Hurricanes will blow down wind turbines in the Gulf and on the US Atlantic seaboard. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21468-hurricanes-deliver-fatal-blows-to-wind-turbines.html quote: 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. Taxcutter notes: They may get blown down, but boy! Will they be producing a LOT of power just before they topple over. Wonder if anybody will be able to use that spike in power production?
One thing great about technology is that is always adapting. So using 20 YO technology as an example of how hurricanes can destroy wind turbines is just stupid. source Republicons: The Party of "NO" and now the Party of "CAN'T".
They won't subsidize them, mandate them, or prevent private business from installing them. Actually, it was in answer to Mannies's koolaid inspired rant about the Democraps being ever so superior to the Republicraps.
Breaking the supporting structure is not the only failure mode of offshore wind turbines in a hurricane. Hurricane-force winds (400 feet above the surface) may be great enough to break even feathered props.
I did not see that stated in the article. Is that your opinion or a conclusion based on the research?
The government subsidy for windmills expires this year. Already tens of thousands of windmills (mostly made in China) are being abandoned. I have posted threads on that subject. Wind as an energy resource looks to be free, but is highly site-dependent, is very intermittent and requires a lot of storage to make it dispatchable upon demand, and has proven to be so maintenance-intensive as to be unprofitable. Wind energy in the twenty-first century sounds a lot like steam locomotives in the late 1940s. Steam locomotives used a cheap form of energy, but their inefficiency and horrendous maintenance costs drove them off the rails in favor of the diesel-electric locomotive. Nobody in the 1940s gave a rip about air pollution. With the expiration of the generous subsidy, wind power will have to live on its own merits. That has generated a panic in the wind energy industry. http://www.masterresource.org/2012/02/wind-panic-awea-ptc/ I suspect there will be a lot of wind turbines available for scrap prices. If the ethanol (the stuff is actually denatured alcohol) subsidy is unacceptable, why should this one be any different?
source Oh yeah, Gamesa looks like it is having financial problems. When are you going to get it through your thick skulls that the US is not the center of the alternative energy universe?
Let's just see how they do. If you subsidize something enough it might stay afloat - at the expense of everybody.
Global warming making storms more intense... 'Storm of Century' Might Hit Every Decade February 17, 2012 - Intense storm risk more frequent in warmer world
Has anyone compared the number of hurricanes (Atlantic and Pacific) of category 3, 4, and 5 for each year since 1900? If the above is true, that should show in the data.
Instead of the Safir-Simpson scale, a better measure is Accumulated Cyclonic Energy (ACE), which accounts for the actual energy in the wind, the physical size of the storm, and its duration. Adding up the ACE for all storms in a year gives you a good idea of how bad the year was. Like all weather data, it's quite variable, but you can smooth out the variations by taking a long-term running mean.
This was actually ¨cooked up¨ by Dr. Chris Landsea, one of the few skeptic climatologists. Of course I expect you to retract and apologize.
I did this analysis 5 years ago or so, and found that total storms remained near the same, as an increase in the Atlantic, is matched by a reduction in the Pacific. That is why I asked the question the way I did. To be even more accurate, a study would include all cyclones, northern and southern hemisphere.
Indeed! 2010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816? [excerpt] Every year extraordinary weather events rock the Earth. Records that have stood centuries are broken. Great floods, droughts, and storms affect millions of people, and truly exceptional weather events unprecedented in human history may occur. But the wild roller-coaster ride of incredible weather events during 2010, in my mind, makes that year the planet's most extraordinary year for extreme weather since reliable global upper-air data began in the late 1940s. Never in my 30 years as a meteorologist have I witnessed a year like 2010--the astonishing number of weather disasters and unprecedented wild swings in Earth's atmospheric circulation were like nothing I've seen. The pace of incredible extreme weather events in the U.S. over the past few months have kept me so busy that I've been unable to write-up a retrospective look at the weather events of 2010. But I've finally managed to finish, so fasten your seat belts for a tour through the top twenty most remarkable weather events of 2010. At the end, I'll reflect on what the wild weather events of 2010 and 2011 imply for our future.
Just keep repeating claim made by Warmers that nobody believes. Try to get back on topic. Why is wind power such a huge failure?
OK and you can just keep repeating the lying claims made by denier cultists in the pocket of Exxon that nobody in their right mind believes. Meanwhile wind power is a big success and just keeps adding capacity.
For example.... First Phase of Giant London Array Offshore Wind Farm Underway 02/09/12 The first phase of what will be by far the world's largest offshore wind farm, the London Array, has begun construction. The first two 3.6 MW turbines were installed on January 27 and 28 and will be generating electricity by March. The first phase will have a total of 175 turbines and should be completed by the end of the year. At that point, the London Array will have a capacity of 630 MW. Phase two will begin shortly after, ultimately bringing the wind farm to a 1 GW capacity, capable of powering 750,000 homes. Wind power capacity is adding up fast in the U.K. The world's current largest offshore wind farm, the Walney project off the coast of Cumbria, just finished opened today. The 100-turbine wind farm has a capacity of 367 MW and will be able to power 320,000 homes. Next up will be the 133-turbine, 500 MW Greater Gabbard offshore wind farm that should be completed before the end of the year. (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
No, profitable operation is profitable operation. When you get tired of posting inanities, let's debate. Top Myths About Wind Energy # Myth: Building a wind farm takes more energy than it ever makes Fact: The average wind farm will pay back the energy used in its manufacture within 3-5 months of operation(4). This compares favourably with coal or nuclear power stations, which take about six months. A modern wind turbine is designed to operate for more than 20 years and at the end of its working life, the area can be restored at low financial and environmental costs. Wind energy is a form of development which is essentially reversible in contrast to fossil fuel or nuclear power stations. # Myth: Wind power is expensive Fact: The cost of generating electricity from wind has fallen dramatically over the past few years. Between 1990 and 2002, world wind energy capacity doubled every three years and with every doubling prices fell by 15%(7). Wind energy is competitive with new coal and new nuclear capacity, even before any environmental costs of fossil fuel and nuclear generation8 are taken into account. The average cost of generating electricity from onshore wind is now around 3-4p per kilowatt hour, competitive with new coal (2.5-4.5p) and cheaper than new nuclear (4-7p)(9). As gas prices increase and wind power costs fall both of which are very likely wind becomes even more competitive, so much so that some time after 2010 wind should challenge gas as the lowest cost power source. Furthermore, the wind is a free and widely available fuel source, therefore once the wind farm is in place, there are no fuel or waste related costs.