Wind Turbines

[Bob Wallace]

(I searched.  I didn't find the topic discussed.)

The common assumption seems to be that rare earth magnets are needed for wind turbines, or at least often used.  This leads to a lot of hand-wringing by "concerned" nuclear advocates looking for a reason why we can't have 100% renewable grids.

Turns out that REM magnets are used in only 2% of all US wind turbines.  And that the industry is turning to induction motors controlled by modern software and silicon.  That rare, rare material - sand.

Interesting read from Amory Lovins on the rare earth issue and why it largely is not an issue.  For wind turbines, EVs, and LEDs.

 
http://thebulletin.org/clean-energy-and-rare-earths-why-not-worry10785

[Tor Bejnar]

I was sad to read this quote in this 2013 Smithsonian article on "How Many Birds Do Wind Turbines Really Kill?

In addition, it appears that there is a greater risk of fatal collisions with taller turbines. This is a real problem, as larger wind turbines may provide more efficient energy generation. Consequently, it is expected that new wind farms will contain even bigger turbines, which will result in even more bird deaths. Future developments therefore will have to give very careful consideration to potential wildlife impacts when planning the type of turbine to install.

I was hoping the newer giant turbines affected bird air space less.  (Maybe this is based on 'old' data, per the attached image from the IPCC [2012 - also old]:


Per Wikipedia

A Nordex 3.3 MW was installed in July 2016. It has a total height of 230m, and a hub height of 164m on 100m concrete tower bottom with steel tubes on top (hybrid tower).

Vestas V164 was the tallest wind turbine, standing in Østerild, Denmark, 220 meters tall, constructed in 2014. It has a steel tube tower.

[gerontocrat]

With luck, birds will learn avoidance. We know that migrating birds learn to use new landmarks, urban foxes learn how to cross the road, kestrels and crows feast on carrion on our motorways and are very rarely squashed by traffic. "Life always finds a way" (Jurassic Park ?).

[ritter]

I was sad to read this quote in this 2013 Smithsonian article on "How Many Birds Do Wind Turbines Really Kill?

In addition, it appears that there is a greater risk of fatal collisions with taller turbines. This is a real problem, as larger wind turbines may provide more efficient energy generation. Consequently, it is expected that new wind farms will contain even bigger turbines, which will result in even more bird deaths. Future developments therefore will have to give very careful consideration to potential wildlife impacts when planning the type of turbine to install.

I was hoping the newer giant turbines affected bird air space less.  (Maybe this is based on 'old' data, per the attached image from the IPCC [2012 - also old]:


Per Wikipedia

A Nordex 3.3 MW was installed in July 2016. It has a total height of 230m, and a hub height of 164m on 100m concrete tower bottom with steel tubes on top (hybrid tower).

Vestas V164 was the tallest wind turbine, standing in Østerild, Denmark, 220 meters tall, constructed in 2014. It has a steel tube tower.

I strongly suspect (but have zero evidence) that wind turbines will kill less birds directly than the GHGs they offset will kill indirectly via disruption of the food web, migration/food availability patterns, habitat shifts, etc. It's just easier to quantify dead birds at the foot of a turbine, thus bogyman the technology. Thoughts?

[rboyd]

Counting wind turbine bird kills is one of the basic tricks of denialists - taking facts out of context. Also uses our built in cognitive bias to value more things that we can easily count (bird kills) than more amorphous things (GHG affects on overall bird population).

[Tor Bejnar]

I strongly suspect (but have zero evidence) that wind turbines will kill less birds directly than the GHGs they offset will kill indirectly via disruption of the food web, migration/food availability patterns, habitat shifts, etc. It's just easier to quantify dead birds at the foot of a turbine, thus bogyman the technology. Thoughts?

I think your first sentence is probably true, and the first half of your second one is obviously true.  I'm not certain this means "thus bogyman the technology," although certainly some do.

There are those who attempt to deny the problems associated with AGW, and those who attempt to deny the problems associated with potential or functional solutions (and turbines are certainly a functional solution to some CC issues).  In my ideal world, humans wouldn't be causing the deaths of 10s of thousands of birds with windmills, ACC or domesticated cats.  [Okay, back to being a hunter/gathering for me!  Woops: birds eggs: yum!]

[Bob Wallace]

, it appears that there is a greater risk of fatal collisions with taller turbines

There's no way that turbines with 140 meter hub heights are as dangerous to birds as the old turbines mounted 50 meters off the ground.  The old rotors  turned at a much, much higher rpm and the blades were largely a blur. 

The taller rotors turn much slower.  While blade tip speed is very high the entire blade is very visible.

"somewhere between 140,000 and 328,000 birds die each year from collisions with wind turbines".

At the end of 2016 there were 341,320 wind turbines in operation.  Using the top end number of 328,00 birds that's less than one bird kill per turbine per year.  Which is consistent with actual counts by ecologists at wind farms.

Now, to put that into context with other ways to generate electricity....

Based on bird kills per gigawatt hour of electricity produced.
 
Wind farms kill roughly 0.27 birds per GWh.
 
Fossil-fueled power stations kill about 9.4 birds per GWh. (34.8x wind)
 
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2198024


And to put the total bird kill into perspective...

Domestic cats in the United States kill up to 3.7 billion birds each year. (6,457x wind)
http://phys.org/news/2013-01-cats-billions-birds-mammals.html#jCp
 
Collisions with buildings kill 976 million birds each year. (1,703x wind)
http://www.fws.gov/birds/mortality-fact-sheet.pdf
 
Collisions with vehicles kill  380 million birds each year.  (663x wind)
http://www.abcbirds.org/conservationissues/threats/energyproduction/index.html
 
Collisions with communication towers kill 174 million each year. (304x wind)
http://www.fws.gov/birds/mortality-fact-sheet.pdf
 
Poisoning kills 72 million bird each year. (126x wind)
http://www.fws.gov/birds/mortality-fact-sheet.pdf
 
Managed annual waterfowl hunt kills about 15 million birds a year
http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mortality/
 
The Exxon Valdez spill killed almost a half million birds.
http://www.evostc.state.ak.us/Projects/ProjectInfo.cfm?project_id=826
 

[Tor Bejnar]

Thanks, Bob, for some context.

[sidd]

Wind turbine siting takes account of bird migration pathways. And bats at night. And a bunch of other avian related things.

To amplify on Mr. Wallace's comment about slower rotation speed, this has indeed helped a great deal. The tip is still moving very fast indeed, limited by material strength, but way up there, though still subsonic. Most bird kills by turbines these days seem to be evisceration by pressure imbalance as the bird collides with the trailing vortex behind the aerofoil and not the blade itself.

sidd

[Sigmetnow]

From the 2014 State of Birds report:

[numerobis]

From the 2014 State of Birds report:

When we get to 100x the number of wind turbines as back in 2014 (which, order of magnitude, is where we're headed), that means we expect about as many bird kills as power line kills.

Good argument for burying the power lines!

[Tor Bejnar]

Then all we'll have to do is get rid of domesticated cats and building windows.  (I once moved into a house that didn't have windows for the first 4 months.  the large and plentiful double paned windows reduced the light so much I felt I was in a cave!)

[numerobis]

Then all we'll have to do is get rid of domesticated cats and building windows.  (I once moved into a house that didn't have windows for the first 4 months.  the large and plentiful double paned windows reduced the light so much I felt I was in a cave!)

In keeping with first worrying about the low end, let's work on cars before buildings. Put people in trains instead -- you can carry a couple thousand people with the same surface area as two cars.

*Then* we can start dealing with cats and windows.

[Bob Wallace]

Then all we'll have to do is get rid of domesticated cats and building windows.  (I once moved into a house that didn't have windows for the first 4 months.  the large and plentiful double paned windows reduced the light so much I felt I was in a cave!)

In keeping with first worrying about the low end, let's work on cars before buildings. Put people in trains instead -- you can carry a couple thousand people with the same surface area as two cars.

*Then* we can start dealing with cats and windows.

Let's just keep replacing coal with wind power.  Coal kills about 36x as many birds as do wind turbines - based on GWh of electricity produced.

[Tor Bejnar]

There is an incredible increase in potential locations where wind turbines make sense when turbines get taller, according to these US Dept. of Energy maps.

[Bob Wallace]

There is an incredible increase in potential locations where wind turbines make sense when turbines get taller,

Yes, and the DOE has identified 2,000,000 km2 where we should expect to get capacity factors of 60% or better using 140 meter hub heights.  Some of the area should give us 75% CFs.

That's usable land, outside urban/suburban areas, parks, etc.

I'd love to see some organization start creating these high hub height maps for other countries.  If you look at wind resources in places like India or Indonesia all that seems to be available is 80 meter data, and there's a lot less wind down low. 

One commonly hears that there's little onshore wind in India.  That's what we used to hear about the US Southeast, but look at the 140 meter map that Tor posted.

[Bob Wallace]

Five Statoil floating wind towers are ready to have their turbines installed and to be towed into place.

They will be anchored in the Buchan Deep, 15 miles off Peterhead, Scotland.  And should start producing electricity later this year.

The Statoil design is very interesting, very simple.  The tower floats itself and has room for ballast in its bottom.  Easy to construct on land and tow to the installation site.
 


And Statoil is an oil company that is, apparently, transitioning away from oil.

[Tor Bejnar]

Maine Gov. Claims Wind Turbines Hurt State Tourism, But He Supports Offshore Drilling Expansion

Gov. Paul R. LePage, who once called wind power a "boutique energy source," has placed a moratorium on permits for most new wind energy projects in Maine, saying it could harm the state's tourism.

As it happens, LePage, a Republican, is the sole Atlantic Coast governor who favors the Trump administration's proposal to open nearly all of America's coastal waters to offshore oil and gas drilling.

Ironically, the Trump administration exempted Florida from the offshore drilling expansion for practically the same reason that LePage wants to ban new wind turbines—that it could drive tourists away.

Gov. Rick Scott warned that a spill from drilling operations would devastate Florida's tourism industry. "For Florida, we have to remember we are a tourism state. One out of every six jobs in our state is tied to tourism. So, I oppose offshore drilling," the Republican told Fox News.

Sure, tourism is big in Florida, accounting for about 12 percent of the state's gross domestic product. But tourism is also big in Maine, making up about 10 percent of the state's economy, as Reuters pointed out. Tourism also employs one out of every six jobs in Maine.

[Tor Bejnar]

Blade strike may have caused turbine collapse, says engineer
Wind Concerns Ontario worried about aging wind turbines following collapse

As the investigation into last week's wind turbine collapse in Chatham-Kent continues, some theories into what happened are emerging.

Vern Martin, a mechanical engineer and vice-president of Flowcare Engineering consulting company in Cambridge, Ont., believes a blade may have malfunctioned and struck the column, causing it to buckle.

"That ... has actually been recorded as occurring before in some of these other failures," explained Martin, pointing to a website called Caithness Windfarm Information Forum from the UK, which tracks wind turbine accidents around the world.

Martin said the two main causes of wind turbine failures are fires in the gear box and blade failures. According to the website, a blade failure caused by high winds was recorded in Sault Ste. Marie in January 2008.

There are also documented cases of the blades throwing ice several hundred metres, including one incident in Orangeville in 2009.
...

[Tor Bejnar]

cross post:

“According to Ørsted, an 8MW turbine – the MH1 by Vestas – generates enough electricity in one revolution of the turbine blades to power a house for 29 hours. If proportional, then that means these 7MW units will generate 25 hours of electricity with a single rotation.”

Hornsea Project One, located 74.5 miles off the coast of Yorkshire, UK.

World’s largest offshore wind farm starts construction
https://electrek.co/2018/01/30/worlds-largest-offshore-wind-farm/

[NevB]

These magnificent birds obviously haven't heard the anti wind lobby's exaggerations about bird deaths.

http://renews.biz/110510/raptors-revel-in-enercon-nest/

Peregrine falcons have used a nest box attached to an Enercon turbine at a wind farm in Germany to raise three young birds.

Enercon said the unnamed project owner had mounted the nest box to an E-70 machine at Gutersloh in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The company said the birds had not been disturbed by the turbine's rotors.

It added that kestrels had successfully raised young at the site in previous years.

[Tom_Mazanec]

Bernhardt may decide future of wind power:
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060871301

[vox_mundi]

Wind Power Prices Now Lower Than Cost of Natural Gas
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/08/wind-power-prices-now-lower-than-the-cost-of-natural-gas/

In the US, it's cheaper to build and operate wind farms than buy fossil fuels.

This week, the US Department of Energy released a report that looks back on the state of wind power in the US by running the numbers on 2018. The analysis shows that wind hardware prices are dropping, even as new turbine designs are increasing the typical power generated by each turbine. As a result, recent wind farms have gotten so cheap that you can build and operate them for less than the expected cost of buying fuel for an equivalent natural gas plant.

Wind is even cheaper at the moment because of a tax credit given to renewable energy generation. But that credit is in the process of fading out, leading to long term uncertainty in a power market where demand is generally stable or dropping.


Those black bars are the price of gas. Blue circles are wind, while yellow are solar.

These charts measure the "levelized cost of electricity," or LCOE. This metric calculates the lifetime cost of an electricity source, including the price of building it.

... Unless natural gas prices reverse the expected trend and get cheaper, wind and solar will remain the cheapest sources of new electricity in the US.

... even though more turbines are being built at sites without the best wind resources, we're generating more power per turbine. The capacity factor—the amount of power generated relative to the size of the generator—for projects built in the previous four years has now hit 42 percent, a figure that would once have required offshore wind. That's dragged the capacity factor of the entire US wind industry up to over 35 percent for the first time last year.

The economics of these low-wind designs are so good that 23 existing sites were "repowered," with new, larger rotors replacing older hardware on existing towers.

U.S.DoE: 2018 Wind Technologies Market Report
https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/wtmr_final_for_posting_8-9-19.pdf

--------------------------

As Wind and Solar Energy Grow, So Do Their Challenges
https://www.axios.com/wind-solar-energy-grow-challenges-6e07bb69-a291-4935-9458-beb4454678b1.html

... By the numbers, America’s electricity mix is mostly natural gas and coal (63%), nuclear (19%) and about 17% renewable, including:

6.5% = wind
2.3% = solar
7% = hydropower, which is considered renewable but is not projected to grow substantially in the coming decades.

...“In the next five to eight years, getting out post-2030 LCOE (levelized cost of electricity) is increasingly not the full story,” said Whaley. “A lot of these markets can handle 45%-50% [wind and solar] no problem. It’s when you get past that 50% mark that it gets trickier and more nuanced.”

[TerryM]

These magnificent birds obviously haven't heard the anti wind lobby's exaggerations about bird deaths.

http://renews.biz/110510/raptors-revel-in-enercon-nest/

Peregrine falcons have used a nest box attached to an Enercon turbine at a wind farm in Germany to raise three young birds.

Enercon said the unnamed project owner had mounted the nest box to an E-70 machine at Gutersloh in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The company said the birds had not been disturbed by the turbine's rotors.

It added that kestrels had successfully raised young at the site in previous years.

A little OT perhaps


But a pair of bald eagles has taken over an osprey nest just down the highway this year. I didn't realize they'd nest that close to a road.
Terry

[sidd]

Re: repowered wind

I saw some wind turbines being replaced by biger ones couple weeks ago. (with very large cranes, they had a little crane to put together a bigger crane that put together the giant crane to put up the windmill)

Illinois.

sidd

[TerryM]

Re: repowered wind

I saw some wind turbines being replaced by biger ones couple weeks ago. (with very large cranes, they had a little crane to put together a bigger crane that put together the giant crane to put up the windmill)

Illinois.

sidd

Waiting for the next generation with some trepidation.
Terry

[Tor Bejnar]

Siphonaptera
 Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
 And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so, ad infinitum.
 And the great fleas, themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
 While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.

[woops, this isn't the poetry thread - sorry]

[Tom_Mazanec]

CT offshore wind may face some rough seas
https://ctmirror.org/2019/08/27/ct-offshore-wind-may-face-some-rough-seas/?utm_source=Connecticut+Mirror+Mailing+List&utm_campaign=3a03e3f9d9-DAILY_BRIEFING_MORNING&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_571d22f8e4-3a03e3f9d9-68213281

s Connecticut races to get its first offshore wind projects on track for construction, a collision of factors appear to be working against them.

To start with, the timing couldn’t be worse.

The state and its offshore-wind-loving neighbors all face a year-end expiration of a federal tax credit that helps finance these projects – the first major attempts in the U.S. But in Connecticut some problems – including at least one self-inflicted one – could mean forgoing that money.

[Tom_Mazanec]

German wind energy stalls amid public resistance and regulatory hurdles
https://www.dw.com/en/german-wind-energy-stalls-amid-public-resistance-and-regulatory-hurdles/a-50280676

Growing investor reluctance is already showing in the number of wind power projects tendered this year. Of the more than 1,350 MW offered by the government so far in 2019, only 746 MW materialized due to a lack of participation in the public auction rounds.

So, the German wind energy summit came at a critical moment for Europe's largest economy, which has committed itself to phasing out nuclear power by 2022 and coal power by 2038. That shift can only succeed if the country manages to expand its wind energy sector significantly.

[BeeKnees]

Vesta have entered the race for bigger offshore wind turbines

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-10/vestas-enters-race-to-build-world-s-most-powerful-turbine

Vestas Wind Systems A/S will start selling the world’s biggest offshore wind turbine, standing taller than the highest point of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The giant machine, that’ll come into use by 2024, will compete with the skyscraper-sized turbines already on sale by its competitors. The industry is racing to produce increasingly larger machines that generate wind power more efficiently and at a lower cost.

Vestas’s new turbine will be 15 megawatts. That matches the potential capacity of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA, while General Electric Co’s Haliade-X machine has a capacity of 14 megawatts. Both stand hundreds of feet tall.

Vestas expects to install a prototype of the new machine next year. Mass production will happen by 2024, the company said in a statement.

[Sciguy]

The offshore wind industry uses those huge turbines.  And with oil companies needing to diversify to avoid going out of business, the infrastructure that used to serve deepsea oil wells can instead be used to build and maintain offshore wind farms, driving down the prices to operate and maintain them.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/10/why-oil-giants-are-swapping-oil-rigs-for-offshore-windfarms

Why oil giants are swapping oil rigs for offshore windfarms

The fossil fuel giants need to find new ways to reduce emissions, generate growth and maintain their share price

Jillian Ambrose
10 Feb 2021

The world’s biggest oil companies are no stranger to UK waters, but by the end of the decade they will be running more offshore wind turbines than oil rigs.

BP has already made a splash with a record-breaking bid to build two giant windfarms in the Irish Sea. The company beat established renewable energy players by offering to pay the Crown Estate £900m a year to develop the sites, more than 15 times the price paid for similar deals in the past.

Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell is also pursuing offshore wind. It has teamed up with Dutch renewable energy company Eneco to build giant windfarms off the coast of the Netherlands. French major Total was also a winner in the UK’s latest seabed auction.

Mark Lewis, the chief sustainability strategist at BNP Paribas Asset Management, a major investor in renewable energy, said “Big Oil’s” big spending on offshore wind is an investment in their long-term future.

Even the world’s largest offshore windfarms are easily dwarfed by the scale and expense of the multibillion-dollar fossil fuel projects which are routine for major oil companies. BP believes its track record delivering giant offshore infrastructure projects, ahead of schedule and below budget, will help to reduce the cost of building offshore windfarms too.

[Freegrass]

Siemens Gamesa introduces world first recyclable wind turbine blade

https://climatestate.com/2021/10/03/siemens-gamesa-introduces-world-first-recyclable-wind-turbine-blade/

While for many wind turbine components such as tower or machine house recyclable solution exist, the introduction of recyclable wind turbine blades is new.

A new resin makes the difference and paves the way for fully recyclable wind turbines, and possibly a new standard for the entire industry.

Siemens Gamesa has produced six such blades (81-meter in length) and plans to deploy them at the Kaskasi offshore wind power plant in Germany.

[vox_mundi]

Novel Rotary Electrical Contact Eliminates Reliance On Rare-Earth Magnets for Large-Scale Wind Turbines
https://newsreleases.sandia.gov/turbine_innovation/



Motivated by the need to eliminate expensive rare-earth magnets in utility-scale direct-drive wind turbines, Sandia National Laboratories researchers developed a fundamentally new type of rotary electrical contact. Sandia is now ready to partner with the renewable energy industry to develop the next generation of direct-drive wind turbines.

Sandia's Twistact technology takes a novel approach to transmitting electrical current between a stationary and rotating frame, or between two rotating assemblies having different speeds or rotational direction, ideal for application in wind turbines.

"Twistact originated by asking ourselves some really challenging questions," said Jeff Koplow, Sandia research scientist and engineer. "We knew it could be game-changing if we could find a way to get around the limited service lifetime of conventional rotary electrical contacts."

"I started thinking that maybe not every conceivable rotary electrical contact architecture has been thought of yet," Koplow said. "We spent a lot of time considering if there was another plausible way."

The resulting innovation, Twistact, uses a pure-rolling-contact device to transmit electrical current along an ultra-low-resistance path. The technology proves beneficial in lowering costs, improving sustainability and reducing maintenance.



Additionally, Sandia's Twistact technology addresses two physical degradation processes common to high-maintenance brush or slip ring assemblies—sliding contact and electrical arcing. These limiting factors reduce the performance of traditional rotary electrical contacts and lead to short operating lifetimes and high maintenance or replacement costs.

Twistact, on the other hand, has been proven through laboratory testing to be capable of operating over the full 30-year service time of a multimegawatt turbine without maintenance or replacement.

Other potential applications for the technology include synchronous motors and generators, electrified railways and radar towers. Twistact could also be used in replacing brush or slip rings in existing applications.

https://newsreleases.sandia.gov/turbine_innovation/

---------------------------------------------------------------

Reinventing Offshore Wind Turbines
https://newsreleases.sandia.gov/floating_turbines/

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Brandon Ennis, Sandia National Laboratories’ offshore wind technical lead, had a radically new idea for offshore wind turbines: instead of a tall, unwieldy tower with blades at the top, he imagined a towerless turbine with blades pulled taut like a bow.

This design would allow the massive generator that creates electricity from spinning blades to be placed closer to the water, instead of on the top of a tower 500 feet above. This makes the turbine less top-heavy and reduces the size and cost of the floating platform needed to keep it afloat.

For traditional, horizontal-axis wind turbines, the blades can rotate away from intense, damaging winds, but the Darrieus design catches the wind from every direction. The Sandia design replaces the central vertical tower with taut guy wires, Ennis said. These wires can be shortened or lengthened to adjust for changing wind conditions to maximize energy capture while controlling strain. Additionally, replacing the shaft with wires reduces the weight of the turbine even more, allowing the floating platform to be even smaller and less expensive.

[sidd]

That Sandia Twistact is neat, here is a paper:

https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1761109

open access, read all about it.

sidd

[SteveMDFP]

That Sandia Twistact is neat, here is a paper:

https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1761109

open access, read all about it.

sidd

Neat is an understatement.  As far as I know, the vast majority of motors and generators have relied on sliding electrical contacts, since before Edison.  This technology changes that profoundly.

I'm a little fuzzy on how rare-earth permanent magnets eliminated sliding contacts, but I can vaguely imagine.

It seems this technology will accelerate wind generation power.  Now I wonder if it might have advantages in very small motors.  Better drones?  Electro-mechanical devices that last almost forever?

[sidd]

You only need moving contacts if you need electric connection to the rotor. So if you wanna avoid that, you use magnet in the rotor.

But for the big ones, you'd rather have coils and electric in the rotor ... so contacts necessary.

I'd also rather not get into details of field and armature winding here, i have unpleasant memories

sidd