Wind Turbine Aesthetics?

[Jon Miller]

Wind Turbine Aesthetics?

Where do I start?  Well I have hit a point on my project where I am looking at why people have doubts and complaints about free renewable no polluting power sources such as wind?

What I would like to ask is if people who read this have had Aesthetics, noise, size, intrusion problems  with neighbors or counsels/governments to please explain what the problems are/where and how they are/have been solved.

Issues such as:

*    Colour

*    Size

*    Noise

*    Height

*    Bird hazards?

Well any help that could be given would be much appreciated as I am having real trouble putting my finger on the problems based around how wind turbines function.

Thank you Jonathan M

[wgatenson04]

*color - paint it white, or off white.  All the big ones I've seen are white.

*size - the bigger it is, the bigger the eye sore will be.  Most people perfer to look at a mono-pole design, which happens to be the most expensive.

*noise - is a combination of turbine size, blade TSR (i.e. PMA variable speed vs. Induction fixed speed) and distance from others.  (small 1k's etc can be as close as 50 ft. to a house.)  

*height - anything over 100 ft will be seen from miles away (in a flat land area)

*bird hazards - 1 in 10,000 birds that are killed, are killed by wind turines.  That is not usually a problem, unless you live somewhere where endangerd species fly arround alot.

[pyrocasto]

You dont hear of too many problems with colour but they are usually white. The height and size will affect where you can put it. You can put it near public roads, too close to an airport, and if it's tall enough you have to have navigation lights on it at night. As for birds, not enough to even count really.

Here's a figure on that: http://www.awea.org/faq/tutorial/wwt_environment.html#Bird%20and%20bat%20kills%20and%20other%20effec
ts.

Alot of the big turbines you cant even hear, other than the blades whooshing around. That sound though cant be heard unless underneath it though.

[Chiron]

Morning,

My background is mostly in the utility size turbines and this is how these issues are addressed by the industry.

One thing of a non-technical nature that I've learned is that the large turbine manufacturers and operators have that we don't is a large PR department.

Ham radio operators have been dealing with objections to thier towers, big ugly antennas, radio interderence (real and imagined), and general misconceptions about the hobby. The last Hamfest I attended included a discussion about PR with the neibors and planning commissions.

Maybe we need to come up with some creative ways to address the concerns our neibors have.

Large turbine builders/operators deal with Issues such as:

*    Colour

With the single tube typre of tower white is the only practical option. White paint with good IR reflectivity is used to keep solar heating to a minimum since a 200+ foot tube generates quite an updraft on a sunny day. When the temps are around 40F and the sun shines  it's like a hurricane blowing through access hole on the yaw plate and could potentialy cause overpressure damage to the nacelle not to mention increasing the danger to personell.

Most large turbines have white blades to keep uneven expantion from causing cracks in the blades though here in Brass Monkey, MN some have black blades to reduce ice buildup in winter.

•    Size
  
•    Noise
  
•    Height
  
  

We seem to have the opposite reaction to windpower here than in most places. "The more and the bigger the better" is the prevailing attitude since they provide jobs (like mine) tax revenue after the 5 year "no taxes" period and lease money for the landowners.

Noise from the large turbines is minimal to begin with and they tend to be located away from occupied structures. Noisy blades are inefficient blades.

If your tower is too tall you might have trouble with the FAA or need to put avation lights on it.

*    Bird hazards?

I suppose if a goose made contact with a blade tip moving 300MPH it could damage a blade Seriously the main avian concern here is the red tailed hawk. To my knowlege out of 138 750kW turbines operating for over 6 years only one hawk has been killed by the blades and that was a young one. Seems they only get the stupid birds.

Speaking of work...

[Phil Timmons]

So the tower acts as a big solar chimney?  hmmm, what to do with that?  what to do with that?  hmmm.  Could be an energy source.

Anyway, it seems many folks only think of the blades when birdstrikes are the issue?  Consider the bird strike issue around radio (including cell) towers.  No spinning blades there, but still a bird strike issue.

From what I follow of the bird strike issue regarding radio towers -- it mostly occurs at night when migrating songbirds (avoiding predators) fly.  I do not know if that has been fully confirmed, but that is what I recall for them.  Is that not a similar issue for wind towers?

[Chiron]

*So the tower acts as a big solar chimney?  hmmm, what to do with that?  what to do

*with that?  hmmm.  Could be an energy source.

Could be and many have given it thought, there are several reasons not to bother with it.

The maximum power that could be extracted from mountung a set of blades/generator inside a turbine tube would be tiny comapared to the output of the turbine itself.

Considering that a 1.5 MW turbine is the smallest utility class turbine currently being built a 10kW addition wouldn't be worth the expense not to mention the hazards to personell and being "one more thing that will break"

Low flying birds running into the towers has been documented and by a large majority it's the ring necked pheasant that tends to break it's neck by flying into the tube.

Pheasants aren't native to this area and only fly to avoid predators.

They fly in a straight line since they don't seem to be able to manuvour much once off the ground, seldom more than about 10' off the ground and usualy less than 100 yards. 1 or 2 a year is found at the base of a turbine with no wounds. If a pheasant were to be killed by a blade it would have to be because the blade fell on it Same with the grouse that are native but I only know of one incident with them. Many more birds are killed by cars in the area than the turbines.

If a robin or other migrating songbird got whacked by a blade we might find a few feathers, the hawk we found was nearly cut in two right behind the wings so I don't think there'd be much left of a bluejay. I think the tubes are big enough that migrating birds would avoid them and I'm sure the white paint helps too.

[Phil Timmons]

Yeah, I was mostly trying (very trying, indeed) to be funny with the solar chimney stuff.  Would not want to be the guy going up the tube with an additional turbine on the top or bottom.

The pheasant stuff is pretty amusing.  Geeezzz.  I would think I would be a bigger threat to pheasants than a turbine.  And I have not went hunting in a few years.  You are correct they do not particularly like to fly when they can run, anyway.

Sure can see where cars would get a LOT more birds.  And deer, too. Suppose one day you might get a hit on some flying reindeer if around Christmas.  That would probably be some bad Public Relations.  The Headlines: Santa in Hospital -- Rudolph hit Wind Turbine.

The radio tower stuff (bird strike info) I read cited mostly night time hits -- when the birds could not see the towers.  Just flying along in the dark.  Actually I had never thought about birds flying at night, but I guess that would be because I had never seen them, either.

Anyway, my real interest in this now was more sort of "Politically Correct" stuff -- you know, you work hard to get enviromental folks' acceptance, so anything that enhances the acceptance and support is a pretty positive thing.  Had pondered some audiable (noise makers) alerts for birds for the radio tower designs.  But pondering was all the further that particular application got as far as I know.

But I guess you work for a "Big Wind" operation up in Minneasota?  I say "up" because I am sitting in Texas.  I think I read a help wanted ad for your crew earlier this year, and thought real hard about it just because it looks like what you all are doing is sort of fun, and pretty useful.