Industrial Wind Turbines

[OVERLOADDED]

Well after 14 months trying to convince the county to not allow wind turbines in! They vote to allow them in! Industrial wind turbines 600 feet tall just 1460 feet from my house, noisey SOBs will ruin the county!

 

[SamV]

How many people voted for them will live as close to them as you? My guess is not many.
Sorry to hear of your predicament. I seem to recall reading many years back about Ted Kennedy stopping a wind farm offshore because it would have wrecked the view from his property.
It is always funny how people support things that they don't want around them.

 

[redhawker]

Yup, we've got a bunch of them out here and they are real good a slicing and dicing the endangered birds that the greenies would have a hissy fit over if you just picked up one of their dropped feathers. I've had people tell me that they don't believe they could hurt bird as they spin so slow. I'm here to tell you that is an optical illusion. A tower who's blades are spinning at 20 RPM doesn't sound like it going very fast but you have to do the math.

If the blades are (to make the math easy for this example) 100 feet that gives you a diameter of the blade sweep of 200 feet. Multiply that by Pi (3.14 x 200) and you get a circumference of that blade sweep of 628 feet. Since it's turning 20 RPM that means that (20 x 628) the blade tips are traveling 12,560 feet per minute (or 2.38 miles per minute). Since 1 mile per minute = 60 MPH (or 1 x 60 = 60) if we multiply 2.38 x 60 we get 142.8 MPH. So, as you can see, in a light wind that's only turning one of these things at just 20 RPM the tips of the blades are almost 150 MPH! If it really gets blowing it could be quite a bit faster. In the OP the towers are 600 feet high so it's probably safe to assume the blades might be 200 or 250 feet on those. Those would translate into, at 20 RPM, a blade tip speed of 285.6 to 357 MPH. :shock:

 

[coach]

They are a blight on the landscape.

 

[Mobuck]

Gotta save the fossil fuels and the wind is free. The downside is turning wind into electricity seems to cost a lot of $$.

 

[Gator89]

The farming community in SoDak I visit to pheasant had a shivaree over the windmills. Not many folks there, lots of open country and wind.

They left it up to the landowner, if you want to lease a patch or patches of your ground for a windmill, you may do so. Not sure minimum size of acreage required to lease.

The neighbors of windmills within a certain distance should be given a royalty check for having to put up with them.

 

[JFB]

I feel for You

Not only is the noise your hear in the air, those vibrations are going to be in the ground also.

did the local government that is allowing constructing including who will cleanup the mess when they are abandoned in a few years

 

[Kevin]

Ive wondered for years now, if there is an array of them in a field, will the wind turbine have any effects on the leeward side of the field? Will it change vegetation and the landscape through possible erosion?

I’ve driven past the large field of them out in West Texas.

I’ve also wondered why James Bond hasn’t fought any evil masterminds at the top of one.

 

[blume357]

I think they are a good idea... but as mentioned, not sure I would want to live under or next to one.....
Redhawkers.... point about their speed is pretty amazing and frightening to a point.... Yes, those blades look like they are spinning slow... but I guess that's the same as when you watch a jet coming in to land or approaching ...they look like they are going slow too.... I always have a GPS with me when I fly.... take off and landing speeds are between 145 & 175 mph according to it.

But then I say if the stupid birds don't have enough sense to keep away from that big blade then too bad..... sometimes Darwin was right you know.

 

[JFB]

I’ve also wondered why James Bond hasn’t fought any evil masterminds at the top of one.

survival would be nil

 

[toysoldier]

The Siemens plant here in Hutchinson announced they would start manufacture of a turbine so large the nacelle will have to be shipped in four parts. Business is good, and the plant is a big boost to the economy of this county. That didn't stop residents from protesting the construction of a wind farm in the southeast part of the county.

 

[Mus408]

I’ve also wondered why James Bond hasn’t fought any evil masterminds at the top of one.

survival would be nil

That's the methane fired turbine backup for when the wind is not blowing! :mrgreen:

 

[ptypegreen]

"But then I say if the stupid birds don't have enough sense to keep away from that big blade then too bad..... sometimes Darwin was right you know."

It is not about the birds being stupid. Birds did not evolve to look to their sides for threats approaching at 100+ to 300+ miles per hour. Multiply that by how many windmills are on the wind farm. How many people that look both ways when crossing a street would survive crossing it if a car was coming at 300+ mph? Just try crossing a busy freeway with cars "only" going 60 70 80 or more mph. If that is not challenging enough, try it at Daytona or Talladega.

 

[Cholo]

Here's a story I remembered from several years ago. A very rare bird was spotted in the UK that was supposed to be in Australia. Bird watchers traveled long distances only to see it get killed by a wind turbine

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2350267/Rare-bird-white-throated-needletail-killed-wind-turbine-crowd-twitchers.html

 

[Dave P.]

Was able to spend several hours at a DTE wind farm in Michigan's thumb.
I think it was a NextEra site. They were installing 1.7 megawatt GE turbines
that were about 450 ft tall at the blade tips. Part of the project required
a dead bird count done about once a week, don't know if it was part of a
limited study or ongoing.
They shut down one turbine so we could get inside and play with some of the climbing
gear. They were just installing climbing assists that would almost hoist you up
the ladders.
Maintenance on those would not be a job for a fat guy!
They brought in special crews to clean/inspect the blades, guess they
get paid pretty well.
It was a interesting day.
Dave

 

[CGDustDevil]

Gotta save the fossil fuels and the wind is free. The downside is turning wind into electricity seems to cost a lot of $$.

The wind merely has the appearance of being a 'free fuel'. In fact, these eyesores are hugely expensive and environmentally horrible to manufacture, install and commission. They are dangerous for critters that fly, (blade tip speeds range from ~140 to 200 mph in normal operation), and they forever destroy a bunch of pristine landscape, and render the thousands of acres of land that they occupy unusable as long as they operate.

Since maintenance is a very complicated prospect with a 60-70 ton generator & gearbox 300-400 feet in the air, (read expensive), they often go without their required PMs which can result in their underperforming, can leak a lot of lubricant, and can suffer any number of catastrophic failures such as blade separation, oil & electrical fires, and even complete tower collapse.

Space wise, (by design) it will take 80 to 110 acres per tower. (1.5 to 2.5 MW packages) They cheat a bit however, and it figures out to be around 50 acres per megawatt. The total weight can range from 160 tons to 330 tons. The towers require over 1000 tons of reinforced concrete up to 50 feet across and 30 feet deep. The base alone can require up to 3 acres of level area. Some applications require a deeper series of shafts below the concrete platform in order to keep the tower stable. As a comparison, a standard tractor trailer can hold a self contained gas turbine which can produce 6 MW of power. Palo Verde Nuclear plant makes nearly 4,000 MW of electricity continuously on a 4000 acre footprint. If we assume a relative footprint comparison of 1 MW per 50 acres for wind, you'd need Wind turbines would need somewhere around 200,000 acres of land to produce the same amount of energy.

If industrial gas turbines (burning natural gas) or nuclear plants produced the environmental mischief that these things do, the environmentalists that promote these contraptions would be outraged.

But all they gotta do is just lie, paint it "green" and everyone smiles and says "OK!".

 

[Dave P.]

Gotta save the fossil fuels and the wind is free. The downside is turning wind into electricity seems to cost a lot of $$.

they forever destroy a bunch of pristine landscape, and render the thousands of acres of land that they occupy unusable as long as they operate. .

The site I was at in Michigan was set on "farmland" as in corn and soybeans.
It was still being farmed up to maybe 150 feet from the tower bases. Had
a basic single track gravel drive to it. That site rendered a very small
percentage of cultivated field unusable.
Dave

 

[CGDustDevil]

Gotta save the fossil fuels and the wind is free. The downside is turning wind into electricity seems to cost a lot of $$.

they forever destroy a bunch of pristine landscape, and render the thousands of acres of land that they occupy unusable as long as they operate. .

The site I was at in Michigan was set on "farmland" as in corn and soybeans.
It was still being farmed up to maybe 150 feet from the tower bases. Had
a basic single track gravel drive to it. That site rendered a very small
percentage of cultivated field unusable.
Dave

They can pitch parts a long way if they start sheddin' their feathers! lol Most of the sites I'm familiar with out west here are restricted, even to land owners. Maybe farming is an acceptable risk for occasional human occupation.

 

[Jeepnik]

They unbalance real easy. Just saying.

 

[arfmel]

I wonder if any of those wind farms would have ever been built if there hadn’t been wads of taxpayer money spent to subsidize them. I kind of doubt it.

 

[RolandDeschain]

There aren't any around here in middle Tn, but whenever we drive up through Northern IL or IN past the windfarms its always a big joke to count how many aren't turning.

 

[RICHP]

The eyesores are in my county. The only people who like them are those who have them on their land. I understand they get big money for them. I am glad I can,t see them from my home.

 

[Jeepnik]

There aren't any around here in middle Tn, but whenever we drive up through Northern IL or IN past the windfarms its always a big joke to count how many aren't turning.

They turn them on and off to adjust the electrical generation to match the load. Same as taking any other generator off line when it isn't needed. If you look, and pay attention you'll note that they don't always run the same ones. They switch the lead/lag around to even out the operating hours, same as they do generators.

 

[OVERLOADDED]

Leased 54,000 acres, expect 48 dbs at my house any time they are turning! Ultrasound can't be heard but you feel it, not good for the body or farm Animals. Ice throw over 4,000 feet! Blade failure pieces thrown over 4,000 feet! These things burn, and you can' fight fire 400 feet above ground level!! The blades are 225 feet long.

 

[6GUNSONLY]

Everyone I've talked to that lives near them, hates them. If anything else was killing raptors like these things do, the greenies would be going nuts.

 

[Bear Paw Jack]

From what I've read over time, I think it's a scam. If the government didn't subsidize them, they would be pointless. They require so much steel and effort to build them they will never pay themselves off. Not to mention the space they take up, that prevents crops from being grown that would make much more money.

 

[6GUNSONLY]

A lot like the ethanol/corn subsidy program, I'd say.

 

[wiz1997]

A small coastal town South of Houston installed a small wind farm years ago.

Hurricanes have a way of taking those things out.

 

[CGDustDevil]

EIA data shows wind & solar met 3% of U.S. energy after $50 billion in subsidizes. Government sure knows how to spend money.

http://freerangereport.com/tens-of-billions-going-to-solar-and-wind-which-still-produce-only-3-of-us-energy/?fbclid=IwAR26DCKh_QuWUmn_1MEnpct8KTqjsmxbVYAfK4aXsITnFoe2oDD23sdPhWQ

An unhappy wind turbine...

 

[kramden]

Solar and wind turbines...…….liberal wetdreams.