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  #41  
Old Posted Jan 27, 2010, 2:22 PM
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We should however not forget one thing: wind turbines have to stand much higher forces than radio towers, chimnies and electricity pylons and in fact spectacular failures are not so rare as most people think. Under this aspect it should be questionable if wind turbine city would be a good idea.
Better place the wind turbines in a safe distance to places at which permanent people are. However wind turbines with obseration decks would be good, as people visit observation decks usually at good weather where danger of failure is extreme low.

But one question: why are lattice towers incommon for carrying wind turbines ( I know, they are used, but not very often).
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  #42  
Old Posted Jan 28, 2010, 6:00 AM
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Originally Posted by Alpha View Post
But one question: why are lattice towers incommon for carrying wind turbines ( I know, they are used, but not very often).
Lattice towers make great nesting areas for birds. Blades traveling at the speed of sound can injure or kill birds. That's why hollow tubing is used for modern wind mill towers, birds can't nest on them as easily, therefore far less birds get killed.
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  #43  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2010, 9:25 PM
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China Leading Global Race to Make Clean Energy


January 30, 2010

By KEITH BRADSHER

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/bu...t/31renew.html

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TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.

“Most of the energy equipment will carry a brass plate, ‘Made in China,’ ” said K. K. Chan, the chief executive of Nature Elements Capital, a private equity fund in Beijing that focuses on renewable energy.



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  #44  
Old Posted Feb 13, 2010, 4:15 PM
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Norway plans to build the world's most powerful wind turbine


http://www.greendiary.com/entry/norw...-wind-turbine/

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World’s most powerful wind turbine will be seen erecting in Norway. The country plans to increase profitability of costly offshore wind farms with the new technology. Under the project that was announced yesterday, a 162.5 meters tall wind turbine will be constructed by Norwegian company Sway. Claimed to be the world’s largest wind turbine, the main aim behind developing the technology is to obtain higher energy generation for offshore wind power.

The 10-megawatt prototype with a rotor diameter of 145 meters is expected to be nearly three times more powerful than conventional wind turbines. The prototype costing 400 million Norwegian kroner is expected to power nearly 2,000 homes. Aimed to be installed in 2011, this wind turbine will be tested for two years on land in Oeygarden, southwestern Norway.
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  #45  
Old Posted Feb 16, 2010, 4:28 AM
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  #46  
Old Posted Feb 20, 2010, 5:16 PM
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America’s Wind Energy Potential Triples in New Estimate


February 19, 2010

By Alexis Madrigal

Read More: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...#ixzz0g6613X2H

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The amount of wind power that theoretically could be generated in the United States tripled in the newest assessment of the nation’s wind resources. Current wind technology deployed in nonenvironmentally protected areas could generate 37,000,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year, according to the new analysis conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and consulting firm AWS Truewind. The last comprehensive estimate came out in 1993, when Pacific Northwest National Laboratory pegged the wind energy potential of the United States at 10,777,000 gigawatt-hours.

- Though new and better data was used to create the assessment, the big jump in potential generation reflects technological change in wind machines more than fundamental new knowledge about our nation’s windscape. Wind speed generally increases with height, and most wind turbines are taller than they used to be, standing at about 250 feet (80 meters) instead of 165 feet (50 meters). Turbines are now larger, more powerful and better than the old designs that were used to calculate previous estimates
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  #47  
Old Posted Feb 22, 2010, 9:15 AM
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This is what I proposed for my city....
http://www.courierpress.com/news/201...draw-tourists/
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  #48  
Old Posted Apr 13, 2010, 2:41 PM
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  #49  
Old Posted May 1, 2010, 5:58 AM
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Windmill Boom Curbs Electric Power Prices for RWE

April 23 (Bloomberg) -- On windy nights in northern Germany, consumers are paid to keep the lights on.

Twice this year, the nation’s 21,000 wind turbines pumped out so much power that utilities reduced customer bills for using the surplus electricity. Since the first rebate came with little fanfare at 5 a.m. one October day in 2008, payments have risen as high as 500.02 euros ($665) a megawatt-hour, about as much as a small factory or 1,000 homes use in 60 minutes.

The wind-energy boom in Europe and parts of Texas has begun to reduce bills for consumers. Electricity-network managers have even ordered windmills offline at times to trim supplies. That hurts profit for wind-farm operators, said Christian Kjaer, head of the European Wind Energy Association, which represents RWE AG of Germany, Spain’s Iberdrola SA and Dong Energy A/S of Denmark.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...pv5Y9Vo&pos=13
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  #50  
Old Posted May 7, 2010, 8:22 PM
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Bladeless wind turbine inspired by Tesla


May 7, 2010

Lisa Zyga

Read More: http://www.physorg.com/news192426996.html

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A bladeless wind turbine whose only rotating component is a turbine/driveshaft could generate power at a cost comparable to coal-fired power plants, according to its developers at Solar Aero. The New Hampshire-based company recently announced its patent on the Fuller wind turbine, which is an improvement on a patent issued to Nikola Tesla in 1913.

The bladeless wind turbine is completely enclosed in a relatively small compact unit. Instead of using wind-powered blades to rotate a shaft and generator, the Tesla-inspired design consists of an array of closely spaced, parallel, thin metal disks separated by spacers. When air flows in the spaces between the disks, the spacers are arranged in such a way as to provide inward momentum to the air, causing the disks to move. The disks are connected to a shaft by spokes, so that the rotating disks cause the shaft to rotate as well. As explained in the patent held by Howard Fuller, the turbine design “provides maximum efficiency in converting wind energy to mechanical power.”

“The turbine of the present invention has the advantage that it is efficient over a wider range of fluid flow rates, as compared with turbines of the prior art, due to the airfoil-shaped spacers,” the patent explains. “This feature makes the present turbine especially useful for generating power from wind, which is inherently random and variable.”

What this efficiency translates to, according to a recent article at EcoGeek, are final costs of about $1.50/watt rated output, which is roughly 2/3 the cost of comparable bladed units. Further, “total operating costs over the lifetime of the unit” are estimated at about $0.12/kWh, which is comparable to current retail electrical rates. The number of disks determines the amount of power that can be produced, and a unit the size of the one pictured should be capable of generating 10kW of power, according to the company.

One major advantage of not having blades is reduced maintenance costs. For instance, the turbines can be mounted on towers or poles, while generator equipment can be located at the tower base, eliminating the need for climbing the tower for routine maintenance. Also, the turbines only need to be mounted high enough to clear nearby obstacles to wind flow. Since there are no external blades that require ground clearance, the tower can likely be shorter than those used for turbines with blades.



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  #51  
Old Posted May 8, 2010, 1:16 AM
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^^Beat me to it, MARK. I suppose this design would be better for small scale personal windmills that could be mounted on roof tops, since it shouldn't have the same noise and light problems that bladed turbines do.
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  #52  
Old Posted May 10, 2010, 4:30 PM
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New guide highlights potential for skyscraper wind turbines


10 May 2010

Jessica Shankleman

Read More: http://www.businessgreen.com/busines...hed-small-wind

Quote:
According to tabloid myth, wind turbines do not work in cities. Now a new report is attempting to challenge that misconception with guidance on how to effectively install wind turbines on tall buildings. The new guide from sustainable building consultancy BRE argues that skyscraper developments will increasingly be forced to install wind turbines due to a UK government planning policy that requires all new high-rise industrial, commercial or mixed-use buildings to generate at least 10 per cent of the energy they use from on-site renewables. For example, London's most recent high rise development, the so-called " Razor" building in Elephant and Castle, features three large turbines on its roof and several planned developments are also expected to make use of microturbines.

"There is an increasing trend to mount wind turbines on the roofs of tall buildings, where they have the potential to generate useful levels of energy due to the advantages from increased wind resource at these heights and the reduced shelter and turbulence from surrounding buildings," said report author Paul Blackmore. "However, without guidance, it is not easy for planners to determine the most effective locations for placing wind turbines." He added that many existing urban wind turbines were not always used effectively, with inappropriate placement leading to "an ineffective installation with severely limited power generation possibilities".

The report, entitled Building-Mounted Micro-Wind Turbines on High-Rise and Commercial Buildings, attempts to address the problem by offering guidance on how to ensure the most effective height and location for turbines on high rise buildings. It suggests that turbines should ideally be fixed on flat roofs and warns that close to the roof wind conditions can best be described as "chaotic", advising developers to seek as high an installation as possible.
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  #53  
Old Posted May 19, 2010, 7:36 PM
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Wind farm design inspired by school of fish


May 18, 2010

Jon Weiner-Caltech

Read More: http://futurity.org/earth-environmen...chool-of-fish/

Quote:
In current wind farms, all of the turbines rotate in the same direction. But while studying the vortices left behind by fish swimming in a school, fluid-dynamics expert John Dabiri noticed that some vortices rotated clockwise, while others rotated counter-clockwise. He and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) are identifying energy-related processes in biological systems that may provide insight into new approaches to—in this case—wind energy.

“I became inspired by observations of schooling fish, and the suggestion that there is constructive hydrodynamic interference between the wakes of neighboring fish,” says Dabiri, associate professor of aeronautics and bioengineering at Caltech. “It turns out that many of the same physical principles can be applied to the interaction of vertical-axis wind turbines.” The biggest challenge with current wind farms is lack of space. The horizontal-axis wind turbines most commonly seen—those with large propellers—require a substantial amount of land to perform properly. “Propeller-style wind turbines suffer in performance as they come in proximity to one another,” says Dabiri.

In the Los Angeles basin, the challenge of finding suitable space for such large wind farms has prevented further progress in the use of wind energy. But with help from the principles supplied by schooling fish, and the use of vertical-axis turbines, that may change. Vertical turbines—which are relatively new additions to the wind-energy landscape—have no propellers; instead, they use a vertical rotor. Because of this, the devices can be placed on smaller plots of land in a denser pattern.



Vertical turbines—which are relatively new additions to the wind-energy landscape—have no propellers; instead, they use a vertical rotor. Because of this, the devices can be placed on smaller plots of land in a denser pattern. (Credit: Caltech)

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  #54  
Old Posted May 26, 2010, 2:58 PM
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Small wind turbines add megawatts to U.S. grid


May 25, 2010

By Martin LaMonica

Read More: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20005887-54.html

PDF Report: http://www.awea.org/smallwind/pdf/20...rket_Study.pdf

Quote:
The U.S. is fertile ground for small wind turbines, according to a report published this week. The annual small wind report from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), released in conjunction with the organization's annual conference, shows that small-wind turbines installations have grown rapidly over the past three years and U.S. manufacturers are getting a foothold in the global market. The installed capacity of the U.S. for small wind turbines--defined as under 100 kilowatts of capacity--grew by 15 percent last year compared to the year before, representing $82.4 million in sales and almost 10,000 new units capable of 20 megawatts of generation, according to the report.

Consumer demand and improved technology are helping fuel sales, but the most important factor was the passage in October 2008 of a 30 percent tax credit for renewable energy systems. About half of the total industry growth has happened in the last three years, said Ron Stimmel, the manager of legislative affairs and small systems at AWEA, in an interview earlier this month. There have been about 100,000 units sold since 1980. In terms of products, there's a shift toward larger, grid-tied turbines. Even though total capacity grew, the number of units fell 6 percent, with the most growth in the 11 kilowatt to 100 kilowatt size range.

Microwind turbines, which can supply electricity for a home, have a capacity in the range of 2 kilowatts. For example, the Skystream 3.7 is rated at 2.4 kilowatts and, if there is a good wind resource, can supply a large portion of electricity for a single home or business. By contrast, a 100-kilowatt turbine, which looks like a smaller version of utility-scale turbines, could be used for community wind at a school or other municipal building.
















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  #55  
Old Posted May 28, 2010, 2:51 AM
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There's one of these on the roof of one of the buildings on the WPI campus. I don't know if its for research of to actually provide power.
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  #56  
Old Posted Jun 30, 2010, 1:18 AM
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What to do with all that wind?


June 29, 2010

Dennis Byrne



Read More: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...4494294.column

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Ride south from Chicago for a couple of hours on Interstate Highway 65 through the flatlands of Indiana and you'll see the future as envisioned by advocates of wind power: hundreds of wind turbines, as far as the eye can see. They rise some 260 feet to the turbine's hub and, when the rotor is fully extended straight up, they hit almost 400 feet — at least the height of a 35-story building.

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, they are whirling away, scarring what previously had been an awesome sight in itself: absolutely flat Indiana cornfields running uninterrupted to the horizon. Of course, it's relative. To some, it's a boring sight. But for me, the idea that in a universe of curved lines nature could have produced something so flat and uniform is a powerful reminder of Mother Earth's exceptionalism.

What we have here are miles and miles of visual pollution. Those who imagined that a wind farm would consist of a half dozen or so wind turbines scattered about in the boonies should take the drive. By some estimates, the hundreds of wind turbines in the I-65/Benton County corridor produce enough energy to power a city of 250,000. Imagine what it would have to look like to power a city of 3 million, like Chicago, or its metropolitan area of 7 million.

Indiana plans to rush even more wind turbines on line, making it one of the fastest-growing wind generation states in the nation. Among the Indiana providers is Orion Energy LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of BP Alternative Energy, which proclaims its Benton County facility to be the nation's largest. Its Fowler Ridge Wind Farm, when completed, could become the world's largest. Businesses and many farmers welcome the developments for the cash they bring.
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  #57  
Old Posted Jul 6, 2010, 4:15 PM
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http://jalopnik.com/5556198/wind+pow...aysayers-wrong

Wind-Powered Car Proves Internet Naysayers Wrong



When aerodynamicist Rick Cavallaro at Thin Air Designs heard about the debate causing nerd-rage all over the internet he decided to see if he could prove the naysayers wrong. Along with a group from San Jose State University Aerodynamics department, Rick designed a vehicle to put the debate to rest, it's called Blackbird and although it's weird looking, it works.

What Rick knew was there was plenty of power in the wind, but while harnessing it with a sail seems efficient it's actually not. A good deal of the wind spills over the sides, a sail has no way to store energy other than the inertia built up in the craft it's attached to and it can be complicated to steer. Instead, Blackbird has a propeller designed and optimized to capture and convert wind to mechanical power. The prop allows for the same conversion of wind force to craft inertia but adds a degree of energy storage in the spinning propeller, that's not to say there's any kind of energy storage other than that. The blade is mechanically linked to the axle through fixed gearing and there's no on-board energy stored when the vehicle is stationary. It's mounted to a load-cell-instrumented hub at the top of a steel A-frame and drives a geared axle which drives the vehicle.
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  #58  
Old Posted Jul 17, 2010, 4:58 PM
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Airborne wind turbines


06/16/10

By Timon Singh



Read More: http://www.americainfra.com/news/air...wind-turbines/

Quote:
In the past, US Infrastructure has talked about super-wind turbines which combine kite technology and turbines in order to harness high-altitude winds. However now a US company has gone on step further and developed airborne wind turbines which utilise aerial structures to tap stronger winds at great heights. Developed by Joby Energy Inc, the idea of airborne wind turbines had previously been dismissed as 'technically non-viable' due to the difficulty of harnessing high-altitude wind. However today, technically-advanced materials and innovative computer know-how have resurrected the concept.

- The science backs up his claims with statistics stating that tropospheric winds carry potential to produce 870 terawatts of energy. Currently the global demand is only 17 terawatts. While 2,000ft may seem a bit low, this limit has been implemented by the US Federal Aviation Administration who fear if the devices are any higher, they'll cause problems for aircraft. But what about potential problems for the airborne wind turbines? What if the wind stops? Do they crash to Earth? To elevate such concerns, Mr. Bevrit stated that the structures can be grounded in extreme weather conditions, and they also feature multiple motor designs to circumvent motor failure and on-board stand-by batteries to land the system in case of tether malfunction. Trials are underway at the moment.








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  #59  
Old Posted Aug 1, 2010, 4:34 AM
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anyone have info on the maglev wind turbine being built in china?

ive tried to find updates, but only get data from like a year ago.


http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/11/26/...urbine-maglev/
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  #60  
Old Posted Aug 1, 2010, 5:09 PM
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ondon recently saw the completion of the world's first skyscraper with wind turbines integrated directly within its building fabric -- the Strata tower. Nicknamed the Razor, the black and silver skyscraper measures in at 147 meters (485 ft) tall, making it the tallest residential building in central London. The Strata is topped with three building-integrated wind turbines that provide 8% of the total electricity needs of the building, and it features an array of green building strategies that make it the face of the regeneration of the Elephant and Castle area.ondon recently saw the completion of the world's first skyscraper with wind turbines integrated directly within its building fabric -- the Strata tower. Nicknamed the Razor, the black and silver skyscraper measures in at 147 meters (485 ft) tall, making it the tallest residential building in central London. The Strata is topped with three building-integrated wind turbines that provide 8% of the total electricity needs of the building, and it features an array of green building strategies that make it the face of the regeneration of the Elephant and Castle area.
http://inhabitat.com/2010/07/20/firs...ens-in-london/



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