice tax scams for his crony-capitalist backers will work well as long as he can blame it all on saving the planet.
"GE and Deepdrumpf Wind, a developer of offshore turdrumpfs, are installing five massive wind turdrumpfs in the middle of the Drumpf Ocean. They will make up the first offshore drumpf farm in North Drumpf, called the Block Drumpf Wind Farm. Over the past several weeks, the teams have worked to install the turdrumpfs 30 miles off the cost of Drumpf Island, and are expected to finish by the end of August 2016. The farm will be fully operational by November 2016."
From the linked article: [Turbine Nacelles- Factory in Spain], [Blades-Dennmark], [Nacelles- France], [Towers-Spain], [Shipping- I don't know, home port Willemstad], [Ratepayers-Ratepayers are expected to pay an above-market price of $440 million for the next 20 years],
I'll agree. Those pictures are about as pleasing as a triptych of oil refineries in NJ.
Off shore USA Maui has had a wind farm for years way out in the Pacific Ocean.
Powering 18,700 homes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaheawa_Wind_Power
You don't need to see pictures. Just imagine pallets stacked high with taxpayer and consumer cash being lit on fire. There's your wind farm.
but this news was last week.
The fine print? It was GE.
Corporation taking control of power, in times of dwindled oil.
General Electric has it's hands in a lot of mischievous pies. As much as wind farms sound great, read between the lines on this one.
Give it 60 days after Obama walks out of White House and it's gone because the executive orders freeing up cash subsidies will be gone.
Like like they do in Dubai and China, etc.
Whenever they have tried to build windfarms near land, especially wealthy areas like Long Island, the landed gentry have howled and bawled NIMBY! NOT IN MY BACKYARD! So they must build these far away to keep the landed gentry from calling in their congressmen to put a stop to us. http://longisland.news12.com/n...
Sad fact: Coal pollution is big killer. It kills more people from cancer than nuclear power which is no saint either. http://www.scientificamerican....
Well, I don't know about you, but I'm blown away by system, it's a breath of fresh air to see someone trying to do the right thing.Yes! Imagine the economics of scale if this gets popular.
Screeech! Bawlllll!! Moan!!! Just fucking deal with it, okay.
I am all for sustainable wind-generated energy, but let's not take a dump in the waters directly off shore.
You say you are all for it but here you are bawling about it likening it to "a dump." Your brain is so rigid you see a wind generator and think it's an abomination on the face on the Earth yet you can't explain why. Because you're not thinking. Try thinking. Your sense of visual aesthetics. Other peoples lives. I bet you don't bother protesting outside of ugly "dump" coal powerstations do you? You're a NIMBY. http://www.scientificamerican....
Here's less 'stunning' picture of this... https://www.bostonglobe.com/me...
oh the horror! you must cry yourself to sleep at night. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/...
Coal already gets massive subsidies http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind... http://www.abc.net.au/news/201... http://www.climatechangenews.c... and that doesn't count the huge cost to health care and lost worker productivity: http://www.fastcompany.com/172...
:-)
DOE did a study on savings to date through the Clean Air Act (passed through Congress without a single vote against it!) which found the Act had a *net benefit* to the economy for that reason. Nuclear sucks too, but Coal kills more than Nuclear https://www.newscientist.com/a... If someone can get alternative up to coal and nuclear then all the more power to them!
Environmental policy used to be bipartisan https://www.washingtonpost.com... Fuck partisanship!
That 14,000 abandoned wind turbine claim is bullshit: They are old ones which were decommissioned and replaced, so it's like claiming the automobile is a failed idea because there are so many cars have gone to the wreckers. Just more Nimby bullshit. http://skeptics.stackexchange.... http://www.wind-works.org/cms/...
GE installed an off shore wind farm in Ireland See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arklow_Bank_Wind_Park
They had full permission to install more but said the subsidies were not high enough. Yes they said it would not pay unless they were subsidised. All the infrastructure is in place including under sea power cable, on shore sub station. One issue they came across was they were very new in the off shore wind field back then and the small number of turbines were more a test installation. Speaking to locals they had problems with the blades cracking so hired small brazillian guys to climb inside the blades and re-enforce them. They appear to be OK ever since. There is only 7 turbines in total, not the 193 more allowed. I am not sure if they actually pay without large subsidies.
as if power-lines were not enough.
Just make a search on "birds killed by wind generators" and see images.
Can we use led lamps and live in modest homes; like not heating or air-conditioning ten thousand of square feet just to look prestigious? Or eat a bit less and drive normal size cars? Perhaps then there would be no need to make this wonderful planet's surface ugly with so many power-lines, wind turbines towers, and chimneys.
Offshore wind is one of the most hideously expensive methods of power generation. Here is a comparison of the levelized cost of generated electricity, in US cents per kWh, for various generating methods, projected for 2020:
Natural gas combustion: 6.9-15.6
Coal combustion: 8.7-16.0
"Advanced nuclear": 9.2-10.1
Hydro: 6.9-11.9
Geothermal: 4.4-5.2
Photovoltaic: 9.8-19.3
Concentrated solar heating: 17.4-38.3
Onshore wind: 6.6-8.2
Offshore wind: 17.0-27.0
These cost figures from the Energy Information Administration include all factors: amortization of the original capital investment, continuing investments, operating and maintenance expenses, fuel expenditures if any, etc. Only the cost of generation is accounted; not the cost of transmission. They are cost figures, so a business would have to mark them up to cover profit.
I don't claim that offshore wind is never worth pursuing in any situation, just that it is in general an extremely poor choice. For powering a remote island, if there is good reason why onshore wind is not practical, or is undesirable for some external reason (such as lack of available space, or protectioon of natural beauty of a resort area).
I wonder how many trillions it would cost to power the US in wind technology.
Wind power is one of the most expensive, lowest output shittiest way of generating power. But you're not allowed to point any of that out. These things are a giant waste of money, will actually raise energy prices for people who cannot afford it, and ultimately don't do shit for the environment except make a few assholes feel self important.
I wonder when someone is actually going to build a wind turbine that is structured as a turbine, to more efficiently turn flow into torque. Also, Europe would like to welcome the USA to the 21st century!
And a threat to wildlife. I wonder what GE and Deepwater Wind are paying for this valuable real estate. A crony deal no doubt as all of these things are.
Why weren't these made in the US, instead of in France then shipped over here? Nonetheless its a good idea to use ocean wind farms to supply power, its basically free energy.
Fewer people to complain.
These are going to make a great fishing spot. Fish love structure.
From the article:
"It will emit about 40,000 fewer tons of greenhouse gases per year than fossil fuels would to generate the same amount of energy. That's the equivalent of taking 150,000 cars off the road."
According to economists, about 80,000 - 150,000 people come of age each month in America. (This is the number used to see how many minimum jobs need to be created in a month to have an effect on unemployment.) How many of those people do you think have a car? Statistically, in America, 63,760 - 119,550 of them will have cars. (797 cars/1000 people in the US. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...)
From a greenhouse gas standpoint, the whole effort of building this windfarm is wiped out by 1.25 - 2.35 months of population growth.
and the windmills are wayyyy off the coast near the lighthouse. They are not block anyone's view of anything. Gorgeous looking structures. Massive things. they will certainly save Block Island a metric fuckton of money on power as BI is the most expensive power consumer in the US. The damn island imports mountains of diesel fuel to power generators FFS. That style went out in the 60s.
/would buy a house there //rent it for the summer ///live in the winter ////Blue Pottery Coffee cups are the bomb.
Now if the cranky bastards who mandate that every house looks like Amnity out of Jaws and would let people put Solar Panels up on their houses this wouldn't be so bad, but the fuckers who say "OH THIS MUST BE HISTORIC LOOKING!" refuse to let any innovation come to the island. People can't have Sat dishes on their roof, has to be on the side of the house buried. Want internet? EL OH EL DSL 5/1 at a staggering amount of cash.
Block Island is pretty but it's technologically backwards. If only they'd have more cell towers as Cell phone service is GREAT and you can get 4G/LTE everywhere, now let me use 4G/LTE as full blown internet there phone carriers. It's make the curmudgeon town council happy that no more wires would have to be run to their drab and dull looking houses.
Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/
so like.. did anyone else notice that 90% of those photos were of other sites?
Mentions 21,000 tons of carbon replaced. Bet it produces more than 21,000 tons of carbon to make, sustain and transport these mills.
Because that's when you need that little bit more of extra capacity.
Because demand is not a square wave and those coal units are huge. It takes many hours to bring a thermal unit online, even the tiny ones (eg. 120MW for something really old).
Running costs are not zero compared with idle/reserve costs. Spinning a heavy generator instead of freewheeling wears them out a lot more quickly.
There is a crossover point where it's better to bring a coal fired unit online instead of more windmills. Below that point it's cheaper to run windmills, above that point you are getting the low cost per MW that thermal generation can provide when running at full capacity.
That's the real reason why wind, gas turbines etc don't run all of the time. They are used to cover peaks and better follow demand than thermal units at 500MW or so. Apart from hydro all of the base load types of generators are far more effective running 24/7 than covering peaks so all the other types of generators have to take up the slack. So all the "wind is more expensive" types are trying to bluff you by not taking real usage into consideration. It doesn't matter if wind is more expensive per MW of capacity if you need 50MW and the other choice is a 500MW coal fired unit that is cheaper than 400MW of wind. In that situation it's cheaper to bring some windmills online for 50MW of wind than 500MW of coal.
The core of the argument is sound though. It costs ~$500k to put up a 100kW wind turbine. With energy at about 12c/kWh, each hour at full power would generate only $12 and would thus break even after 5 years of full-time, full-power wind
You are talking about the full site establishment costs there. Energetic costs to host subsequent generations of turbines at each site become the cost of replacing the wind turbine with a crane.
however the largest turbines catch wind only 20% of the time and are only 30-45% efficient, smaller ones even less. So you're looking at 50 years before they break even.
This is why "measures" like "Capacity Factor" are bogus measures, every power generation techniques has characteristic. For example, nuclear reactors only us 0.3% of the energy in the fuel so they are relatively inefficient too. Inavailability of a reactor to produce power due to maintenance or some other reason that keeps them offline. Once the reactor is available there is also the utilization of the power it produces, they may produce a good base of power, but that doesn't mean a nuclear reactor can follow demand that well.
That is off course if they never needed maintenance, these turbines are specced for 20-30years of service WITH maintenance but most of them last only half that long.
That is a good platform for the incremental advancement of wind turbine technology. You cannot do that sort of advancement with operational nuclear reactor technology until you build a new reactor.
Wind power is a loss at this point in time unless we jack the price of energy like Germany does, we need way lower costs and way higher efficiencies but for that we need rare earth magnets and the like.
Well it would be devestaing if wind power melted down and spread radionuclides into the environment however it would seem the worst they do is overspeed and catch fire. I see as more wind power installations are deployed the grid itself will change in the way it responds to availability, demand and utilization.
Solar is better (less maintenance) but it still doesn't compare to a well-maintained nuclear plant or other forms of clean energy.
It would be difficult to imagine a large scale solar plant having more maintenance issues that a nuclear power plant.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
(1) Where the distance cited is 30 miles, it should read 'less than 3 miles' off the shore of Block Island. (2) Block Island Power Company's existing diesel generates are rated at about 4.3 MW total, so the 30 MW turbines produce quite a bit more than needed for the island.
Those "... stunning pictures of the Block Island Wind Farm..." are more computer renderings than actual photographs. Just saying.
-Eric
Perhaps you should read this post instead of all the pointless tilting at windmills.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Ranting at windmills is just as stupid as ranting at motorbikes. Sure, trucks move a whole lot more stuff about but other vehicles make sense at times.
The thread linked was about windmills but it applies from my experience with gas turbines. Gas turbines can be stupidly expensive to run when the fuel costs are high (as it was in the 1990s when I had something to do with them), but if you only need to run a few and generate a lot less MW than the smallest thermal unit offline then it ends up cheaper.
Wind competes with gas and to some extent solar - coal, nukes, hydro are not in the same solution space at all for covering peaks. In Europe the gas mostly comes from Russia which makes a lot of people nervous about price and continued supply so windmills are considered more of a viable option there than they are in other places. In the US the current coal seam gas situation makes gas turbines look like a vastly better option than windmills in most situations but since units are expected to last for decades some companies are building windmills in the expectation that the gas price will be much higher in the future - probably a safe bet. In China they want a few of everything to provide a robust generating network and so that if an external provider of a resource tries to do some price gouging they can extend a middle finger.
So there you go - no politics just plain old simple capitalism behind it.