Wind farms, what really happens when there's no wind ?

[sandie]

I have looked at other post replies and find a lack of information and knowlege on the subject.

I work with the so called Renewables mainia and it is not all it is cracked up to be.It is a load of "Hot Air"

 

Electricity generated from renewable power sources is, without doubt a powerful weapon for the world in in the fight to save the planet and achieve energey independence.

However renewables will have to overcome many chalanges including economic competitveness, development factors, supply concerns and public policy issues.

Renewable power is perceined as clean and virtually "free" by the public. In fact the reality is quite different.

Though the raw fuell in the form of wind, water or solar are free, the costs involved of transforming the energy into usable electricity and delivering it to the customer are not.

In fact , from the customer's point of view, current well-established technologies such as coal,oil, gas hydro and nuclear are much more competitive .

 

 

I could write pages on this subject as I deal with it every week on a practical and design level

[eckerslike]

The big problem with many wind turbines is they require electric motors to turn them when the wind drops. If the blades are stopped and a sudden gust catches them it can cause massive damage. I note that the two turbines near Catcliffe are never working and have lost their blades in the wind.

[Justin Smith]

The big problem with many wind turbines is they require electric motors to turn them when the wind drops. If the blades are stopped and a sudden gust catches them it can cause massive damage. I note that the two turbines near Catcliffe are never working and have lost their blades in the wind.

 

I can see a few wind farms when I go on walks about N Sheffield and it`s very rare to ever see all the turbines working. I can remember once when we had strong gales about and thinking at least we`ll be getting some power out of this, but as far as I can remember none of the turbines was even turning ! I`d wondered if they`d been feathered to prevent damage or something ?

 

I just want to reiterate that I`m not against wind energy as a basic principle, I just need quite a bit of convincing that it`s :

A Economic

B Reliable

[Justin Smith]

What nobody seems to have paid much attention to is a local means of storing electricity when the wind farms are producing a surplus. Pumped storage is hugely expensive and anyway there are few if any suitable sites along the North Sea coast.

 

Pumped storage would be a good way of improving the reliability of wind (and solar) power generation but as you say it`s very expensive......

[Justin Smith]

The big problem with many wind turbines is they require electric motors to turn them when the wind drops. If the blades are stopped and a sudden gust catches them it can cause massive damage.

 

Is that really true ? ! ?

[$nob]

I saw a conventional windmill break in a storm in Utrecht last year, very dangerous. This one happened in Denmark

[Fogey]

Alright, all those bitching about the cost of wind farms and indeed any other form of renewable energy.

 

The world is running out of its finite 'stored fossil fuels'. And a switch to nuclear still relies on a finite 'store of uranium'.

 

However cheap or expensive any form of power is, you can't buy what doesn't exist anymore.

[andyofborg]

The world is running out of its finite 'stored fossil fuels'. And a switch to nuclear still relies on a finite 'store of uranium'.

 

back in the 80's, there were concerns about the size of uranium reserves, the answer then was "fast breeder" technology but that never took off because of concerns that the plutonium it produced would be diverted into weapons rather than power generation

[Justin Smith]

Alright, all those bitching about the cost of wind farms and indeed any other form of renewable energy.

 

The world is running out of its finite 'stored fossil fuels'. And a switch to nuclear still relies on a finite 'store of uranium'.

 

However cheap or expensive any form of power is, you can't buy what doesn't exist anymore.

 

But it isn`t just a matter of how expensive it is, it`s also how reliable, or not, it is.

I can`t imagine there are many people, apart from those with shares in oil/gas/coal who are against wind power out of dogma, but there are practical questions which need to be answered and nobody on here has answered them yet.

Incidentally it`ll be a long long time before the world runs out of oil, gas and (especially) coal.

In fact it won`t ever run out of any of them, there will just reach a point where the cost of extracting them becomes too high to bother.

[Longcol]

Although I have nothing against wind power as a basic principle, what happens when there`s no wind ?

 

And how many days do we have when there is no wind?