Wind Turbines Idle Near East Midlands Airport

[allardjd 1,853]

Wind Turbines Idle Near East Midlands Airport

 

A pair of 430 foot wind turbines built close to (10 km) the East Midlands airport (EGNX) are not being allowed to operate because the rotating blades interfere with ATC radars, a known problem that should not have been a surprise to anyone contemplating erecting them.

 

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/14/7-Million-Wind-Turbines-Left-Switched-Off-After-Airport-Radar-Fears

 

I note at least one error in the article - they state the windmills "... are designed to produce 10,000 megawatts of electricity."  Ummm - - - not hardly; more like 10,000 kilowatts probably, that is 10 megawatts.  What's a factor of 1,000 amongst friends?

 

John

 

 

 

 

[brett 2,315]

Best line from a neighbor, "They'd be more use as washing lines."

 

The article mentioned that it went up so fast. That's odd, push a project through, even when no one wants it, without concerns for the consequences. I'm sure that must be a first.   

[hifly 925]

Best line from a neighbor, "They'd be more use as washing lines."

 

The article mentioned that it went up so fast. That's odd, push a project through, even when no one wants it, without concerns for the consequences. I'm sure that must be a first.   

 

Not here in the UK.  

 

[britfrog 180]

love them or hate them i think they are a far more pactical solution than nuclear energy, here in my region which is the size of london we have been told to expect 2000 of them , no nimbys here , the french government was voted in on the mandate that they will close down all nuclear power stations, at least we will stop glowing in the dark.

[allardjd 1,853]

Widespread use of windmills for electric generation is a practical way to supply power into the grid as long as you don't mind the fact that the cost per Kw-Hr is about twice that for a central generating station using coal or nuclear.

 

There's nothing inherently wrong with the wind power technology, unless you happen to be operating ATC radar nearby or are concerned about massive bird kills or the aesthetics of quality-of-life for those living near them. The big issue however is the cost of the generated power. Wind projects mostly don't get built at all unless there is some form of government support to "level the playing field", either by direct subsidies, tax breaks or by taxing up the price of the competing sources. The fact is, they cannot compete economically without significant government assistance.

 

Nuclear power is like aviation - it's a highly beneficial, but highly technical field of endeavor that, if not done properly may have severe consequences. Like aviation, it can be done in a way that does not unduly hazard those engaged in it nor the general public. It's one of those things that must be done right or not at all. Fortunately, it's not all that hard to do it right.

 

The history of energy usage by the human race clearly indicates that we use what's cheapest until something cheaper comes along. Nuclear and coal generation are the cheapest today by a fair margin, absent the artificial advantages conferred on the more green sources of power in an attempt to make them economically viable. In the end, the customer pays more if the more costly sources are used, either in taxes or in direct cost of the green power.

 

Yes, I'm biased - I had my career in commercial nuclear power - but I know a thing or three about electrical generation and the economics of it.

 

John

 

EDIT: I failed to mention that natural gas fired generation is also amongst the cheapest available.

JDA

[britfrog 180]

john, this is a contentious subject and for fear of gaining another reputation for taking the bait per se,

 

we will agree to disagree, there is no way nuclear power is cheaper than wind power when you have to keep the refuse for , what is the half life, 25 thousand years ???? plus each nuclear station in the world has at least 4 code 3 accidents per year which directly affect those that live in the region, call me old fashioned but i would prefer tallow candles . when you look at the effect of chernobyl which is still burning its way to the earths core polluting all of the ground water in europe, and the latest in Japan which is polluting all the northern pacifics marine life , which you guys are eating and that is just 2 of how many staions in the world???

sorry it is a no brainer as far as i am concerned until we can build one on the moon with a long extension cord, nuclear is a big no no.

When you ly across France on a nice day you can always see the plumes of at least one nuclear staion most of the time, sometimes  3,!! fossil fuel is also not an answer, but get rid of the tree huggers who complain that the habitat of the lesser spotted newt is being endangered and with coastal barriers all of france and the uk's power problems would be answered. the uk already buys electricty from the barrage at st malo, the building of this barrage was negligible but it has been supplying electricity for over 30 years virtually for the cost of maintaining some electric motors, what can be cleaner than that?

[allardjd 1,853]

OK, disengaging with you on this.  We can agree to disagree.

 

John

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

This argument has been going on for years. Personally I'd rather look at modern turbines than thousands of old rusting pylons that have now been revealed be covered in thousands of tons of lead paint! This stuff is now flaking away and landing school playgrounds and peoples gardens! Those things should be got rid off ASAP. There are far better alternatives these days.

[allardjd 1,853]

What pylons are those? High voltage transmission line towers? They paint them? They are galvanized steel or aluminum here, mostly.

 

John

[SEATAC 400]

When you ly across France on a nice day you can always see the plumes of at least one nuclear staion most of the time, sometimes  3

 

That is only steam from the cooling towers.  Water vapor condensing in the cool air. 

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

What pylons are those? High voltage transmission line towers? They paint them? They are galvanized steel or aluminum here, mostly.

John

 

Thats the ones John, those big Meccano like structures that carry the power lines. It recently came to light that these things were covered in lead based paint and it was starting to flake off many of them, Indeed when maintainence workers were repainting them they simply scraped the old stuff off and let it drop to the ground. Many of these pylons march right through housing estates, school grounds etc. And these lead filled flakes of paint are landing all around them! They have now been identified as a serious scource of lead poisoning.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/poison-pylon-paint-fears-flakes-3300691

 

[allardjd 1,853]

The towers are necessary and wind turbines are not going to make them unnecessary. They're what makes power from far-flung generation sources available where it's needed. They are also the inter-connecting links that make the grid more robust, i.e. able to maintain stable supplies most everywhere, most all the time even in the face of outages, equipment casualties and disasters. The criteria is that power generated from anywhere can be used most anywhere, with relatively low line losses. To be sure there are losses transmitting bulk power over long distances, but the higher the voltages the less the losses (higher voltage = lower current = less line loss) The other edge of the sword is that the higher the voltages, the greater the safety distance required between phases and from the ground and other objects, so the towers get bigger and taller as the voltages get higher.

 

The lead based paint business is a travesty however - very short-sighted of someone and totally negligent to not deal with it properly when re-painting. Is the new paint also lead based? Hopefully not.

 

John

[J G 927]

This argument has been going on for years. Personally I'd rather look at modern turbines than thousands of old rusting pylons that have now been revealed be covered in thousands of tons of lead paint! This stuff is now flaking away and landing school playgrounds and peoples gardens! Those things should be got rid off ASAP. There are far better alternatives these days.

 

Jon is correct, Allan, you are confusing generation with Grid Supply.

 

Wind turbines are inefficient low volume generation that relies on a specific set of weather conditions to operate well, too much wind and they have to be shut down, too little wind and they don't work. The phase of the electricity from wind generation is difficult to match with that of the grid and the run up of wind farms coming on to the grid is therefore beset with problems that are costly to manage and require external power sources to overcome.

 

Further more, because of their fickle weather related  availability they will never replace more conventional power sources.  There is such a thing as Base Load. This is the minimum amount of generation required to keep the "lights on" - the amount of power the UK will always need day in day out. This, and a safety margin, must be supplied by totally reliable and constant source.  

 

Today this consists of fossil fuel powered generation or nuclear powered generation. Other forms of generation just can't produce the amount of sustainable electricity to cope with this. The only move we have made away from coal and gas is towards biomass fired power stations such as is being tried at Drax in the midlands. This is the combustion of biodegradable wood waste (as pellets) to make power.  Supposedly carbon neutral there are, some would argue, the risks of atmospheric pollution with this type of combustion, and there is the issue of providing enough wood on a sustainable level for continued long term generation.

 

Spikes in generation (kettle on in the adverts) and areas of constraint (where the grid's physical construction is limited and thus extra generation in the area is advisable to provide a boost that can't come from the grid) can be alleviated by many less reliable generation formats, or by "battery" generation such as pump storage The latter still relies on unused base load generation at low demand periods to function . Like it or not, for now we are stuck with coal, gas or nuclear for that base load.

 

Given the effects we are seeing with climate change these last few years, I would go with Nuclear, and pour money into how better to deal with, or reduce the waste product from this form of Generation. 

 

Just In case you were wondering, Like Jon my career is in the electricity industry, but in the  UK and in the software side of balancing and settlement of the UK electricity market. 

[ddavid 149]

Did anyone mention carbon footprint? Or, maybe, using electricity more sparingly? And the question of whether the UK should purchase nuclear generation facilities from the Chinese isn't really a problem when you consider that a significant proportion of our power generation (and supply) is controlled by foreign investors.

Personally, I'd prefer to continue to see wind farms than have a nuclear station within a hundred miles - does that make me a NIMBY?!?

Great topic - let's hope it doesn't get too personal...

Cheers - Dai.

[allardjd 1,853]

Quote

...does that make me a NIMBY?!?

 

 

We're all NIMBYs about something.  I don't want to live next door to a pig farm but it doesn't mean I don't like bacon.

 

The problem with wind farms is that they are not a viable replacement for large central generating stations. Their ability to generate power reliably due to variations in weather and the fact that power from them is very expensive compared to coal, nuclear and natural gas absent heavy government support, makes them unsuitable as any more than supplemental sources. Other downsides are that they kill very large numbers of birds (including some endangered species) and people who live near them don't much like the subsonic vibrations and other effects. They're usable, but have some significant downsides that those who build them and those who operate them don't seem too anxious to acknowledge and address.

 

Carbon footprint is becoming more and more suspect as a simple and direct contributor to climate change. The fact is, humans are putting carbon into the atmosphere at a rate very much higher then we ever have in human history but the phenomenon of global warming has been on pause for the past sixteen years. The purported direct link between global warming and atmospheric CO2 seems to be unraveling and it's looking more and more as if the relationship is more complex than had been theorized. In a word, we don't yet understand enough about weather and climate to really understand the true effect of atmospheric CO2.

 

I recently read a report that says that the single, relatively minor eruption of that unpronounceable volcano in Iceland a couple years ago wiped out all the human efforts ever made at atmospheric CO2 reduction in just four days. When it comes to humans affecting climate, either by deliberate positive measures or by the inadvertent impact of human activities, we're just a fart in a hurricane.

 

John

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

Some years ago there were studies done to find new low maintainence designs for power pylons. As yet there has been o visible results from this! I understand the need for supply, digging trenches for that lot would be impossible. However I think the issues regarding this lead paint problem seriously needs to be addressed right now. We do need to find a renewable and constant scource of energy. Wind power is one, but wave power is also an option. The sea is rarely completely still and there have been numerous ideas on how to achieve this. Sadly the Nimbys yet again start screaming when proposals are made to install such equipment on the coast! We cannot have it both ways. Either we start seriously developing the renewable scources now, or as usual in this country, we wait until the lights start going out before we address the problem, maybe then the Nimbys will be happy. Another thing we have to think about is that a large percentage of our Gas comes from Russia these days. Given the tensions between the west and Russia at the moment, it would be no great problem for them to turn the supplies off in retaliation for the sanctions. So yet again, another scource of gas must be found. I don't like the idea of Fracking to be honest as it has proved to be unstable and indeed has caused earth tremors in areas where it has been done. What the awnser is I have no idea regarding that matter.

[ddavid 149]

The polar ice caps have melted faster in last 20 years than in the last 10,000. A comprehensive satellite study confirms that the melting ice caps are raising sea levels at an accelerating rate.

NASA and the European Space Agency contributed to this finding - more here:

http://www.dw.de/polar-ice-sheets-melting-faster-than-ever/a-16432199

It's clear that you either believe in anthropmorphic effects on climate change - or you don't. Either way, we're heading for a radical change in the way that we live:

Natural resource depletion - particularly energy sources;

Food security and availability of clean water;

Population growth - 9.2 billion by 2050.

Our grandchildren have a pretty bleak future ahead of them, I'm afraid!

Cheers - Dai. :not-so-cool:

[J G 927]

An interesting debate!

 

I have to say that I personally would like to see more wave power investment.  Successful wave power stations would be near invisible as they have to be under the sea, so no argument on eyesores,  I expect fisherman would carp on about them though (pun intended  ).  This form of generation would be more consistent than wind power, but would still suffer from phase and extreme weather issues.

 

However there are also a number of other issues that pop up with wave power. where as a wind turbine can be shut down in a storm and be made strong enough to withstand almost everything the atmosphere can throw at it, wave power has a harder job to survive. We can make platform such as offshore oil rigs that can survive the roughest of seas, abut doing this for wave power is a whole new ballgame.  

 

For one, the platforms have to be placed in relatively shallow water to be able to best enhance the power of a wave. the platform supporting a generation unit may be robust, however the generation unit must contain a movable element that cannot be so robust, and is therefore more vulnerable to extreme weather damage.   And then there is still the question of generation volume. this would be similar to that of a wind farm and therefore, I am sorry to say, just a drop in the ocean (again, pun intended  )

 

Doing some comparisons:

 

Micro generation.

Here in Guildford we have an old mill (built in 1771, to replace one that had been there since the early middle ages) in the centre of town, next to a theatre (Yvonne Arnold). Back in the day this was a substantial mill with several wheels for making flour. Today, the mill is generating electricity, and supplies about 45 kW hours of power (0.0045 MW) from a head of water amounting to 1.8 million tonnes. If you will parden the expression, but that is pissing in the wind. A great PR stunt though.  

 

Nuclear power

A Nuclear power station, which whacks out a massive 3000 Mw hours of power per reactor, that's 30 million kW hours. most power station have at least two reactors, so that is an output of 6000 MW of output for an average size power station, day in day out at a constant rate whatever the weather, with no additional fuel input.  

 

Coal and Gas? Same output as a Nuclear, but with dwindling fuel sources, and the reality of Mr Putin having you by the balls.

 

Wind power.

Currently, total wind generation in the UK is about 10,000 MW, about the size of a single large power station. Of which about a third is from offshore farms. Total offshore wind turbines - about 1,600 so that is about 2MW per windmill. Total wind farm generation in the UK amounts to 8% on a good day.

 

Now if you extrapolate that up to total UK power requirements, you would need sixty thousand windmills and a constant wind just to match the UK's base load. To hell with NIMBY, this would mean IMBY, for any one who lived in a windy place in the UK.  And we would still need a shed load on backup power to cut in on calm and stormy days, not only to keep the lights on but to service the wind farms as they are net users of power on non production days. 

 

Did someone mention importing power? Well we do do this. There are three interconnectors in the UK: Moyle, (connects the UK to Ireland), France, (would you believe it, connects the UK to France) and Netherlands (sorry no prizes for guessing where that one goes). These links run under the sea and are used to transfer power to and from their various destinations. I think that over Irish one we are an net exporter, but the others import as much as they export over the average day. Importing from France is an interesting one, as all of this power comes from..... you guessed it.... French Nuclear Power stations on the French coast around Dunkirk. Cunningly placed, I might add, so that if there is a Chernobyl type disaster, all the radioactive clouds will be carried on the prevailing winds over England and the Netherlands. Thanks for that France. 

 

 

[allardjd 1,853]

Some random, idle observations:

 

You must discriminate between land ice and sea ice. Land ice diminishing does in fact contribute to rising water levels. Sea ice melting does not raise water levels. Sea ice forms and melts seasonally at both ends of the Earth. There is no appreciable land ice in the Arctic, only in the Antarctic. Land ice is being reduced in the Antarctic.

 

It appears that recent measurements of sea level increase are on the order of 2-3 mm per year. I'm finding it pretty hard to get too worried about that.

 

If the environment is warming, the positive effects on the flora, fauna and capability for food production are mostly positive. Humans and other life forms tend to flourish in warmer times and struggle when climate turns cold. I'd rather see global warming than global cooling, though it appears that the latter may be what's happening or is about to happen. It's not like we can do much about it.

 

Wave power will be a siting, construction and particularly a maintenance nightmare. The sea can pretty much tear apart anthing. Add ice and it's worse. Remember that wave power contrivances will require moving parts. It's worth some research and pilot projects but I can't imagine it ever being a large contributor. I wouldn't want to be responsible for the maintenance.

 

Maintenance on equipment in a cramped pod on a pylon in the howling wind several hundred feet in the air is significantly more expensive than on equipment in a building on the ground. Put the pylon in the ocean and the maintenance costs go out of sight. There's no way this is ever going to be cheap power, despite the "fuel" being free.

 

Maintenance on distributed generation of any kind is significantly more expensive than at central facilities.

 

The average commercial windmill is about 8 MW. A large central generating unit is 1,000+ MW and they are typically built with multiple units at one site. My plant was 1,100 MW X 2. We were on about 240 acres, most of which was wooded and pristine. That's the equivalent of about 275 windmills, assuming the windmills generated all the time, which they do not.

 

The average output for a windmill over time is about one half the rated capacity. If there's too much or too little wind you don't get the rated output - in some conditions you don't get any. An 8 MW windmill averages about 4 MW of output.

 

A solar farm in the US Southwest is using a field of computer controlled mirrors to focus the sun on a heat exchanger on top of a central tower where a fluid is boiled and used to drive a turbine. Commercial pilots flying as much as 40 miles away are compliaining that the light is blinding in full daylight. Birds that fly in the area are incinerated, resulting in "streamers" - they begin to smoke and then fall out of the air, sometimes in flames. Observers have noted as many as five a minute of these streamers occurring.

 

There's coal and natural gas for a long, long time yet, if we can get past our aversion to using it. Clean coal technology has come a long way and coal power plants are not the polluters they once were.

 

Fracking has resulted in the US surpassing Saudi Arabia in energy production. There may yet be some problems associated with it but tremors are not earthquakes and I don't know of any significant seismic events, damage or injuries associated with it. It's already in widespread use here.

 

Nuclear power produces essentially no carbon emissions. The volume of high-level waste is relatively small. At the time I left my plant, all the spent fuel from all our operations from 1975 was still stored in a spent fuel pool that was approximately 120' X 60' X 40'. Nuclear plants are beginning to put "old" spent fuel in dry storage containers that can be placed in the open and require no power, external cooling or protection from the elements. They weigh around 250 tons each and must be moved with a special transporter - nobody is going to walk away with one. Nobody is going to break into one with anything less than a truck full of high explosive. Obviously they must be guarded and monitored but aside from that there is no maintenance required for generations.

 

All the spent fuel ever produced from all the reactors in Britain could be stored in containers like that in an area no larger than a decent sized airport.

 

Spent reactor fuel can be reprocessed into plutonium based fuel and used again.

 

The fuel to run an 1,100 MW reactor for approximately 15 months is compact enough to be delivered by approximately 8-10 standard flat-bed trucks. That's about 12 billion KW-hrs worth. Compare that to transporting the equivalent energy in coal.

 

[allardjd 1,853]

Warren Buffett, who has invested billions into wind farms, said recently that the industry is not viable without government assistance.

 

“I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s [buffet's company] tax rate,” he said earlier this month. “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

[dodgy-alan 1,587]

Can someone please get me a berth on that trip to Mars! This planet is going down the pan!

[J G 927]

I think JA and I are singing from the same hymn sheet as far as the future of generation is concerned. Its Nuclear.

 

Where I differ is with the impact of carbon related climate issues. In my life span and that is in the small Island that I live on, I have seen the following:

• A perception of a significant reduction of the numbers of snow in the UK per winter.
• A significant increase in the number of storms per year.
• A significant increase in the severity of those storms.
• A significant increase in the number of floods per year
• A significant increase of the severity of those floods.
• A significant increase in the coastal erosion to both the the west coast and east coast of the UK 

The flooding is particularly interesting as the latest floods we have were the worst ever recorded.  Records go back to approximately the time of the independence of America, late 18th century.

 

Something has changed, and it has changed since we have been using excessive fossil fuels.

 

Someone made the point about sea levels not rising as a result of global warming in the northern hemisphere as polar Ice was over water.  This is true.  However there is a shed load of ice over places like northern Canada, Greenland and northern Russia that that assertion conveniently ignores.

 

[allardjd 1,853]

I don't dispute that climate change is occurring - it's been occurring pretty much since the Earth had a climate. What I'm not convinced of is whether human activities and particularly atmospheric CO2 has any predictable and significant impact on it. It may be that it does, but unlike the Climatistas who are trying to silence the "climate skeptics", I don't think the science is any where near "settled".

 

John

[ddavid 149]

That you "... don't dispute that climate change is occuring..." is a good thing, John. That you are skeptical about the anthropgenic nature of CO2 increase is fair enough, too - but keep an open mind.

Cheers - Dai.

[allardjd 1,853]

Quote

That you are skeptical about the anthropgenic nature of CO2 increase...

 

 

I guess I didn't communicate that clearly, Dai. I don't dispute that the increased levels of atmospheric CO2 are human related. You don't have to look any further than China for evidence of that. What I'm skeptical about is the simple and direct relationship between atmospheric CO2 levels and global warming that has been stated as fact.

 

I'm of the opinion that atmospheric CO2's relationship to climate is much more complex and possibly far less important than the alarmists say.

 

They haven't figured out yet how to model and accurately predict climate changes. Their models so far, when fed with past data, fail to make accurate predictions of the recent past. Their record is not good enough yet to voluntarily impose on humans the mammoth costs, retarding of economic growth and the quite possible lowering of living standards that would result from an aggressive program of deliberately walking away from the cheapest and most abundant bulk sources of energy we have in favor of far more costly and tentative alternatives.

 

Sixteen years of no increase of global temperatures during a time when CO2 levels are rising makes me say, "Hmmm".

 

John