By Jo Nova
The more wind turbines we have the more useless they are
There goes those plans to cover the continental shelf with talismen to the Wind Gods.
New research shows wind turbines off the East Coast of the US could end up stealing as much as a third of the energy from other wind turbines downstream. And in some conditions, the turbulent wake they leave might stretch out 55 kilometers behind them. This effect is worst on turbines in the same “farm” but could even affect other wind farms a long way off.
The wake effect will be strongest in summer. We’ll just have to ask everyone to turn off their air conditioners then?
Scientific civilizations do this sort of research before they commit $10 trillion dollars, set up a trading scheme, and blow up the coal plants. Imagine if building a coal plant near another plant made it 30% less efficient on hot days…
Hat tip to the NetZeroWatch email list:
Wind turbine ‘wake effect’ could reduce arrays’ power output by 30%
By Kirk Moore, WorkBoat
The researchers’ paper published March 14 in the journal Wind Energy Science suggests that offshore wind turbines off the U.S. East Coast could rob neighboring turbine arrays of wind speed and thus power generation depending on daily conditions, by more than 30%.
“Using computer simulations and observational data of the atmosphere, the team calculated that the wake effect reduces total power generation by 34% to 38% at a proposed wind farm off the East Coast,” according to the University of Colorado. ”Most of the reduction comes from wakes formed between turbines within a single farm.”
“But under certain weather conditions, wakes could reach turbines as far as 55 kilometers (34 miles) downwind and affect other wind farms. For example, during hot summer days, the airflow over the cool sea surface tends to be relatively stable, causing wakes to persist for longer periods and propagate over longer distances.”
Figure 3Hub-height wind roses for the NYSERDA Hudson North (E05) and Hudson South (E06) floating lidars during the 1 September 2019 to 1 September 2020 period. The location of E06 is shown as the red diamond and E05 as the red triangle. The bottom row shows wind roses segregated by atmospheric stratification.
Ominously, the worst power deficits in these graphs are not the black spots but the red and white ones…
Figure 14The percentage of power loss at ONE from internal wakes at (a) TKE_0 and (b) TKE_100.
First build 10,000 wind farms, then figure out how it works:
To better understand how the wind blows in the proposed wind farm area, Lundquist’s team visited islands off the New England coast and installed a host of instruments last December as part of the Department of Energy’s Wind Forecast Improvement Project 3. The project is a collaboration of researchers from CU Boulder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and several other national laboratories.
The instruments, including weather monitors and radar sensors, will collect data for the next year or more. Previously, offshore wind power prediction models usually relied on intermittent data from ships and satellite observations. The hope is that with continuous data directly from the ocean, scientists can improve prediction models and better integrate more offshore wind energy into the grid.
As long as we try to collect wind energy, the nightmare of thousands of high voltage interconnector lines will never go away.
REFERENCE
Rosencrans et al (2024) Seasonal variability of wake impacts on US mid-Atlantic offshore wind plant power production Articles, Volume 9, issue 3 WES, 9, 555–583, 2024 https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-9-555-2024
Presumably you get the same effect with on shore turbines. A report from Germany last year suggested the turbines altered the weather downstream, reducing wind speed and making it notably drier.
260
Once a part of energy is taken out by the mills, it can’t be taken out for a second time by other mills. S.th. even a school-kid should be able to understand. What our Green politicians have learned at school ? 🫢 🫣
220
Diminishing returns ?
120
Have asked the question here several times but don’t expect an answer, how many wind turbines does it take to stop the wind entirely?
I believe the returns will decrease through zero and then increase rapidly toward infinity in the negative.
80
Each wind turbine working at optimum conditions can take 59% (16/27) of the the wind stream energy. So if the incoming air stream has 10MW then there is 4.07 left after the first turbine; 1.66MW after the second and 0..27MW after the third and so on with the reduction in available power being the geometric progression of (1-16/27). You can never stop the wind unless the turbine is travelling into the wind. It gets very small after 9 stages but never zero.
Each turbine would be sweeping the same area but turning slower than the previous one. It would be mechanically impossible to achieve the Betz limit at every stage.
A brick wall can stop the wind but will not generate power because power is a function of force TIMES velocity. Unless the turbine is turning, it cannot generate power. If it is turning then the exit stream will also be moving. This gives a clue to how to derive the Betz limit.
80
If a wind turbine only has an average CF of 30%, do these figures still apply?
30
The CF is based on the rated output, The rated output will be close to achieving the Betz limit. All output below rated or in wind above rated will have lower than the limit.
30
Rick
“Each turbine would be sweeping the same area but turning slower than the previous one.”
No the wind has been stopped entirely. So no wind turbine can be turning.
10
Perhaps an easier to understand question would be how many wind turbines does it take to achieve 100% inefficiency? That is at what point can none of them overcome rolling resistance? This way you can more easily see that no power at all is being generated from the turbines. Then see how many poles it takes to stop the wind entirely.
“A brick wall can stop the wind but will not generate power”
This is the situation the question is about, how many to make a brick wall.
The question remains unanswered. How many wind turbines does it take to stop the wind entirely. That how many wind turbines does it take to generate nothing at all because none of them can rotate? Or how many wind turbines does it take to achieve 100% inefficiency?
30
But that is not a “real world” situation , is it ?
There is some very distorted logic being spouted here. !
These turbines are not operating in enclosed “tunnels” in space, they are facing an open wind front and spaced several (5-6) rotor diameters apart , and many meters above ground level.
Now an accurate calculation of the actual energy extracted is certainlyy complex, however some basic scoolboy maths will show that a line of turbines arranged 5 diameters apart will only “sweep” 16% of the available wind area ….and that is at the level of the rotor blades..and from that the turbine can only extract 56% of the energy. So 10% energy extracted at best
If you consider that there is much more height above the rotors, then that is reduced even further.
Now consider how much mixing of the wind behind the turbine , with the wind that the turbine sweep doesnt cover, then even if that highly rare event of a direct flow into any following turbine, the airstream there will likely still contain 90+% of its original energy.
10
They can’t all face an open wind front. Unless you stop at some stage installing more. Are you sure that would happen. I seriously doubt that they would stop installing more. Even if they are spaced in a single line less than a meter apart the wind won’t comply with that single direction. Blocking must occur when the wind changes direction. The wind deflected up will go over the others. It will start to go over before even getting to the first row because the air there would be a stagnant zone of high pressure.
20
Even if you built a solid wall, you would not “stop the wind entirely”.
Wind is just air moving from high pressure to low pressure, and a wall would just force the wind to go over the top and fill the low pressure area behind the wall,..then continue on to the root of the main low pressure.
Sure it wont be a steady clean flow, but the air movement will still be there
In the case of multiple wind turbines , the wind would just go over, under, around, and even through any number erected.
20
reducing wind speed and making it notably drier? ….? in Europe they had FLOODING recently because the air was moving slowly… according to the German weather story-teller. Surely Rain clouds which linger have more time to drop off vast amounts (of precipitation) ?
And BTW N Scotland is having a well needed warm dry spell this now, & yes it is DRY, Meanwhile Mt ETNA has fresh SNOW
40
Same thing applies to green anything. Its all diminishing returns and never gets to (Net) zero. The only thing rising exponentially is the cost.
10
Has anyone calculated the number of windmills required to pretend to replace coal, gas, nuclear and real hydro (not SH2) power stations, not even considering the infeasibly large amount of battery storage required?
These environmental disasters would be everywhere in visual range and creating turbulent wakes for others in the plantation and surrounding plantations.
280
I provided scoping numbers for solar power to the Finkel enquiry to serve the NEM. It was based on measured solar farm output (Broken Hill) and serving the NEM load of June in 2016, which would be the most demanding month for solar in Australia..
I got 240GW of panels and 750GWh of battery. I determined that solar near the Centro Australia was a lower cost option than wind turbines because solar is more reliable and consistent than wind. That means the battery for wind would need to be larger because wind can go missing for long periods. The cost then for solar/battery was $1.25tr. it would be somewhat more now.
My submission can be found here:
http://www.environment.gov.au/submissions/nem-review/willoughby.pdf
Very few people understood why you would need such large amount of generating capacity then. In fact, the entire Finkel study was based on capacity factors and the now MIA diversity fairy. There was no actual time run data used for their estimates. I had already been operating my off-grid system for 5 years so had good knowledge of the design parameters.
My numbers are beginning to look highly realistic now. As is my conclusion I concluded that any combination of intermittent generation and storage would always be a higher cost option then just using dispatchable generators. I even forecast the rooftops would eventually displace grid wind and solar because there are no economy of scale.
110
And all because journalists did not ask these so called scientists for proof that CO2 did anything other than make the grass grow. Of course there are politicians who also chased no nothing voters rather than tell them the facts. Just consider if the trillions spent trying to control nature were spent on what was working and would continue to work without detriment to anyone or thing. And then add the wonderful improvements to infrastructure we could have had with the money saved. We have been dudded and those that dudded us should never be forgiven.
410
The same “no forgiveness “ must be applied to the manufacturers of Covid vaccines as well!!
Boycott their other products too!
250
As I have always said. Just do What Mother Nature does with changes to the Climate. Just adapt. A heck of a lot cheaper and effective.
80
https://principia-scientific.com/british-govt-report-shows-uk-can-not-achieve-net-zero/
What on earth gives Albo and BOB the idea that Australia will fair any differently to The UK et al?
210
Because they just know they are smarter.
90
Because their way will be different and will work /sarc
70
Because we are supposed to think that they are “re-applying properly” and it will surely work this time?
10
So lets do the calculations for B O Bowen’s nature wrecking TOXIC disasters and try and understand what that would mean in Australia in the sea and on the land.
Drop the average CF from 30% to less than 20% and these disasters and our so called grids will be an even greater fantasy then ever.
These TOXIC wrecking machines kill birds and bats in record numbers and only supply dilute UNRELIABLE energy when the wind blows and have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years.
Who are the lunatics who BELIEVE this can provide reliable energy for a 21st century country and a proper and better standard of living?
And TRILLIONS of $ in TOXIC battery back up would bankrupt and severely weaken every OECD country by 2040 and we’ll have to spend even more to replace these disasters and build more RELIABLE BASE LOAD energy before each country completely collapses .
210
The wind CF decreases over time anyway, based on results from turbines that have been in service for some time. Some reports are saying that the turbines have to be derated by as much as 50% after 10 year’s operation. If that’s true, the average CF would then be only 15%.
110
And I might add that organisations such as GenCost have over-optimistic projections that wind turbine CF will increase over time, no doubt based on some nebulous “improved technology”. But even with perhaps a marginal increase in efficiency at some future time, the fact remains that during the turbine’s operational life, its efficiency will decrease – I.e., it will never remain at its initial efficiency. This of course throws out many of their future projections.
70
You are making the same mistake that was threaded through the Finkel Report. The native capacity factor has little significance when you get down to a system that can store energy and supply power on demand.
Realistic achieved capacity factors will be single digit. My household system gets 3.9% CF. That is the most economic figure based on cost of solar panels and batteries at the time. And that has not changed much.
If the panels were optimised for winter and located in central Australia then the CF for solar would lift to 9.5% as I detailed in #2 above.
You have to look at the cost of the system based on time-run data not the individual components and averages. That is what Finkel’s consultants did and why they were soo WRONG.
70
The following is a warmist oriented paper but even they admit wind plantations alter the climate.
160
And not only: those Hudson subsidy plantations are ominously close to the BOILING Gulf Stream, as well as being located in Hurricane Alley – yet I’m sure expert consensus settled scientists have taken these matters into consideration because… sustainability.
/tic
tongue-in-cheek.
130
A concise expression of Le Chatelier’s Law used in a number of Dictionaries:
Wind Turbines extract a significant amount of energy from thermodynamic processes in the atmosphere which act to limit the effect of perturbations of the Earth’s natural heat exchange system.
So Windfarms operate in a way that opposes their stated purpose to limit climate change.
Is there a political/ideological counterpart of the Equilibrium Law?
60
Related to downstream effects of wind turbines due to turbulence is that wind plantations are being promoted for their claimed hurricane moderation effects.
A mere 78,000 planted in the right place could have reduced Hurricane Katrina storm surges by 79%, it is claimed.
Never mind the slight practical reasons that windmills are feathered in hurricanes or they’d be destroyed and you would need 78,000 of them in the right place…
Seriously, is that what passes for “science” and “engineering” in “universties” these days?
220
“In 2014, a group of researchers including Cristina Archer, a civil and environmental engineer from the University of Delaware, showed how using an army of wind turbines to extract kinetic energy from the air could potentially pacify hurricanes.”
Big difference from modelling this in a lab, to what happens in the real world.
120
Yes,… where is all the data from wind farm operators ?
They mush have detailed data logging of each turbine output which can be correlated to wind direction and that turbines position relative to others in the farm !
You dont need to “model” these effects when you have actual real time data logs.
20
Ask a farmer how reliable a windmill is, ask a sailor how much ‘free’ propulsion costs.
140
The butterfly effect is a concept that suggests that small, seemingly insignificant events can have a significant impact on a larger system. Okay so a single butterfly doesn’t have that effect. Still, we’ve all watched the start of The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race on TV and witnessed the effects of boats stealing a competitor’s wind during a tacking duel. Hence, it’s easy to imagine similar wind shadows occurring with the placement of wind turbines. As the towers get taller and the blades larger these unrealised effects will become more evident and potentially damaging. Grazing cows etc may well reap the benefits of fewer flys. Less tail twitching may mean more milk?
100
Monuments to man’s stupidity!
90
Interesting item. I would never have imagined the downwind effects extending so far. I know from experience that wind rotors extend a long way past a fixed obstacle like a treeline or a building but those are only passive barriers.
70
Yes. There is a large scientific literature on wake effects but usually they extend a mile or so.
151
A very good illustration of the wake effect is shown in the 2011 NOAA photo of the Vattenfall offshore wind array, taken during heavy cloud. Clearly shows the wake effect extending behind, covering the next five or more turbines in the row.
https://www.workboat.com/wind/wind-turbine-wake-effect-could-reduce-arrays-power-output-by-30
120
Yes, if anyone can find a creative-commons photo of that effect I would use it in the post.
60
There are two CC photos of the Horn Rev 1 offshore wind farm, but these don’t show the wake effect.
There are two wake effect photos by Christian Steiness, Vattenfall.
50
Here’s a quote from Lomborg stating that one peer reviewed study found that W & S are the most expensive energy when we add in the back up required.
Here’s his quote and if W & S FULL COST are 11 to 42 times the cost of RELIABLE BASE-LOAD energy we would be barking mad to even consider these TOXIC disasters.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/bjorn-lomborg-why-solar-wind-100053561.html
“The usual way of measuring the cost of solar simply ignores its unreliability and tells us the price when the sun is shining. The same is true for wind energy. That does indeed make them slightly cheaper than other electricity sources: 3.6 US¢ per kWh for solar, just ahead of natural gas at 3.8 US¢, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But if you account for reliability, their real costs explode: in 2022, one peer-reviewed study showed an increase of 11-42 times, making solar by far the most expensive electricity source, followed by wind”.
“The enormous additional cost is for storage. We need electricity whether or not the sun is shining or the wind blowing. But our battery capacity is woefully inadequate. Research shows that every winter, when solar is contributing very little, Germany has a “wind drought” of five days on average when wind turbines also deliver almost nothing. That suggests batteries will be needed for a minimum of 120 hours — although the actual need will be much longer, since droughts sometimes last much longer and recur before storage can be filled. A new study shows that to achieve 100 per cent solar or wind electricity with sufficient backup, the U.S. would need to be able to store almost three months’ worth of electricity every year. It currently has seven minutes of battery storage”.
“The required batteries would cost the U.S. five times its current GDP. And it would have to replace them all when they expired after just 15 years. Globally, the cost just to have sufficient batteries would run to 10 times global GDP, with a new bill every 15 years”.
130
BTW if Lomborg is correct the batteries backing up W & S have to be replaced every 15 years and the cost to the USA would be 5 times their GDP or 5 times 25 TRILLION $ or 125 TRILLION $ and the World cost would be 10 times global GDP or 10 times 100 TRILLION $ or 1000 TRILLION $.
Does this messing about with TOXIC, DILUTE W & S make any sense at all?
110
There are not enough minerals and stuff on Planet Earth to make all of these fictitious Batteries let alone the cost of digging it all up and processing it. So, mining the Asteroids? Mining the Moon? Mining Mars? Good grief. What lunacy.
We already have the stuff here to have a reliable Electricity Grid. Coal, Gas, Water (Hydro}, Uranium………And whatever next comes along.
No need to reinvent the wheel and a wonky wheel at that.
110
WHAT ENERGY TRANSITION?
The press, and many politicians, constantly assure us that the world is in the midst of a transition from fossil fuels to “green” energy, which means wind turbines, solar panels, and mostly fictitious batteries.
But is any such transition actually in progress? No. Robert Bryce has the numbers.
No such transition is taking place in the U.S.; on the contrary, last year natural gas-fired electricity generation increased 9.5 times as much as wind and solar combined:
But that’s nothing! The U.S. is rich enough to waste absurd amounts of money on pitifully inadequate wind and solar developments. Less developed countries can’t afford to be that stupid. Thus it is coal that contributes the most CO2 to the atmosphere.
But when it comes to coal, the U.S. is irrelevant:
Worldwide, governments are spending absurd amounts of money to subsidize wind and solar, and that doesn’t even count the mandates that are the most insidious form of subsidy.
Nevertheless, fossil fuel use is increasing 3.4 times as fast as “green” energy.
Why? Because fossil fuels are vastly better: cheaper, more reliable, and far more energy-intensive:
Trillions of dollars can’t save expensive, unreliable and downright stupid methods of producing energy.
200
Insanity produced by fear and brainwashing (leftist march through the institutions) is destroying western nations. All by design…’the great reset’ where the middle class is taken back to slave status.
50
Wake effects can also deplete oxygen in the water and create suspended sediment plumes, both potentially harmful. NAS has a nice report on wake effects:
https://www.cfact.org/2023/12/01/nas-study-raises-concern-over-offshore-wind-harming-endangered-whales/
81
So David is Lomborg correct about the true cost of W & S energy? See my comments at 12 and 12.1.
40
I’m not sure that Australia can use dunkelflaute data from either Europe or the USA to determine our storage requirements. From Tony’s accumulated data, we know that in Australia, dunkelflautes can last up to 48 hours, and we know that they can occur on average almost once every three days. But I believe that we haven’t accumulated sufficient dunkelflaute data to determine if they can occur within a short time period after one significant one. And we don’t seem to be using a stated reliability figure in the storage calculations.
So while it’s clear that the minimum storage must be at least 48 hours, I’m not sure if it needs to be a week or more.
50
Graeme I’m not much of a gambler but I wouldn’t risk TOXIC W & S to run the power for the local chook raffle.
When Lomborg tells us that his PR referenced study finds that FULL COST W & S are 11 to 42 times the cost of other energy supplies then I consider that to be the most obvious no brainer in my lifetime.
The first solar panel or the first wind turbine is too many and they should be taken down ASAP.
80
I’m surprised with this high figure Neville, because past calculations have shown that wind and solar is around three times more expensive. Would be interested how Lomborg obtains this figure.
30
Graeme here’s the Lomborg quote again and the link.
BTW Lomborg is very careful about his claims because he represents 24 Scientists and Economists etc and like Dr Koonin he is very hard to beat in a proper, fair debate.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/bjorn-lomborg-why-solar-wind-100053561.html
“The usual way of measuring the cost of solar simply ignores its unreliability and tells us the price when the sun is shining. The same is true for wind energy. That does indeed make them slightly cheaper than other electricity sources: 3.6 US¢ per kWh for solar, just ahead of natural gas at 3.8 US¢, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But if you account for reliability, their real costs explode: in 2022, one peer-reviewed study showed an increase of 11-42 times, making solar by far the most expensive electricity source, followed by wind”.
“The enormous additional cost is for storage. We need electricity whether or not the sun is shining or the wind blowing. But our battery capacity is woefully inadequate. Research shows that every winter, when solar is contributing very little, Germany has a “wind drought” of five days on average when wind turbines also deliver almost nothing. That suggests batteries will be needed for a minimum of 120 hours — although the actual need will be much longer, since droughts sometimes last much longer and recur before storage can be filled. A new study shows that to achieve 100 per cent solar or wind electricity with sufficient backup, the U.S. would need to be able to store almost three months’ worth of electricity every year. It currently has seven minutes of battery storage”.
“The required batteries would cost the U.S. five times its current GDP. And it would have to replace them all when they expired after just 15 years. Globally, the cost just to have sufficient batteries would run to 10 times global GDP, with a new bill every 15 years”.
50
Thanks Neville, the study referred to by Lomborg was both enlightening and educational, even though I have to admit not fully understanding the maths involved. It was interesting to see how they used dam storage calculations to calculate the wind storage requirements. I think the main point I was missing is that a storage system also has to take into account yearly variations in wind energy, even though they are only minor changes. It’s the cumulative effect of these small changes over time that requires far more storage. And you cannot simply compensate by adding more turbines.
So the figure for wind storage was calculated at 24.9% max. That’s where the “3 months/year” comes from.
Now need to back and read that study more -it contains a lot of valuable data.
50
Graeme#4, for the greater part of this last week (Sunday to Thursday) there has been a “dunkelflaute” in southern Victoria. Where most of the wind plants are situated. That’s at least 96 hours of negligible or extremely low wind power production. So yes you are probably correct, because any decent engineer should build in at least a 2X safety factor. There’s lots of talk about capacity factors, but there should also be a factor computated that represents the nil/negligible time periods as well.
60
That’s an interesting long-term dunkelflaute Ross, was it recorded? So far, I believe only the 48-hour dunkelflautes have been mentioned. If longer dunkelflautes regularly occur, that would significantly alter the storage calculations.
I believe that it’s important that we don’t go down the alarmist path with very pessimistic storage projections. Even with over-optimistic figures with accompanying low reliability, we know that large-scale storage just isn’t possible.
Surely there has to be some engineering modelling that can determine the exact amount of energy storage required for a given reliability figure.
40
All you would need to do is look up the last week BOM met data for Geelong, Ballarat, Colac or Hamilton (Victoria). In addition the same is forecast for next week. So, again Sunday to about Thursday largely windless.
50
Thanks Ross, but the study that Neville referred me to pointed out that there is a lot more than dunkelflaute durations to consider. A lot to think about….
50
Go WOKE, go weak,
Go Wake, likewise.
Neither doeth Ma Naychure’s work,
They’re blowing in the wind.
30
It’s not surprising to see the wind engineers are using the same philosophy with off shore installs as they do with on shore. The size and the spacing of the latest tech on shore turbines are enormous. The greater majority of the population of Australia have never seen a wind turbine up close. They’re ginormous and spaced very wide apart. When you do the calculation of the area of these large wind installs (don’t call them farms, that’s annoying) divided by the number of turbines, the average footprint of each is about 40ha. That’s certainly true for most of the wind installs for Victoria for the last 2 decades. For those stuck in imperial or American that’s about 100 acres in the old money. So, I suspect years ago the wind engineers knew that turbines could affect each other’s wind flow and hence the wider spacing. But what do we see in the general media in terms of photos of wind turbines? Usually the still or videos of these installs are taken at an angle which indicates the turbines are relatively close together. Or they just use stock photos of some of the old original wind installs in California where the turbines are almost touching each other.
90
“Various studies have shown that the cost of integrating unreliable wind energy is high and rises as more wind is added to the system. For example, in Germany, when wind is 20% of electricity, the cost to the grid rises 60%. And when it is 40% is rises to 100%.
This is because of all the power plants, often natural gas, that must be standing by and ready to fire up the moment wind dies down, the extra power lines that must be built to remote renewable energy locations, and all the other extra equipment and personnel required to support fundamentally unreliable and often unpredictable forms of energy.”
From Apocalypse Never, by Michael Shellenberger
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544213009390?via%3Dihub
With 3,224 wind turbines planned for the the great Dividing range in Queensland, a once off payment of $1000 wont go far when the current electricity prices rise 100%. The inmates are running the asylum.
100
In the winter of 2016/2017 Germany experienced 5 weeks of very low wind (dunkleflute) at a time when solar generation was next to zero
The cost of back-up batteries for 5 weeks runs into the Trillions of Euros.
https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=2017&week=02&source=public
60
Eventually there will be a mass destruction scenario of wind turbines somewhere due to a catastrophic adverse weather event. The damage and subsequent rehabilitation of the environment, whether land or water, will be a hard and costly lesson with plenty of adverse publicity. Disaster enough to make a favourable comparison with the history of most early nuclear power generation disasters.
70
What about that huge, dormant, ex wind farm in the USA.
It boasted 14,000 of the derelict monsters and I doubt that many have been demolished and safely cleared away.
40
So many Ozymandius’s
Lying across the land. —x
30
I knew of the name but had to look it up.
“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” exemplifies the arrogance and hubris of a leader who believed his dominion would endure indefinitely.”
The biggest pile of junk was at Altamont but at one point the US total of blown windies was the 14,000.
Can just picture GoriMandius boasting that he was responsible for putting up all those renewable energy statues.
30
“Eventually there will be a mass destruction scenario of wind turbines ”
IIRC – one of the islands in the Caribbean – Puerto Rico, Haiti, one of them – had an unfortunate experience with a hurricane.
Said hurricane [not that uncommon a phenomenon in the Caribbean] levelled its W&S machinery.
Can’t remember when – ‘a few years’ ago, perhaps.
Hurricanes don’t play nicely with slaver panels, and whilst the latest bat-busters are supposed to be able to withstand Beaufort 12, I still refer to the original definition, by Beaufort himself, of Force 12 – “That which no canvas can withstand”.
And, anyway, CO2 is a benefit – it’s not a pollutant except in the view of those who seek to destroy our civilisation.
There are many of them, and many many ‘useful idiots’.
Auto
10
Well, if you take Work out of something, there’s less left. Can’t get something for nothing.
(Grid batteries are an exception. Apparently, according to Bowen et al, they supply power! Who knew!)
I guess no one ever thinks about matters like this, but consider the flywheel on a big old engine.
Every four cycles, it gets a slight increase in RPM from the Power Stroke.
During the next three strokes it gives up some energy to keep the engine rotating.
This, by law, causes it to slow slightly. (How much depends on mass of the flywheel and a lot of other boring theory.)
Then, it’s back to the power stroke, and it’s RPM increases back to what it was.
(This is the fundamental in combustion engines, big or small. A bit of power is stored for when there is no power.)
Wind Turbines.
Every Wind Turbine must slow the velocity of the wind passing through it.
How much it’s slowed is beyond my simple abilities, but slow it must!
I guess the saving grace is that there is so much wind! Not in strength, but in area.
This is the first article that mentions the downwind effect of turbines.
My feeling is there is more than they’ve figured out so far, aside from the fact that they are a carbon and economic disaster.
100
Drop the average CF from 30% to less than 20%
The power in stream flow is half the fluid density times area time velocity cubed. A 50m long blade sweeping an area of 7854m^2 in air flow of 8m/s (28.8kph). Ground level density od 1.2kg/m^3. So the available wind energy is 2.41MW. The wind turbine cannot extract more than 16/27ths of the incoming so the maximum possible output would be output would be 1.4MW.
As an example, the Siemens SG14-222 has a blade length of 111m so swept area is 39,000m^2. The rated wind strength is 12m/s so design stream power is 40MW. Maximum possible mechanical power is 24MW. The maximum electrical power is 15MW.
50
There are many previous studies and papers on this exact topic related to wind farms.
But , as i said earlier, why bother,.. the wind farm operators must have years of data that can reveal what is happening in reality .
10
probably a study down by someone vested in the solar industry. The renewable energy industry are eating their own!!!
60
The wake of a wind-turbine entails,
Causing others downwind power fails,
No point building more,
Either on or offshore,
If they take the wind out of their sails.
120
No one has ever determined the power that goes into making the global wind.
My rough calculations are based on observations of tropical warm pools. These are the heat engines that power the Hadley cells that sit across the ITCZ. These engines have a mechanical output, observed as atmospheric convection, of 50W/m^2. The warm pools cover up to 15% of the oceans so the power input comes out at 2.8PW.
The atmospheric mass is 5.1E18kg. Assuming it has an average speed of 256m/s, the kinetic energy in the atmosphere is 16,000PJ. So it took around 5000 hours to spin up using just the mechanical power of the warm pools.
Humans use around 160PWh per year.(567,000PJ) or average of 65PW. Which is 182 times the mechanical power input over warm pools.
Wind is a limited resource. Stilling the wind will have dire consequences for Earth’s climate that go far beyond the reduction in output of wind turbines caused by adjacent wind turbines.
No one has made calculations on how much energy is in the wind and how long it took to build up. Who would start on a massive program without establishing the available resources? Only morons.
140
Aidan Morrison and his team have today told us about the impact of the Govt’s Shadow Carbon Price on our electricity bills.
Best of luck to the ordinary battlers and people trying to run a small business in the near Aussie future.
This report was released today by the CIS.
https://www.cis.org.au/publication/the-impact-of-a-shadow-carbon-price-on-our-electricity-bills/
60
Australia’s GDP in 2024 is about 1.6 Trillion $ and if we had to replace all the back up batteries in 15 years
the costs would be either 8 TRILLION $ or 16 TRILLION $ according to Lomborg’s referenced study.
So if we were running the lousy, super expensive TOXIC W & S LUNACY today we’d have to fork out another 8 or 16 TRILLION $ by 2039 and even more by 2054.
Good luck with that BS and FRAUD.
70
Never going to work. Not enuf’ moneeeee or minerals to do it.
Plenty of Net Zero IQ from the ‘Pollies’ though.
Pipe dreams and all that.
60
Has no-one in government thought about our national security risk in 10 to 15 years time? What happens if China refuses to sell Australia replacement solar panels, wind turbines and lithium batteries? Or China’s plan “B”, double or triple the replacement renewable prices? China may well declare that the price increases are “legitimate” and “peaceful” and seek a “debt for equity swap”, taking ALL of our unused coal reserves to enable Australia to keep the lights on. Or maybe a much larger demand, the keys to Parliament House.
70
Mmm, interesting, this “wake effect” would presumably have a significant impact on the proposed energy output of Blowhard Bowen’s proposed 8000 square KM Offshore wind turbine project off the WA coast.
https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/renewable/offshore-wind/areas/bunbury
An area covering from off the tip of Cape Naturliste to just south of Mandurah, from 20km off the shoreline, extending 60 to 120 km offshore in a major whale migration corridor.
30
A not fit for purpose, subsidy farming scheme that leads to a net increase in so called co2 ’emissions’ over it’s full life cycle – so what is the point of them exactly?. Not to mention, needs full fossil fuel backup for when the wind isn’t blowing. A total farce, foisted on the Australian public without their consent by the disgraceful, nation wrecking alp/lnp/greens uniparty, serving their WEF overloads rather than their constituents.
80
Rust never sleeps. I cannot see these aquatic monuments of vanity lasting their stated lifetime.
50
Raises an interesting question – what is currently the longest-lifetime offshore installation?
20
Only one offshore installation survived to its actual planned decommissioning date. The six other offshore installations that have been decommissioned were shut down before their planned date. Actual lifetimes were 24, 19, 14 and 8 years. (One was just a demo.) Missing from this list are the offshore installs in Japan that were prematurely shut down.
40
Again, I apologise unreservedly for being immoderate.
10
Isn’t that considered changing the climate?
10
Then there is this long disappeared article. .
https://news.mit.edu/2010/climate-wind-0312
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