Electricity generated by a wind turbine

[The Natural Philosopher]

If I were a competent engineer, I would put turbines in a nice temperature controlled turbine hall, run them as near 24x7 as I could, at a constant speed, with an overhead gantry to haul out any parts that needed fixing at the end of a railway line running electric trains to deliver spares. Not out in the middle of the North Sea in winds and gales, salt spray and liable to get out of balance with every seagull sliced in half. Windfarms exist because of *legislation*, not because they are a cost effective way of generating electricity OR reducing carbon emissions overall. The *legislation* exists because Siemens paid the EU commissioners to design a 'renewable obligation directive' that mandates renewable energy, instead of mandating emission reductions.

[NY]

That makes our average of 10-11 kWhr surprisingly high when we have LED lights throughout, don't use the tumble drier much (*), haven't had the central heating (ie boiler water pump) on at all since April, and are generally more thrifty than a lot of families.

We've just been going round the house measuring standby and in-service power consumption of all equipment / light bulbs to try to work out where a "missing" 3-4 kWhr of electricity per day is being used, because the figures don't add up. It's something that we only use when we are here, because the usage dropped from about 12 down to 9 for a week when we were away on holiday, so it's not background things like freezers which are always on.

(*) Only if it's raining and we can't wait till the next fine day to do a load of washing.

[Kron]

Trouble is that they mostly aren't rotating that fast.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, it wont.

An engine in neutral at say 3000 rpm is not generating any power *at all* unless it can also generate torque. Variable pitch wind turbines may spin at 10rpm in light air, but they wont be putting out full power if they are not being loaded.

Whether

I am saying its not even true to start with.

It's not science, not physics and certainly not engineering. Its marketing bollox.

[Cursitor Doom]

Not to mention it's all based on a flawed premise WRT "greenhouse gases" being resonsible for climate change when in fact the most probable candidate for that is the phenomenal increase in RF energy generation over the last half century.

[John Rumm]

And there is the rub, if you are aiming for zero (nett) CO2, you have just locked in substantial amount of gas generation that you now can't do without.

50% load factor would be about tops for offshore wind.

Hmmm, although electricity is a means to an end not an end it itself. The fewer people it needs the better, since all those salaries are being paid for by you and me!

[John Rumm]

If you don't mind that amount of generation being an average which will include spells of naff all!

[Kron]

Can't see that given the big pause in climate change recently.

[alan_m]

I went away for a month. The things left on: a video distribution amplifier in the loft, a broadband router, a PVR (mainly in 0.5W standby except when recording), a dect phone base station with 1 extra remote phone, an outside dusk to dawn light with a

5W LED bulb, an internal light with a 3W LED bulb (left on 24/7 for passive security), the house alarm, an under counter fridge and an under counter freezer.

Every other electrical appliance was switched off at the plug, including central heating and water (gas boiler) so no pump..

My average consumption was still around 3kWh per day although the fridge/freezer may have had a hard time with a couple of weeks with very high temperatures. Being away no windows or doors were open for around 4 weeks during some of the hottest weather this summer - I wouldn't be surprised for internal house temperatures to have been well above 30C.

[williamwright]

Silly person.

Bill

[williamwright]

That's a new one.

Bill

[Rod Speed]

Your sig is sposed to have a line with just -- on it in front of it, dinosaur.

[Brian Gaff]

Surely this depends not on the rotation but the energy of the wind and what the gearing is in the turbine to extract it. I'd not myself have thought that a turbine poodling around in a breeze would generate very much, but when there is a strong wind with more force available some kind of change in gear ratio would allow you to extract more energy. The problem always has been the variability of the wind. One thing I never see covered is that a big wind farm can affect the weather downwind of it, since you are taking a lot of energy from the wind, you can affect the microclimate locally, especially if there is a tendency for the wind to always blow the same way. Its a bit like the problem with tidal where you get silt build up either side of the turbines. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

On another tack, I overheard some Hams complaining the other day that one had put up his own wind turbine on his chimney, and the sound from the gearbox transmitted throughout the house, and that you would have thought that some kind of padding might be in use at the business end to dull this down a bit. I have to say that when I used to have an aerial on my chimney which you could turn, in some directions when it was windy a wonderful whining and singing effect occurred so its well known that devices fastened to parts of a building can transmit they sound a whole lot. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

I often wonder what happens to any sea birds in the vicinity. Have they got used to such strange devices that swivel and turn, I wonder?

Brian

[Brian Gaff]

I'd have thought that maintenance could be designed to be quite light, if you look at ocean going ships, most require little to be done to them unless there was some accident. However you do hear of wind turbines that have gearbox issues, blade damage and electrical faults. Where are such devices made? Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Maybe we should also put in desalinisation plants at wind farms, we might need the water, and you could pipe ot ashore. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Well he allowed lots of people to view adverts.

Seriously, exactly what would create wealth. In reality only resources that can be exported, and as we cannot go on taking and not giving the whole economy is founded on screwing up the planet fo wealth gain. Brian

[Rod Speed]

Brian Gaff [e-mail] wrote

Yep, just like they did with car etc.

[Rod Speed]

Brian Gaff [e-mail] wrote

We have done that with the one of ours in Sydney, or more strictly the wind farm was added to the desal plant.

Makes more sense to keep the desal onshore and pipe the electricity.