GE starting to scale wind...

That's the kind of article that brings a smile to my face. Let's hope the whole thing comes to fruition.

 

Go GE!

 

That's largely one windfarm in California. They've learned now not to put them in key migratory paths. I can tell you at the windfarm where my folks live (Buffalo Ridge, on the MN/SD border) bird kill is not a problem.

I'd be more worried about the annual kill from people's housecats. Habitat loss from urban sprawl is another big factor. Or habitat loss from global warming, for that matter.

nerfer

 

Isn't NREL the sector that Shrub pulled a bunch of budget away from
right after the last state of the union address?
.
What I can't understand about these projects is wy they're putting
them offshore, and usually so far off. Why take the hit of the
energy loss over all that transmission line? Wind turbines are
beautiful things, they oughta be right ON shore [unless the wind
is radically different] so people can admire them up close. Those
NIMBYer idiots on the Cape really buggered everything up by starting
the wrong trend.
.
_H*

 

It's nonsence. House cats kill more birds annually that wind turbines. Ditto large office buildings.

It's indeed good news. The Germans just deployed their first offshore tubines. Unfortuneately they're just puny 2.5 MW turbines. They're primarily research platforms.

 

'obbit, the advantage of offshore farms is that they having a higher production factor (basically the amount of time that the turbines are running and what percentage of their rated power they are producing). Offshore turbines have a production factor of something like 40-50%. For land based turbines the production factor is usually in the range of 25-35%.

 

Okay, so the wind is better out there. I can accept that. Hopefully
that makes up for a couple of extra miles of wire [and the fact that
a good deal of the platform infrastructure has to be built
underwater!]. I guess as more of these things start going in, the
people who print nav charts will be very busy.
.
_H*

 

I love this thread... Here in Bowling Green, Ohio (or as we like to call it 'Blowing Green') we just built four new wind turbines in the last couple of years... and they rock! They are visible for miles around (thanks to the flattest, treeless landscape imaginable) and have become one of the signature images of our community. Here are some pictures of them I took just two days ago...
[attachmentid=2566][attachmentid=2565][attachmentid=2567][attachmentid=2568]

These photos do not indicate it, but I took these dureing high winds, with the turbine blades happily spinning away... (I wanted to see how well my new CyberShot camera worked... )

Here is a link to Green Enery Ohio's numerous information articles about Our experiment in "green energy"...

http://www.greenenergyohio.org/page.cfm?pageID=104

Enjoy!

 

Kewl. They're neat, eh? My alma mater installed a Vestas V.82 1.65 MW turbine back in SEP 04. I saw it during my 10 year reunion and stood under the blades as they turned. It was much quieter than I would have thought. Very impressive.

Here's stats from the first month of the Bowling Green farm's operation:

The wind farm operated at 30% capacity and 97% availability during its first month of operation according to Bowling Green Municipal Utilities.

So there you go. That sounds very similar to the experience at my college, which is in SE Minnesota.

 

well It should be noted that the first two BG wind turbines were installed in 2003 and two more were installed in 2004-2005 for a total of 4. They have prven themselves not only reliable but also an attractive addtion to the Bowling Green landscape... and now other communities in Ohio are seeking to Install windfarms like ours, including pans for a 20+ turbine farm about an hour or two south of here!

 

Yeah, it's amazing for all of the pissing and moaning about asthetics once the things are in place they're mezmerizing. Case in point, down near Wellington, NZ (where the weather's not so good, the wind it cuts right through you and it rains more than it should) a wind farm has actually become a tourist attraction, hardly an eye sore. They really are cool. On the other hand, there's growing opposition to wind power in Germany where there are turbines all over the place. That's probably a big part of Germany's motivation to go offshore. They are going to be facing a lot of opposition by continuing to build up their land based capacity. It's too bad. If only people stopped and reminded themselves of what coal plants do to the air and water quality (nevermind the CO2).

 

Yeah, the wind turbines have become quite an attraction here too... They are the largest turbines east of the Rockie Mountains (at 30+ stories tall) and are right off of US-6 for all the cars to see...

As for germany, I stayed with my brother there for a week summer 2004 outside of Frankfurt... there are wind turbines all over the horizion... AND THEY LOOKED GREAT! (I say this not to insult anyone here but after being in Germany for a week I would not put much stock in the German people's opinions of anything... I'll just leave it at that <_< ) I could only hope we had hundreds and hundreds of turbines here.. we have mroe than enough wind going to waste every day...

 

Here is an article about wind Turbines and their effect of birds:

http://www.greenenergyohio.org/page.cfm?pageID=116

Hopefully this will address some of the issues raised in this discussion

 

Don't forget job creation. The wind industry in Germany employs over 45K people.

 

Yes but so often this argument is used by people who could care less as a mean to blocking wind farm construction. Collisions with turbines are orders of magnitude lower than the other sources (and others) that I mentioned. Proper planning, which should be conducted, generally reduces this to a non-issue. The hot water expelled by the cooling towers of coal and nuclear fired plants alone probably causes a much greater impact on the environment than wind turbines.