Explain this to me - wind farms

notjustair

Well-known Member
Went to an auction in Westphalia yesterday. There are hundreds of wind generators that way. More than I've ever seen in one county.

It was fairly breezy so all of them were clipping right along. Some were spinning clockwise and some counterclockwise. Why? I'm sure that causes them to need to make two kinds of blades. Wouldn't it be more efficient to have one mold to use and no worries about direction-specific parts?

Kind of humorous - there were tons of them but you could tell who would have none of it. In the middle of all of those there were quarters and sections without.
 
I'll stick my neck out on this one and see if the experts prove me wrong. I've done my share of driving in Mn, Ia, and Ks I'm almost positive all the ones I've seen the whole group is turning the same direction. Now not to say that the wind may not have been from the same direction, so some may have been facing a different direction to catch the prevailing wind at their location. So that may have made you think some were turning a different direction. Or secondly if you were driving the vehicle lack of constant focus on the turbines may have given your eyes an optical illusion that they were turning different directions. My two cents, lets see if it proves out by an expert or two.
 
notjustair,

A farm without windmills doesn't necessarily indicate that a particular farmer was against them.

In the area where my husband grew up, there was a guy who desperately WANTED them on his farm... he got ZERO - but his neighbors just across a gravel road got 3 of them on their property. (The guy who had wanted them was really ticked off about it.)

It's all equally open and flat farmland - so it cannot be that theit "wind tests" varied any from the one farm to the farm directly across the road. It must have something to do with "who you know" on the committees/boards involved with setting up those wind power companies.
 
Same here. I've seen a lot of them,but they've all turned the same way. That said,those blades do rotate on the hub. That's how they shut them down and to some extent,regulate the speed in different wind conditions. They turn the blades straight when they're shut down so they don't catch wind. I've seen them turning when it seemed dead calm,but there must have been enough wind aloft to turn them with the blades at just the right angle.
 
Our local town, with which I'm not involved, recently contracted to have one put up to augment electrical power for the town. The unit will be placed in the county, with which I am involved.

At a hearing before the board of Commissioners, the first question I asked of a rep of the wind generator company was what happens to the unit if the company that owns it goes out of business. I asked because there is a humongous concrete base below ground to support the tower. I asked this because I had heard of reports of people being left to their own devices to get rid of a wind generator when a company went kaput. The answer I received was that it's in the contract that if the business fails they remove the top four feet of the concrete base and fill it with top soil.

Say what? There is an impenetrable chunk of concrete left below ground. Might be interesting if that occurred and someone needed to excavate some time in the future.

When the subject first came up several months ago, I emailed copies of the appropriate zoning regulations to our County Attorney and asked her if they needed to be updated. The regs called for a noise level of no more than 50 db's. I specifically wanted to have the noise level reduced to 40 db's during the day and 35 at night, 'cause I'd read about a "whooshing" sound the units make as the blades turn. My efforts went nowhere, and when it came to a vote of us Commissioners, the zoning regs in place left us no choice but to approve it. To deny a project like that, we need to have legal grounds, we can't just deny something because we don't like it.

Guess we'll see how it plays out.
 
(quoted from post at 12:01:36 08/21/16)


When the subject first came up several months ago, I emailed copies of the appropriate zoning regulations to our County Attorney and asked her if they needed to be updated. The regs called for a noise level of no more than 50 db's. I specifically wanted to have the noise level reduced to 40 db's during the day and 35 at night, 'cause I'd read about a "whooshing" sound the units make as the blades turn. My efforts went nowhere, and when it came to a vote of us Commissioners, the zoning regs in place left us no choice but to approve it. To deny a project like that, we need to have legal grounds, we can't just deny something because we don't like it.

Guess we'll see how it plays out.

I've been within a hundred feet or so of some of those big wind gens. There's no "whooshing" sound that I heard. There is a low frequency sound, but it's hard to describe and not something I think would bother anyone who didn't have a chip on their shoulder in the first place.

My take on wind farms, large solar arrays, dams, power plants of any kind, is that there will always be a very vocal minority of the perpetually indignant that wants low cost power, and lots of it, but doesn't want the thing built anywhere near where they have to see, hear or otherwise be aware of it. In a perfect world we could ignore these idiots and move on, but for some reason they tend to get their way far, far too often.
 

I noticed that on some that are south of 54 through the Oklahoma panhandle a few weeks ago. I could clearly see the blades and what direction they were turning but I wasn't able to clearly discern which way the whole unit was pointing. I would not think they would want them to point 180 from each other, but if they did the blades would appear to be turning counter to each other.
 
(quoted from post at 07:33:16 08/21/16) Same here. I've seen a lot of them,but they've all turned the same way. That said,those blades do rotate on the hub. That's how they shut them down and to some extent,regulate the speed in different wind conditions. They turn the blades straight when they're shut down so they don't catch wind. [b:824560842a]I've seen them turning when it seemed dead calm,but there must have been enough wind aloft to turn them with the blades at just the right angle[/b:824560842a].
Yes I've seen this too where no apparent wind at ground level and yet for miles around you can see all the windmills turning at the same rate. This confuses me as I know from experience that the force of wind can vary over even 1 mile. I mean our old windmill could be pumping water at a certain rate while the neighbor's windmill ( 3/4 mile away) was turning much slower. So why are these windfarms all in unison across many miles? It's like they are all NOT powered by the wind but by the power grid they are supposed to be supplying!!
Moreover, when the wind is coming off a lake you'd think that the front of the blades should be facing INTO the wind, but to me, it seems that they are facing 90 degrees to the wind direction.
Too many confusing aspects of windfarms that don't help my trust levels.
 
First off they rotate clockwise. Looking at the Hub end. The house end trails behind. They are not like toys or a weather vain that will point itself into the wind. They are powered to turn to the correct angle of attack. If the house is into the wind something in the controls is busted. The blades also can change pitch to allow for wind speeds, shut down' and service. Now what you want to do is go on U-Tube and start watching all of the videos on wind turbines. VERY educational and lots of information about how, what and why. Why do they have three blades? on shore or off shore? What happens when they blow up? Wait till you see one where the brake system fails in Denmark. Also look at the vertical units from Iceland. Seen those blades going down the road on VERY long trailers. They are all fiberglass and blow up and burn real good. I have stood right below one of them while running and that Whoosh really is not that loud. Also the ground was not 12 inches deep in dead birds. Not one bird did I see. There is a video of one turkey buzzard getting hit. They do make the power but it is a full time juggling act to infuse their power into the grid. Coal or gas power plants can go on line or off as needed but all of the tree huggers still want green stuff. Up state NY near Lowville, NY there is a huge farm of 183 or 185 of them. Looks like Invasion of the Mars machines or something. Really, go on U-tube and there are hours of videos to watch.
 
What I find amusing about these wind turbines is that they shut them down when the wind get blowing very hard. So when you have the maximum power available you do not use it. I know they are not wanting to over speed them but the pitch of the blades is controlled so why not just flatten the pitch to control the speed. Even old windmills controlled the speed with a mechanical governor. It worked differently but they still turned in high winds.

As for noise. They do make a low frequency noise. It is noticeable to wild life and animals. My BIL has a lovely home and average. They built a wind farm right behind him. You do notice them when the wind is blowing towards the house. He has much fewer visits by wild life now as well. He got nothing out of the wind mills being built but they have dramatically reduces the value of his home. The wind mills are an eye sore to me.

I personally think the whole wind energy thing is a boondoggle. The wind turbines have a life expectancy that is less than the payback time. So the only way they are being build is with massive government/taxpayer subsidies. Also they do not really help with the total energy equation as much as you would think. You still have to have traditional generation capacity equal to the full demand. So while the wind is blowing the traditional generators still have to be idle ready to go on line at any time.

Also what are they going to be/do in 10-15 years and they are worn out???? he companies that are building them and operation them will more than likely be gone as soon as the government quits paying for them. The government is going to be hard pressed for money in the near future. So I see them setting there as expensive junk.

There are solar panels around here that on private buildings. They make less of an impact on the area they are in but I think they create more hazardous waste being made. They are costly too. Local dairy farm put them up. $75,000 to install. Saving $400 a month on electric this summer. In the winter the saving will be less. So will it ever pay out without tax credits???

I am all for trying to create new ways to create energy that is cleaner/cheaper. Just make sure that it is a viable way. The wind and solar drive is more emotion than science right now. It "FEELS" good to many people. The actual numbers do not reflect them being a viable source with current technology. We have driven nuclear generation out of this country and there is little research into the issue it has being done in the US anymore. So we have allowed a proven method to be driven out without really trying to solve the issues with it. If nuclear energy got half the money wind and solar is getting I bet that we could find ways to handle the byproducts/waste left over after the rods depleted.
 
JD I thank you so much! If I get rolling on my feelings with how much BS is in this world I would be thrown off! It is such a shame that there is so much "feel good" science with no common sense used. My neighbor just had solar panels put on last week. Now the top of his house and garage are covered. Why do the average SHEEPLE not wake up? SO sad. We need energy for the life style we now think is our given right. Wait till we get one real wiz bang of a Solar flair and it blows the crap out of the power grid! Canada found out a few years back. There was a really big flair back in the late 1800s and the telegraph lines were melting and catching fire. What would happen now? ANYHOW go check out U-Tube and it is mind boggling what is on there. CHeck EMP pulse with solar flairs.
 
The problem is what are you going to use for fuel if you build a gen station and where with all the regs and protests could you build one. So in the meantime we build windmills. We all need oil or we wouldnt have anything so why does a few raise all the mess about the Backen pipeline across IOWA. In 1950 Standard built a 16in thru here all the way to Dubuque not one complaint and its been there since no leaks ect but now all :ell is raised by a few stupid reasons. I guess energy is just going to fall out of the sky. Solar powered tractors arent available. If the same people trying to stop the pipeline would have been around yrs ago there wouldnt be any roads or power lines.
 
I do not think this country shall ever break it's independence on oil & natural gas. To much money to be made off it. However, I do see wind & solar energy as a supplemental power source. Just like computers and phones, as time goes by, they get smaller. I do not see wind farms in the future, but small wind turbines on rooftops.
 
They need some going each way otherwise the torque on the earth would be too high, it is a matter of physics. It also satisfies the need to employ left handed people as you know it is illegal to discriminate bases upon preferred hand orientation. Believe this one and I'll tell you another one.
 
I noticed them on a trip to AZ a few years ago, and on the return trip, I stopped to take a picture of them Not because they were new to me- we have dozens of wind farms in MN, but I wanted to capture a unique sight....within that row of towers there is a water windmill in the pasture...much smaller than the wind turbines, but was just chugging away to fill the cattle tank!
 
Impenetrable hunk of concrete below ground? Air hammer takes care of that...our neighbor moved a Harvestore silo, air hammered the old foundation....they go down 7 feet.
 
And yet, NO ONE can tell me about one single person or come forward to show me where their utility bill was reduced one cent because of these. Only surcharges on their bills for the construction!
 
If we had a constant wind source where we live, we would probably be using it. There are solar farms here, but few houses with solar panels generating enough energy to power an entire house. The costs could be lower, but local and major companies are determined to wring all the money they can out of house owners with or without state or federal support. Even without large storage battery banks significant additions to power generation can be made during high load periods by reducing grid demand which is mainly during peak daylight hours.

Humans have been using refined petroleum products since about 1860 at an ever accelerated usage since then. That is a blip in the history of mankind. Coal of course has been used long before this. Wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric are all supplemental, but without constant research and application what will we do when we run out fossil fuels. We could return to an era before fossil fuel use, but how many will volunteer to do without?
One problem in the US is that we do not reprocess spent nuclear fuel like they do in other countries. Why? There are also safer nuclear fuel alternatives than uranium and plutonium.

Wind turbines may come and go, but the demand for electric power will always be increasing across the world. Don't complain, build a better mousetrap and the world will either beat you or beat a path.
 
Actually, one is a generator while the other one is a motor; thus, generator produces power to drive motor that turns fan to produce wind which in turn-well, you get the idea.
 
Yes, LOL. We have lots of the wind farms here in windy ND. They were pretty happy last year, as they were making 40+ % of maximum output, averaged for the 365 days / nights of last year, so payback is going to be pretty easy without taking too many years. They have been pretty reliable so far, one I saw had taken a lightning hit to one blade which exploded the plywood core and turned it limp as a wet noodle. On another, the installers did not get the rotor hub seated correctly, so over time, the whole blade assy fell off. In general though, they have been producing cheap reliable clean power which fits in well with our coal and hydroelectric generation.
How long will they last ? The haters swear they will be toxic waste in 10 years and will forever turn the land into a Chernobyl like waste land that can never again see any sort of life. The supporters say they will run with just normal maintenance for 30 years, then have a rebuild and run 20 more years, before being recycled, putting a new unit on the old concrete base and repeat the 50 year cycle.

Reality is likely somewhere between those two estimates. The haters are usually the NIMBY group who still demand cheap power generated somewhere else, many with a severe affliction known as nocheckitis while they watch in envy those who do have well paying turbines on their land.
 
Sweetfeet, I am going to ask. The person that wanted one how much ground does he have and how far is it across his place to a neighboring property? In Ohio there is mimimum distance they are allowed to build from property lines and they used to be a quarter mile but the naysayers got that moved up to a half mile and it has to be that far between mills as well. That means that on neighboring farms sharing a common line the mills have to be over a full mile apart. A wind farm that was planed for over a hundred mills was cancled after that change was put in because with the old regs thet could put up that hundred plus but before all permits got granted they had to conform to the new regs and they would only allow for 7 mills in same area. So I wonder if he just did not have enough area while the person that got them did have the total land needed for them.
 
Hey JD, everyone was furious at our county legislators when they didn't sign right up to buy juice from the local wind farm at the time it was being constructed. "Why all that cheap wind power, WTH is the matter with our legislators"?????? and Blah, blah, blah. A lot of the county legislators got voted out because of it. The reason the legislators didn't sign up to buy wind power juice was that it was MORE expensive that what they were paying for hydro-electric produced power. The legislators did the residents a big favor by not signing up and the locals were too uninformed to realize it.
 
Leroy,

I think he owns a quarter-section. His building site is very close to a neighbor across the road to the east of him. And perhaps the back side of his section is perhaps too close to the neighbor who did get the windmills - the back side of those people's land is backed by a large pasture that goes to the next road... so perhaps you are correct regarding the distances required. Maybe that is what makes the difference.
 
I believe the ones here are supposed to be something in the 20 year range. There has been a steady maintainence and repair program here, and those guys get paid good money. Don't know what happens at the end of the twenty years though. The blades will turn at 3 mph wind and the maximum they can handle is 35 mph. I know the land owners who get paid rent for the things are pretty dawg-gone happy. The Lowville school district seems to be getting more money out of the project than they know how to spend, but they are giving it the old college try! I do know that the outfit who did this wind farm said they would never put another wind farm up in NY State. Took them two to three times as long to get the ducks in a row in NY to start construction as about any other state. They said NEVER AGAIN!
 
I live about 6 miles from that wind farm (Waverly wind farm)
There are 95 towers and they all turn the same way. At night there are 64 red lights that all blink at the same time. I can see them out my front window just beyond the nuclear power plant (Wolf Creek)
I would have lots rather seen another dome than 95 windmills.
 
(quoted from post at 12:41:41 08/21/16) Up state NY near Lowville, NY there is a huge farm of 183 or 185 of them.

Lowville isn't "Upstate NY". It's Northern NY. "Upstate" is where the rich NYC folks commute from, ie- south of Albany.
 
When they were installing a large wind farm off Lake Erie in Ontario, the trucks would cross at the Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia. They'd park for a few days at an abandoned gas station on I-94 near my property in St. Clair. I stopped and talked to the driver one time. He said the custom trailer (150 ft or so) cost $250k and was steered by radio from the chase vehicle. Here are some pix:
39560.jpg
39561.jpg
39562.jpg
39563.jpg
 
Good thing we didn't have the Internet back when drilling for oil was a "boondoggle" or when gasoline as a fuel was a "boondoggle" or when heavier-than-air flight was a "boondoggle" or when tractors were a "boondoggle."

If nobody tried to make advancements because it was a perceived "boondoggle" we'd still be living in caves.
 

Do you have some way to control the wind to make it blow during peak electricity demand? Have you managed to break the laws of physics and built low cost , safe non toxic , long life high energy density batteries ?
Your listed industries were viable without subsidies. Any industry that doesn't survive without subsidies is not practical .
What is your engineering and practical experience in the energy sector ?
 
All the big AC generator based ones have to turn at the same
speed to make 60 hz. If they are turning at a different speed
they have to disconnect from the grid.

The governer adjusts the pitch just like on a hydro dam turbine.
 
When those industries were evolving, subsidies didn't exist. The federal government also wasn't regulating and taxing everyone to death, so the government SHOULD have some skin in the game when it comes to future technology.
 
I don't know about the rotational speed control on the large turbines, but something similar to an automatic transmission would seem fitting to keep the output speed to the generator constant. It would still require something to synchronize the phase to the grid.

Some of the turbines generate ac or DC and use a true sine wave inverter to convert the voltage to be grid useable and have electronic synchronization controls to match the output to the grid frequency phase.

Small versions of this can be seen in some of the portable generators that can be linked together to provide more power. Each gasoline/diesel generator has an inverter and sync control and I think they dairy chain to one of the gens.
 
The speed regulation is automatic once they are connected to the grid. Current output varies with the force of the wind against the blades.
 
Bret
"Your take" on wind farms is more than a little one-sided. Living in
the footprint of a proposed windfarm, I and a number of neighbors have
done considerable research on the downside of windfalls that promoters
never mention. Not the least of these downside issues is the low
frequency, or infrasound that you mention. NASA has done much
research regarding infrasound, and while,like you, some people are
relatively unaffected by it, many people are profoundly affected by
it. Another major issue is property values. While farm land values
are apparently not greatly affected, residential property values often
take a huge hit. The wind farm companies usually do nothing to protect
property owners from devaluation.
If wind energy was a proven technology, I would very likely look more
favorably on it. Unfortunately, as of now, it is not proven
technology, and it is not even close to being cost effective. So I
suppose I will have to be one of the idiots that those of you who live
in a perfect world should just ignore. That's precisely what our
county zoning board did. We don't live in a perfect world here. We
live in an area proposed to receive 130+ of these 450 ft tall
monstosities, which are of very questionable value. If that makes me
an idiot, so be it.
 
Subsidies are as old as the nation, and the fuel industries - including fossil and nuclear - have all received subsidies of one sort or another, all the way back to things like import tariffs on coal in the early 1800's. Land grants were another favorite mechanism to give these industries a helping hand. Solar and wind are no different, their subsidies are nothing new.
 
(quoted from post at 15:41:33 08/22/16) When those industries were evolving, subsidies didn't exist. The federal government also wasn't regulating and taxing everyone to death, so the government SHOULD have some skin in the game when it comes to future technology.

It is not future technology. It's just airfoils, an induction generator and wind that comes and goes.
It's not about reliable power when it is needed. It's stuffing pockets with rate payer subsidized 13.5 cents per Kw hour plus the carbon credits . All the while conventional generation is costing between zero and 6 cents.
Government should pay ? Where does the government get money from ?
 

In several countries the land owners have been hit with leans from contractors who were not paid by the wind turbine companies.
 
(quoted from post at 18:25:20 08/22/16) Bret
"Your take" on wind farms is more than a little one-sided. Living in
the footprint of a proposed windfarm, I and a number of neighbors have
done considerable research on the downside of windfalls that promoters
never mention. Not the least of these downside issues is the low
frequency, or infrasound that you mention. NASA has done much
research regarding infrasound, and while,like you, some people are
relatively unaffected by it, many people are profoundly affected by
it. Another major issue is property values. While farm land values
are apparently not greatly affected, residential property values often
take a huge hit. The wind farm companies usually do nothing to protect
property owners from devaluation.
If wind energy was a proven technology, I would very likely look more
favorably on it. Unfortunately, as of now, it is not proven
technology, and it is not even close to being cost effective. So I
suppose I will have to be one of the idiots that those of you who live
in a perfect world should just ignore. That's precisely what our
county zoning board did. We don't live in a perfect world here. We
live in an area proposed to receive 130+ of these 450 ft tall
monstosities, which are of very questionable value. If that makes me
an idiot, so be it.

Thanks Tom, you've proven my point exactly. As long as it's not in your back yard, you don't care. Now it is, and you care. The issue of whether or not the wind energy industry will ever be cost effective wasn't the point of discussion.
 
(quoted from post at 15:39:15 08/24/16)
In several countries the land owners have been hit with leans from contractors who were not paid by the wind turbine companies.


If true that scares the devil out of me!
 

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