Stephen Rose and colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, modelled the risk hurricanes might pose to turbines at four proposed wind farm sites. They found that nearly half of the planned turbines are likely to be destroyed over the 20-year life of the farms. Turbines shut down in high winds, but hurricane-force winds can topple them.
Fifty percent destruction over their operating life span. If that was true of any other power source, they'd be shut down the next day.
These aren't power plants, they're totem poles.
9 comments:
After they've self-destructed like the one in Denmark, we can always turn the remaining pylons into giant birdhouses. That way, the deep-ecos can still worship them.
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eon
It's a technology that only an equipment manufacturer or owner of gas fields (Nancy?) could like. If I weren't so confident in the absolute, tin-plated, bog-solid integrity of our political class, I would almost think that there is an exchange of political favors involved.
Taking into account land use, manufacturing, installation and routine maintenence, How many years until break-even for a wind turbine?
(Not including subsidities.)
jayessell;
According to Denmark, the answer is "never". The maintenance budget every year eats up all possible amortization. And that's not even including the cost of replacing ones that self-destruct, as this one did.
Wind turbines are, in the words of Dr. John D. Clark, a technology that is just too precious to work.
cheers
eon
If the answer is "never", then at what point...?
I mean, there must be number crunching before construction.
Someone says "X million dollars now will return X+y million over the course of N years."
If it's X-y then the project is abandoned.
So those 'good American jobs building wind turbines' is a hoax?
Taking a phrase from the current MOD procurement scandal, I'd say the projects probably get approval thanks to a "conspiracy of optimism"
jayessell & Cthel;
The main reason is dogma. Holy Wind and Holy Sun are the only power sources that are "philosophically pristine", according to the Gaia-worshippers.
The fact that both are impractical, basically inadequate, and self-destructively fragile is irrelevant. As is the fact that they simply cannot deliver the power density required by our civilization. The Gaiaists see that as one more reason to do away with civilization- i.e., back to mud huts. (We call it a bug, they call it a feature.)
Since Gaiaists are the social lions of the "progressive" crowd, don't expect sanity on this subject to break out anytime soon. Defined as Denmark, the U.S., etc., junking the Holy Wind and Holy Sun silliness and building nuclear and hydroelectric power plants to try to achieve "Carbon Neutral" status.
Oh, and PS- forget solar-power satellites. A solar-cell field in orbit won't stay there; when the photon output from the Sun hits it, it behaves exactly like a solar sail. Next thing you know, your "solar power station" is on an escape trajectory in the general direction of the Asteroid Belt. Unless, of course, it's too massive to be moved by solar pressure; and then how do you get it up there to begin with?
Even a "heavy" central complex, to act as an "anchor" is no good; the cell field will inevitably be pushed away hard enough to overstress the structure, with the logical outcome.
This was recently proven mathematically by some NASA engineers in their off time, and yes, there were red faces all around; they were solar-power satellite advocates. (Oops.)
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eon
eon;
Oh, you and your maths... Surely you know that an obsession with facts and numbers is a defining feature of those who reject the truth of blessed Gaia's existence? That is why the only solution is to banish the disbelievers to the forced-labour vegetable farms, where they can produce organic, sustainable salads for the enlightened(TM)
Cthel;
Considering what they fertilize "organic" crops with, I'm all for Gaiaists eating all-organic diets.
There's nothing like salmonella to give somebody a new appreciation of atmospheric nitrogen fixing and/or the Haber-Bosch process.
cheers
eon
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