Wind turbines

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Fortunately, we haven't had that issue yet. The really big ones are off-shore, which the exception of Wicket, he's massive. The ones near buildings are typically smaller. We also haven't had anything above a category 2 come through in ages, and considering these guys have already survived quite a few nasty Nor'Easters and hurricanes Irene and Sandy, I think they're pretty solid. But anything can happen.

Oh, I've seen  smaller ones closer to people. There aren't many of them on this side though. It's those big fuckers that go down in high winds, and what with each blade being a little longer than a triple-trailer semi, while it's rare, it's pretty stupendous when it does happen. It could wipe out a whole neighborhood, which I guess is why they keep them over on the other side.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think they're cool. That may be because I don't have any wind turbines near me, so I only see them when I'm on vacation.

Wind Turbines are surreal - they always make me think of Salvador Dali paintings... you have this thing up in the air which is so big it's hard to tell how big it actually is. There's nothing at that altitude to compare it to, so at a distance you can't tell if it's 100 feet tall or 1000 feet tall.

I think that is exactly what trips me out about them.

I also never really understood just how many of them there are now, until I was on a plane in November and we rose up over the Gorge, and there were just SO MANY TURBINES, and because of the altitude they looked tiny but I know that the bases of the towers are like 100 feet in diameter. And then I was like, Oh, Humanity! because the obvious thing is that as grand a scope as this is, it is so clearly a baby step, an exploratory foray into sustainable energy that will, in not so many years, leave these massive turbine farms mere relics on the landscape.

I LOVE shit like that. I love the historic future.

[Suu]

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The standard GOP line is that the amount of energy to make one of these and maintain it is too high to make it worthwhile.

It's utter bullshit, of course.  Maintenance IS expensive and energy-consuming, and if you only put ONE up in a 50/50 location, you're behind the game.  But when you make a bunch of them, and place them well, you get a bunch of power for cheap.  The GOP assumption is also that you will replace the generator side when the windings go bad.  Balls.  You rewind the stator and move along.

So you don't want them in the East, but in the Southwest, Nebraska, coastal areas, etc, you get more out than you put in. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Also, Nigel just wants windmills to tilt at.

It occurs to me that the worst thing about Nigel is that she isn't bothered by being Nigel.  She thinks it's normal.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Also, Nigel just wants windmills to tilt at.

It occurs to me that the worst thing about Nigel is that she isn't bothered by being Nigel.  She thinks it's normal.

[The Johnny]

buts you are taking the air out of atmosphere, we are going to asphyxiate

[Left]

Nobody seems to have mentioned that the bigger they are built, the less birdkill the turbines make. 

This is because the turning blades become much more dodge-able by bird below 18 RPM's,IIRC.

Conveniently, the bigger they are the more energy they produce, so the bigger, the better.

I get to see the windmill parts Siemens ships in. 
The dock they are offloaded onto is directly adjacent to the bridge I drive home over every night.

I have also seen single blades going down the freeway as oversize loads, and it took me a little while to puzzle out what they were.

...On a related tangent, you never hear anyone kvetching about the fact that millions of birds are killed by flying into towers, buildings, and glass windows...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towerkill

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nobody seems to have mentioned that the bigger they are built, the less birdkill the turbines make. 

This is because the turning blades become much more dodge-able by bird below 18 RPM's,IIRC.

Conveniently, the bigger they are the more energy they produce, so the bigger, the better.

I get to see the windmill parts Siemens ships in. 
The dock they are offloaded onto is directly adjacent to the bridge I drive home over every night.

I have also seen single blades going down the freeway as oversize loads, and it took me a little while to puzzle out what they were.

...On a related tangent, you never hear anyone kvetching about the fact that millions of birds are killed by flying into towers, buildings, and glass windows...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towerkill

Yeah, when they were building the wind farms in Eastern Oregon the parts would come into Portland and then get trucked East, and it's really something to see them going down the freeway. Totally insanely big.

[Faust]

Nobody seems to have mentioned that the bigger they are built, the less birdkill the turbines make. 

This is because the turning blades become much more dodge-able by bird below 18 RPM's,IIRC.

Conveniently, the bigger they are the more energy they produce, so the bigger, the better.

I get to see the windmill parts Siemens ships in. 
The dock they are offloaded onto is directly adjacent to the bridge I drive home over every night.

I have also seen single blades going down the freeway as oversize loads, and it took me a little while to puzzle out what they were.

...On a related tangent, you never hear anyone kvetching about the fact that millions of birds are killed by flying into towers, buildings, and glass windows...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towerkill

The only problem with bigger is the cost goes up (materials, manufacturing and money) which means the return on investment for the environment and for the energy supplier is longer.
That cost comes down if they are mass produced in large quantities but the bigger turbines tend to get more negative attention so are less widely used.

[The Johnny]

i still would wonder to what scale the law of "diminishing returns" would apply, sometimes more or bigger isnt better

[The Good Reverend Roger]

i still would wonder to what scale the law of "diminishing returns" would apply, sometimes more or bigger isnt better

It is when you're doing wind energy.

[Faust]

i still would wonder to what scale the law of "diminishing returns" would apply, sometimes more or bigger isnt better

It is when you're doing wind energy.

Well that's not completely true. A few years back the smaller turbines that automatically adjust their position to face path of the wind were getting as much out of them as the bigger models but only up to an upper size threshold where they start getting more out of them again.

If someone comes up a large size turbine that can change it's position without increasing it's mechanical strain, then we'll have a beautiful beast of a thing.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

i still would wonder to what scale the law of "diminishing returns" would apply, sometimes more or bigger isnt better

It is when you're doing wind energy.

Well that's not completely true. A few years back the smaller turbines that automatically adjust their position to face path of the wind were getting as much out of them as the bigger models but only up to an upper size threshold where they start getting more out of them again.

If someone comes up a large size turbine that can change it's position without increasing it's mechanical strain, then we'll have a beautiful beast of a thing.

Or just come up with a way to have the turbine stay stationary.  It doesn't have to move, the blades do.

[Junkenstein]

i still would wonder to what scale the law of "diminishing returns" would apply, sometimes more or bigger isnt better

It is when you're doing wind energy.

Well that's not completely true. A few years back the smaller turbines that automatically adjust their position to face path of the wind were getting as much out of them as the bigger models but only up to an upper size threshold where they start getting more out of them again.

If someone comes up a large size turbine that can change it's position without increasing it's mechanical strain, then we'll have a beautiful beast of a thing.

Or just come up with a way to have the turbine stay stationary.  It doesn't have to move, the blades do.

I see a future with wind turbines the size of office blocks. People live in them. I say live, I mean are imprisoned. An amount of energy must be produced each day to justify your food allowance. Failure will make it exponentially more difficult to meet the requirement tomorrow.

What I'm saying is, in the future, these things are powered by people.