Wind power an election issue?

[steamy miller]

Hello to the group.

We are in the midst of a federal election here in Canada and I have only paid a casual interest to the issues up to this point (gay marriages, extra funding for our military, yada, yada, yada) but something in the news caught my attention this morning. One of the parties is suggesting that develpoment of community based windgeneration will be promoted with overage sold to the grid- the details about this are sketchy as to what form this "promotion" will take and, keep in mind, that it is an election promise- we can all take that for what it is worth.

It raised the question though- how large can a "hobby" windgenerator be made before it becomes more of a hazard to it's owner and people in the vacinity rather than a benefit? So far, I've seen windgenny's with 10 foot diameter bladespans. Is this the practical limit before the engineering and insurance factors start to become a concern?

[Electric Ed]

Yesterday, Prince Edward Island's Environment/Energy minister released an "energy strategy" that includes incentives to encourage citizens to generate some of their own energy.

As I understand it, our utility will be required to buy any excess produced. Very encouraging.

More here- http://www.gov.pe.ca/news/getrelease.php3?number=3622

Electric Ed

[Gary D]

Hi Ed, it does indeed look very promising on PEI! Your energy  minister seems to be looking to your future electric needs well. It's a shame our elected officials are only committed to getting re-elected.

 I was shocked for a moment about the cost per watt issue until I realized that I had to do the currency changeover to U.S. currency.

 As for steemy's questions on size and safety issues, if he clicks on Otherpower at the top of the page, then clicks on the larger windgenerators, he'll be pleasantly surprised to see 14' generators being built by the Dans' and friends. I would feel criminally negligent if I tried to build one so large for starters, however after learning from experience on smaller units, I might feel more qualified in the future. Cheers, Gary D.

[finnsawyer]

The first thing I'd like to say is "You can't trust the government to keep its promises".  Examples in my area include Social Security and the toll on the Mackinaw bridge.

As far as wind power is concerned, I believe the last word hasn't been written.  In time new collection systems that are quieter, sturdier, and safer will be developed.  At least that's where I'm looking.  Right now everyone seems to be "reinventing the wheel".  Just my two cents.

"Think outside the box"

[N9WOS]

The size of a wend generator before it can pose a danger....

I hate to sound like a spoil sport but...

Generators , even from two feet in diameter on up can pose a lethal

risk to anyone if the builder didn't know what he was doing.

Blades fly off, units fall, and can even contact power lines if

badly positioned during construction.

If the construction is well supervised, then it sounds like a good idea,

But if it is every man for himself (build the biggest contraption with

no regard to common sense), then I will hold my reservations.

One experience I had that runs that fact home is when

I was walking out to the wood pile a few years ago, I seen

a chunk of metal sticking out of the ground about two inches.

I tried picking it up, but it wouldn't budge.

In the end, I ended up digging it out with a shovel.

It was stuck over A foot and a half into he ground through

solid gravel and shale.

It was a 10 pound magnesium fan blade.

After asking around, I finally found out that a neighbor had

A 4+ foot diameter grain bin blower fragment on him.

The blower is located about a half mile away from where

I found the blade.

It had plenty of energy to kill anyone it hit, even if they

was protected by a car, or house roof.

Blades on a wind generator would arguably have less energy

if they fragment, But they would still kill any unprotected

person that happen to be in the road of the blade, if they fragment.

So, anyone that builds a wind generator needs to not only

Take into account his safety, but the safety of his neighbors.

[JB]

Well said Gary. when people were converting cars to propane in the early seventies or so a lot of mistakes were made by inexperiened installers. It gave propane a bad name and hasnt really recovered. The same can be true for windpower. Though it can be very useful it can also be very dangerous so we must be careful. If people read about a horse or a cow being speared by a blade or something worse it can lead to more laws and regulations and i think we have too many of them already.  We must be careful. JB

[devoncloud]

ok, I see the whole safety issue, but let's not blow this out of proportion.  There are way too many people in this world that are all having kids, and the grid cannot sustain this growth much longer.  The reason why there are politicians talking about alternative power sourses now is because they are aware just how close we are to overloading the system, and there will need to be a choice soon between Nuclear sources or alternative sourses.  Here in Dallas we had a storm that blew out power lines for more than fivehundredthousand houses on Tueseday night, and about onehundred thousand of those will not get power again until Saturday.  Our electric provider has called in workers as far as Oklahoma to come help fix the problem.  You would never have heard of an outage taking that long to fix around here ten years ago.  The system being overloaded and then being in an electrical storm caused all sorts of blowouts.  Our electric provider stated this was the most dammaging storm they have ever seen, and it was not really that bad considering others I have seen in the area.

Now is the time to start making noise.  They are either going to have to make a bigger grid that can handle more output, or we can convince them to let people put up solar and wind generaters to help compensate the need.  Those of you concerned about safety I understand where you are comming from, but we are finally at the crossroads of where we will head in the future, and we all know that wind and solar (or other environmental friendly sourses)is the way to go. If we all let something like worring about a blade or two flying off stop our governments from making the right decision, that would be a terribly sad thing to have happen.

Devon

 

[bob g]

ok here is a thought:

with the us federal government spending millions and in some cases billions for research, development and manufacture of all sort of odd ball stuff already....

how about we lobby them to get nasa involved in development of rotor sets, say 6 footers, 8's 10's 12's and 14 footers. Get nasa to develop them, grant a contract to someone like boeing or the like to manufacture them to be sold to the public.

the end result should be well designed blades, mass produced, with deep pocket boy's having to stand behind them, for liability reasons...

then the government boys wouldnt have to worry about some of us building bad blades that might kill something.

i would be the first to buy a set of 10 to 14 footers if they were available and affordable, heaven knows that would certainly open the door to alot more folks getting into windpower that might not do so because of the daunting task of makeing the blade sets.

i think i could see clear to shelling out perhaps up to a grand for a 3 blade carbon fiber rotor in the 12 foot range. especially if they are of an advanced cambered design that is nearly impossible to achieve in wood, (at least for most folks) and came with a hub to mount them. Designed by nasa, sandia labs, or general electric etc and built by boeing or some other specialist.

of course the reality would likely be, 50 billion spent to develop them and then they would farm the production out to china , but then again maybe i could get a set from harbor freight on sale for $29.95, hahaha

just a thought

bob g

[devoncloud]

I like the idea bob.  If we get Boeing or other airplane manufacturer to build them, we can solve our whole problem of startup speed.  I am not sure if you have seen what internet fred is working on as far as the tips of his blades being at a much stronger pitch in order to have a very low startup speed.  His problem is that they stall after picking up more speed because of the drag.  If an airplane manufacturer were to build the blades, they already have the technology to fix this problem, since airplane props are able to tilt the pitch of their blades for whatever type of performance they need.  They could design the blades to have a very strong pitch to get started, but as speed increases, lower the pitch to a position that is very aerodynamic so that the blades can reach a high speed.  The people that make the Air-x state they have this technology, but they just make flimsy plastic that bends in the air and as a result of it fighting itself for what shape posesses, makes a ton of whisling noises that will drive you mad.  With the arplaine companies desiging it, the pitch could be controlled mechanically in the hub.  This would solve Air-x's noise problem.  They would probably be able to make something that would last a long time too since the technology for ariplane props has to be pretty darn dependable.  The cost of such a thing is one thing I would wonder about however, since you know the government would want to charge everyone an arm and a leg.  If the government would do this using our tax dollars to make it as cheap as possible for the public to utilize, it would be a great idea.

Devon

 

[melthesender]

first off i'd say the goverment will never really step foward in this i belive everyone that reads this knows more about electricity then most to say the very least i know more then alot of people and here i feel like i'm stupid it's probaly

going to come down to someone like boeing or another big company that says we can do this and make money off it if you could make money off making your own energy it would be done i just wish there was an easy way to buy install and your done kind of thing and companys know that so they won't touch it till people like you or me think it up then of course they will rip you off and make billions off your idea