Seeing the ladders on the blade hub was interesting. Not long ago at a wind farm here in Texas a man died of a fall inside the tower - I was unable to find details, but presume either a failure of safety equipment or lack of it.
Likely failure/mistake. OSHA has strong regulations about this. Yes I've had some training. He should have had a y fall arrest lanyard with hooks or he should have been using a Lad-safe (tm) and he should have been using the equipment correctly. But that stuff takes extra effort on a climb that is already tiring.
OSHA also has strong regulations for the use or respiratory protection; all of which were thrown out the window for the panic. OSHA also had its own reporting system for employer required vaccine adverse effects that it suspended for the covid vax with the stated purpose of preventing “vaccine hesitancy”. This is not a swipe at your comment, but at OSHA and all government regulatory agencies. The protection they provide work employees is thrown out the window if politics call for it to be.
The basic thing about solar and wind, compared to others, is that you are responding to immediate conditions, and do not have much ability to change things predictably in advance. Even hydro (which has a limiting case of no water in the reservoir) is more deliberately controllable.
AC transmission lines are a body of electrical engineering theory called 'transmission line', which inherently means issues of impedance matching, and of energy being reflected where it should not be. Long time ago, before I learned more about this stuff, I saw a blog post that outlined this as why solar and wind could not provide baseline electrical power.
Now, they have changed the distribution circuits some since then. But, even if it is theoretically possible to just to make a lot better high power matching network, that will probably have efficiency costs somewhere, wrt trying to do pure wind or solar. Batteries are a current problem also, but may not be a forever problem.
Solar and wind are cosmetically contributing, but by an large rely on being able to cover most of the generation need with conventional sources.
This is more certain once one does the fuller economic analysis around the engineering. Then they can look like they are directly and on net a waste of energy provided by conventional sources.
The assumptions on payback for wind, ground solar, and the solar satellite with microwave transmission, are perhaps all optimistic. ("Oh yeah, it is totally worth it over twenty or thirty years." This has the freaking problem that we are not that good at forecasting circumstnaces that far out, and especially with workign life/maintenance costs of new machine designs. If you are stupid in selecting wx/climate models for your ground solar or wind, the machines break before end of service life. See, the Texas wind mills that were not winterized properly. Solar inherently has questions of dust cover, and or labor to wash them clean. If your long term model does not include dust, you do not account for that labor. Or hail.)
tl;dr The academic consensus around grand societal challenges is nuts.
The good thing about Japan's wind farms; you've a major amount of metal stored that may, eventually be salvaged and utilized elsewhere.
Coal's good, nuclear is better for Japan in my opinion,but ideally, being self sufficient energy wise without fuel import's best.
For Japan such might be geothermal,wave and/or tidal power generation. The latter two experimental, and geothermal has, even assuming the heat sink 'neath the islands is grand enough, never been scaled up to supply anywhere near Japan's power needs.
None the less, clever folks, those Japanese,if anyone can develop viable geothermal,wave and/or tidal power generation, it's them!
Meanwhile going coal and nukes and such will take lots of cement, keeping Japan’s Ministry of Concrete happy.
& next time Naikaku Sōri-Daijin stops by your house for a cup of tea Francis, feel free to tell him I know a guy who knows a guy that'll sell ya'll all the coal you need, FOB Alaska! ;-)
There's also hydro. Plenty of opportunity for small scale hydro. I'll probably do a post on that too sometime because there are some of those nearby too. They only generate maybe 200kW each but that's from a single small building and a couple of miles of large pipes. There are so many rivers with a 50-100m drop that can have water taken out in a canal/pipe to the top of a steep slope with turbines at the bottom. Hydro is of course far quicker to ramp up and isn't dependent on the weather to the same extent.
I have visited several of the dams built to provide more constant hydroelectric power. At least one was quite the undertaking with massive loss of life.
This is good news. Glad he is gone. Hopefully, at least some of his SDG BS policies can be rolled back by whomever replaces him. Not holding my breath though.
There are decommissioned geothermal plants here and there through out Japan. Perhaps even some still in use. I have no idea how many nor their output only that I once saw a show that explored bringing them back on line to alleviate power shortfalls.
Actually, what I wrote earlier is wrong on a key detail.
I talked about impedance matching, and that I'm pretty sure should not be the problem. Impedances should be pretty much automatically fine, as I understand things.
What I recall hearing about was something to do with phase. Something to do with matching source phase, to load phase, as averaged. IIRC.
Some detail that I'm not equipped to follow, involving potential damage to equipment on the load end. So, at least I mislabeled something.
I'm also not sure about the efficency loss issue with phase handling circuits.
Anyway, if someone asks you for a rec for a really excellent power systems person, I'm not your guy, and I do not see myself becoming that guy.
For an AC generator of any type, powered by any source, to safely connect to the grid, it has to synchronize its output so that the voltage at its output terminals matches - in terms of voltage level, frequency, and the time-domain alignment of its waveform to match that of the grid, or "phase" - such that it initially looks like an open circuit that neither is pushing significant power into the grid, nor absorbing significant power from the grid. Once connected, the generator can raise its power level safely (in the case of wind, by adjusting blade pitch) to feed the grid.
This does not happen instantaneously; it usually takes several seconds, especially from a dead stop. But getting it wrong will result in power surges that can trip protective systems (either to protect the grid from damage, or protect the generator from destruction).
Once connected, the "prime mover" power source (i.e. those big blades) must produce enough power to keep the generator at a power output of zero or above, or it will trip those protective systems as the generator turns into a motor and absorbs power from the grid.
Some things to know. You don't start any digital system from dead cold ever. You also need electromechanical locks for the blades. The blades need to lock or (to brake enough) if the wind is too high or they will generate enough back current to light up your tower. So even the turbines that are non functional have power running TO them. Unless they have given up completely and locked them down mechanically and disconnected all the electrical connections. For the blades out west. Each single blade gets to its destination on a flatbed trailer with a lead truck a chase truck and a couple of support vehicles. This is necessary to get them through the intersections in small town. I flat wonder how on earth they managed to maneuver in place where you are. Last comment, given that the towers can be subject to flash fires, workers need an emergency egress from the top that's faster than manually rappelling down. So you need an engine that's not connected to the tower (independent battery or gas generated) that you can clip your harness to and jump off the side and abseil to the ground if the top bursts into flames while you are on it.
Nope. Our towers go up with difficulty. Yours go up with "are you effing kidding?"
Edited to say that I should have said, "move across the country". Further edited to say that I thought the four way intersection in Kingman was bad but dayum!
There are videos of two maintenance men who died when the wind turbine they were servicing caught fire. One chose to jump to his death, the other burned to death atop the generator.
Wind power varies as the cube of wind speed. So, pick a nominal wind speed and call whatever the turbine can produce as power output at that speed the rated power. If wind speed drops to half of nominal, turbine output power drops to one eighth of rated. So, wind power volatility, in effect, amplifies wind speed volatility and this is plus the fact that wind cannot be dispatched are the reasons why wind generation cannot be baseload.
Note my observation in the article about the few minutes it took for the turbine to start up, clearly not dispatchable.
I have found it surprisingly hard to get actual statistics for load contributed by our local wind farms. Something tells me this is not just because I'm using the wrong Japanese words
As with all Green energy, wind turbines are a huge net loss in costs, energy consumed to make, install and maintain and the damage to the environment that they are said to mitigate.
Seeing the ladders on the blade hub was interesting. Not long ago at a wind farm here in Texas a man died of a fall inside the tower - I was unable to find details, but presume either a failure of safety equipment or lack of it.
Likely failure/mistake. OSHA has strong regulations about this. Yes I've had some training. He should have had a y fall arrest lanyard with hooks or he should have been using a Lad-safe (tm) and he should have been using the equipment correctly. But that stuff takes extra effort on a climb that is already tiring.
Yeah in the documentary I saw about Japanese towers they had a lot of safety kit even inside the tower
OSHA also has strong regulations for the use or respiratory protection; all of which were thrown out the window for the panic. OSHA also had its own reporting system for employer required vaccine adverse effects that it suspended for the covid vax with the stated purpose of preventing “vaccine hesitancy”. This is not a swipe at your comment, but at OSHA and all government regulatory agencies. The protection they provide work employees is thrown out the window if politics call for it to be.
The basic thing about solar and wind, compared to others, is that you are responding to immediate conditions, and do not have much ability to change things predictably in advance. Even hydro (which has a limiting case of no water in the reservoir) is more deliberately controllable.
AC transmission lines are a body of electrical engineering theory called 'transmission line', which inherently means issues of impedance matching, and of energy being reflected where it should not be. Long time ago, before I learned more about this stuff, I saw a blog post that outlined this as why solar and wind could not provide baseline electrical power.
Now, they have changed the distribution circuits some since then. But, even if it is theoretically possible to just to make a lot better high power matching network, that will probably have efficiency costs somewhere, wrt trying to do pure wind or solar. Batteries are a current problem also, but may not be a forever problem.
Solar and wind are cosmetically contributing, but by an large rely on being able to cover most of the generation need with conventional sources.
This is more certain once one does the fuller economic analysis around the engineering. Then they can look like they are directly and on net a waste of energy provided by conventional sources.
The assumptions on payback for wind, ground solar, and the solar satellite with microwave transmission, are perhaps all optimistic. ("Oh yeah, it is totally worth it over twenty or thirty years." This has the freaking problem that we are not that good at forecasting circumstnaces that far out, and especially with workign life/maintenance costs of new machine designs. If you are stupid in selecting wx/climate models for your ground solar or wind, the machines break before end of service life. See, the Texas wind mills that were not winterized properly. Solar inherently has questions of dust cover, and or labor to wash them clean. If your long term model does not include dust, you do not account for that labor. Or hail.)
tl;dr The academic consensus around grand societal challenges is nuts.
The good thing about Japan's wind farms; you've a major amount of metal stored that may, eventually be salvaged and utilized elsewhere.
Coal's good, nuclear is better for Japan in my opinion,but ideally, being self sufficient energy wise without fuel import's best.
For Japan such might be geothermal,wave and/or tidal power generation. The latter two experimental, and geothermal has, even assuming the heat sink 'neath the islands is grand enough, never been scaled up to supply anywhere near Japan's power needs.
None the less, clever folks, those Japanese,if anyone can develop viable geothermal,wave and/or tidal power generation, it's them!
Meanwhile going coal and nukes and such will take lots of cement, keeping Japan’s Ministry of Concrete happy.
& next time Naikaku Sōri-Daijin stops by your house for a cup of tea Francis, feel free to tell him I know a guy who knows a guy that'll sell ya'll all the coal you need, FOB Alaska! ;-)
There's also hydro. Plenty of opportunity for small scale hydro. I'll probably do a post on that too sometime because there are some of those nearby too. They only generate maybe 200kW each but that's from a single small building and a couple of miles of large pipes. There are so many rivers with a 50-100m drop that can have water taken out in a canal/pipe to the top of a steep slope with turbines at the bottom. Hydro is of course far quicker to ramp up and isn't dependent on the weather to the same extent.
I have visited several of the dams built to provide more constant hydroelectric power. At least one was quite the undertaking with massive loss of life.
Just got the news ... by popular demand, Kishida Inc. is toast, and I'm glad of it.
Typical sociopathic POS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kN_iSXJPv8
This is good news. Glad he is gone. Hopefully, at least some of his SDG BS policies can be rolled back by whomever replaces him. Not holding my breath though.
There are decommissioned geothermal plants here and there through out Japan. Perhaps even some still in use. I have no idea how many nor their output only that I once saw a show that explored bringing them back on line to alleviate power shortfalls.
Actually, what I wrote earlier is wrong on a key detail.
I talked about impedance matching, and that I'm pretty sure should not be the problem. Impedances should be pretty much automatically fine, as I understand things.
What I recall hearing about was something to do with phase. Something to do with matching source phase, to load phase, as averaged. IIRC.
Some detail that I'm not equipped to follow, involving potential damage to equipment on the load end. So, at least I mislabeled something.
I'm also not sure about the efficency loss issue with phase handling circuits.
Anyway, if someone asks you for a rec for a really excellent power systems person, I'm not your guy, and I do not see myself becoming that guy.
For an AC generator of any type, powered by any source, to safely connect to the grid, it has to synchronize its output so that the voltage at its output terminals matches - in terms of voltage level, frequency, and the time-domain alignment of its waveform to match that of the grid, or "phase" - such that it initially looks like an open circuit that neither is pushing significant power into the grid, nor absorbing significant power from the grid. Once connected, the generator can raise its power level safely (in the case of wind, by adjusting blade pitch) to feed the grid.
This does not happen instantaneously; it usually takes several seconds, especially from a dead stop. But getting it wrong will result in power surges that can trip protective systems (either to protect the grid from damage, or protect the generator from destruction).
Once connected, the "prime mover" power source (i.e. those big blades) must produce enough power to keep the generator at a power output of zero or above, or it will trip those protective systems as the generator turns into a motor and absorbs power from the grid.
Some things to know. You don't start any digital system from dead cold ever. You also need electromechanical locks for the blades. The blades need to lock or (to brake enough) if the wind is too high or they will generate enough back current to light up your tower. So even the turbines that are non functional have power running TO them. Unless they have given up completely and locked them down mechanically and disconnected all the electrical connections. For the blades out west. Each single blade gets to its destination on a flatbed trailer with a lead truck a chase truck and a couple of support vehicles. This is necessary to get them through the intersections in small town. I flat wonder how on earth they managed to maneuver in place where you are. Last comment, given that the towers can be subject to flash fires, workers need an emergency egress from the top that's faster than manually rappelling down. So you need an engine that's not connected to the tower (independent battery or gas generated) that you can clip your harness to and jump off the side and abseil to the ground if the top bursts into flames while you are on it.
" I flat wonder how on earth they managed to maneuver in place where you are"
Did you see the video? The answer was "with difficulty"
There's another one I found when searching that was even more impressive, but wasn't of the windfarm in question, lemme find it again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53u1Lo4-6N0
Nope. Our towers go up with difficulty. Yours go up with "are you effing kidding?"
Edited to say that I should have said, "move across the country". Further edited to say that I thought the four way intersection in Kingman was bad but dayum!
There are videos of two maintenance men who died when the wind turbine they were servicing caught fire. One chose to jump to his death, the other burned to death atop the generator.
Wind power varies as the cube of wind speed. So, pick a nominal wind speed and call whatever the turbine can produce as power output at that speed the rated power. If wind speed drops to half of nominal, turbine output power drops to one eighth of rated. So, wind power volatility, in effect, amplifies wind speed volatility and this is plus the fact that wind cannot be dispatched are the reasons why wind generation cannot be baseload.
Note my observation in the article about the few minutes it took for the turbine to start up, clearly not dispatchable.
I have found it surprisingly hard to get actual statistics for load contributed by our local wind farms. Something tells me this is not just because I'm using the wrong Japanese words
As they are not providing real time output on the information boards, nor anywhere else, I suspect you are correct.
As with all Green energy, wind turbines are a huge net loss in costs, energy consumed to make, install and maintain and the damage to the environment that they are said to mitigate.
Yep. But until you see one up close and personal you don't get just how enormous they are and how much infrastructure they need