Author Topic: windmill blades  (Read 379 times)

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BrianK

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windmill blades
« on: February 29, 2004, 07:20:08 AM »
A while back I posted A blade question. It was about useing the old style wind mill blades like they used to use for pumping water. I got some response and then it restarted my brain thinkin again so here it is.


     I read that they were high torque and slow speed, and that started it!      Now I wounder if they would or could be use for the purpose of electric generation for a gear reduction system that would turn a genny way faster   HUMMMMMM!!  Any thoughts?


    just for the fun   as I drove around saturday I started looking along the highways and really started to notice that the states are useing a lot of solar power for a lot of things  so it must be a nice working little secret so they are not so much of a slave to the power companies.  then as I drove on I started looking at all of those nice big cross counrty power line towers and started thinking what if the power company placed a wind genny on the tops of those HUMMM  at first a lot of cost but then lots of almost free power from those millions of towers all over!!!! could help save the planet and fuels life could get better and mabye less costly   Like that would ever happen   lol

« Last Edit: February 29, 2004, 07:20:08 AM by (unknown) »

kww

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Re: windmill blades
« Reply #1 on: February 29, 2004, 07:54:24 AM »
You said: "I started looking at all of those nice big cross counrty power line towers and started thinking what if the power company placed a wind genny on the tops of those HUMMM"


Now that's a great idea!  Most are strong enough to hold a rather big turbine or lot's of smaller ones, the wire's already there and hooked up, they're high up and isolated whenever possible.  Can you imagine walking down a city street with an 8-30 foot turbine on almost every high tower, post, etc, while in high winds?  Sounds like it could potentially lead to energy reduction through population reduction. LOL  Hey, styrofoam blades...

« Last Edit: February 29, 2004, 07:54:24 AM by kww »

zbotrobot

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Re: windmill blades
« Reply #2 on: February 29, 2004, 08:12:10 AM »
Yes my comment to your idea is that this is the correct approach. In the high tech world we get carried away by complex solutions, and forget that the best solutions are often th emost simple and basic. Imagion if these mills were designed with the most basic low maitainance design such that it would cheaper to replace a unit than repair it, when they did finally fail and be produced in such quantity cheaply that they would be about about as much cost as a simply roadsign and put all over. (There would be complaints of course) but I mean the optimal size, not just huge 200ft rotors but say 15ft rotors lots of them just ploped down and pluged in. The same with solar, to produce a cell by vast production cheaper, or by using a new and very cheap kind of 3 layer paint and special mesh, or even something new like just using the infrared spectrum as the photoactive whatever. If you think about it most problems are the result of over-complicating matters. Solutions do not have to be more complicated than the problem. Has anyone ever calulated just how much energy is lost through the power lines alone?
« Last Edit: February 29, 2004, 08:12:10 AM by zbotrobot »

BrianK

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Re: windmill blades
« Reply #3 on: February 29, 2004, 09:25:40 AM »
I meant the big lines that span from city to city state to state not really the ones in town but in some area's could work
« Last Edit: February 29, 2004, 09:25:40 AM by BrianK »

kww

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Re: windmill blades
« Reply #4 on: February 29, 2004, 09:26:20 AM »
Hmmmm, coils on the power line?  :-)  
« Last Edit: February 29, 2004, 09:26:20 AM by kww »

Harry Luubovv

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Re: windmill blades
« Reply #5 on: February 29, 2004, 12:20:50 PM »
I am sure every idea here is more than sound. But unfortunately, everything in this modern world these days are so bound by politics of some kinds. So the question here is, will the power company put up windgens to shut out their own lucretive fossil fueled business ? ? What is "Industry politics" ? For a little example, I have heard of a "Fuel" that you only have to put into the tank once and the car drives forever without gas ! ! No doubt, many new inventions are bought out by some present dominating markets. Whatever technologies we have now believe me, are not real modern technologies, those hidden ones are ! Of course these are my own one-cent-opinions, you can have your own folks. Thanks for listening to my rant.


Thanks.

Harry.

« Last Edit: February 29, 2004, 12:20:50 PM by Harry Luubovv »

RatOmeter

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Re: windmill blades
« Reply #6 on: March 01, 2004, 04:33:35 AM »
I've given some thought to the mini-wind-turbines-on-utility-poles idea, even posted such musings in some old thread here.  I tossed the idea to someone where I work and he immediately came back with some technical issues.  


  * How to match the output of the gen to the line voltage (which may run at around 12,000 to 14,000 volts to the transformer at your house and much higher for the long hauls).  It's also got to be sync'd at 50/60Hz, so we're probably looking at an inverter and step-up xformer.  Not nearly as efficient as the big, utility grade wind gens.


  * Maintenance.  I know Bergey, Southwest and others rate their gens at up to 15 or 25 years of service, but how many have you seen with broken/missing blades?  Statistically, if you look at the MTBF across several hundred or more wind gens, there'd have to be a whole crew dedicated to maintaining/fixing wind generators on utility poles.  Again, I start to see the value of the huge, utility grade wind generators.


Not to be a wet blanket, or anything :)


-RatOmeter

« Last Edit: March 01, 2004, 04:33:35 AM by RatOmeter »

wpowokal

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Re: windmill blades
« Reply #7 on: March 01, 2004, 08:20:48 AM »
The principal impractability of placing wind generators on HV lines is simply.


These lines have protection that (where I worked) opens the breaker in half a cycle, 1/100 second if any one of a number of faults occure.


Adding power along the way, ie between protection points would trip the line.


Or, news flash "the whole east coast of America up to Canada was blacked out today when, it's believed, a blade broke of a tower mounted wind turbine lodging its self across the wires. This caused the heavily loaded transmission line to trip, causing a domino effect as other lines up the east coast overloaded"


Dedicated wind farms are the answer, just how to convince governments and big business with vested interests. Just keep chip chipping away, and keep the ideas flowing.


regards Allan

« Last Edit: March 01, 2004, 08:20:48 AM by wpowokal »
A gentleman is man who can disagree without being disagreeable.

Harry Luubovv

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Re: windmill blades
« Reply #8 on: March 02, 2004, 10:01:07 AM »
I am sure all of your negative views on the subjects are valid, looking at matters the conventional ways. I can say that one can look to find answers or, can take matters for granted. All the problems seen are there because the system is never designed for additions of windgens in augmentation to the existing power plants systems. If we want something badly enough, there is always a way, many times we say that this or the other matter cannot be done, that is because nobody wants to go out there to actually develop the idea further. Like I said, why doing it to make less $MMM ? Then what about, the windgens only go tapping into the output end going to consumers and not the high voltage end ? High voltage of thousands of volts are only good for long distance delivery, but as long as that you already have a generator on a local pole, you can utilize that to supply only the local demands (Between 2 pole's distance I supposed). You don't want to generator electricity here on one pole and use a host of transfers to transfer this power somewhere else some 50 miles away ! Do I make sense so far ? A breaker can trip if frequency or phasing not synchronized or if amplitudes not moderated between 2 generators operating on the same line. Electronics can have these problems resolved, not a large problem at all. Further, we won't need transformer at all if you thought about it this way, supposed we had enough windgens in combination with solar panels going, each local group just supplies local needs and does not need to transfer power over a long distance as the present systems do from only very limited centralized power generating sources. No transformer used does increase efficiency dramatically. Surely, the small blades that crack every day, they are consumer items made to earn money with, you don't look to sell them once ; every time you sell one set of blades, actually you look forward to replacement business, that's where the money is, in replacements ! ! Obviously, these blades are not made as industry equipments. On a very large scale production though, blades can be 50 times stronger with 20 times less in costs, this is my reasonable imagination. Many more gens means more redundancy, we will never have a total blackout for half a state again ever, because each area will have separated system, untied into other areas. We can also use small locally located fossil gens to supplement wind and solar system on peak demand periods of a day for example. These local fossil gens can be very small setups and won't cost an arm or a leg neither. I can hum on forever but lets save the space. -Again, just my one cent opinions--

Thanks for reading.

Harry.
« Last Edit: March 02, 2004, 10:01:07 AM by Harry Luubovv »

Harry Luubovv

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Re: windmill blades
« Reply #9 on: March 02, 2004, 10:09:16 AM »


Or, news flash "the whole east coast of America up to Canada was blacked out today when, it's believed, a blade broke of a tower mounted wind turbine lodging its self across the wires. This caused the heavily loaded transmission line to trip, causing a domino effect as other lines up the east coast overloaded"


I am sorry, my imaginations today runs deep, I thought I heard simply a truck hit one of the very large very high voltage power line towers along the way in the countrisde caused this catastroph !


-Thanks you all very very much for the opportunities for duscussion-

Have a nice day,

Harry Luubovv.

« Last Edit: March 02, 2004, 10:09:16 AM by Harry Luubovv »

BrianK

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Re: windmill blades
« Reply #10 on: March 02, 2004, 06:53:43 PM »
I think with all the technology today they could make mounts on these towers that could shield the wires but as we all know duh that would be to easy
« Last Edit: March 02, 2004, 06:53:43 PM by BrianK »

hvirtane

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Re: windmill blades
« Reply #11 on: March 05, 2004, 01:03:17 PM »
On the top of any pole

you could put something like:


http://www.windside.com


By the way I'm not any of the owners of that

company. It just happens to be the only one,

which has managed to sell any numbers of small

vertical axis wind turbines. A Lenz turbine

might be even better? Please see www.windstuffnow.com


- Hannu

« Last Edit: March 05, 2004, 01:03:17 PM by hvirtane »