circled in blue

So it's understandable that some, like me, were confused by the OP.

But I am disgusted that people are insulting MiniMe, because I made the same mistake.

It's an honest mistake. I did not see the windmills either. Sheeesh.

is a solar spill

under biological weapons

As you can see the devastation to the natural surroundings is shameful and will never recover.


---- couldn't find the dripping with sarcasm smiley.


By the way...I am fascinated with this wind farm. It is amazing to look at. I am happy when I pass here and I am the passenger so I can spend all my time looking as we pass by.

Lilyhoney

Mechanically or electrically speaking that is

There are so many that make up this farm that I could not even count them. They are spread out over many miles and in multiple directions. I took about a hundred photos as we passed by.

I find them to be rather poetic, somehow. This one looks like part of the windfarm outside Paw-Paw, Illinois.

However, you can add it in two ways. First, click the smilies button then click the "..." ellipses button and you'll see the sarcasm smilie. Or, just type ": sarcasm :" and eliminate the spaces between the colons and the text. I had to put those in so I could show you the easy text method.

I suck at directions but appreciate your ability to relay them. (insert smiley face here) haha

The horror.

...and you know what? By the time I left the area, I thought they were about the most beautiful things I had ever seen... ...

off the coast of West Anchorage on Fire Island. I love them.

I have never seen both of them operating at the same time and frequently neither are operating. What's up with that? (Yes, the wind is blowing. It's nw Minnesota, 8 miles from North Dakota.)

that is what might be at play. And I do not know enough of your brother's neighboring project. I know one here has that problem.

They need a sweet spot to run, too slow wind, they will not run. Too fast, they have to be brought off line for safety reasons. If the clutch fails they can tear themselves to pieces.

the wind was maybe 8 - 10 mph steady. One was turning, the other was not. I can understand the problem with gusts and too high (such as 35mph). Qhat I don't get is why it would be ok for onw tur ine to be in operation while the other is not. I've seen this occuring too often to be a maintenance issue.

I'll try to track down the stats.

If you have a wind farm with ten 1.5MW turbines, and you only need 6MW to meet customer demand right now, you feather the blades on six turbines so they won't generate power.

If you get the chance to see a larger farm you'll be able to watch gusts move through them by the patterns created as they change speed, start and stop.

They also need servicing sometimes, but it isn't very often. The service interval would equal about 200,000 miles for a car.

replace the bearings in their 3 MW generators every six months, which I thought was ridiculous, but apparently the temperatures in the nacelle, plus the electrical load on the generator, are horrific on the bearings. They replace them right in the nacelle by disassembling the end plates and locking the rotor in place. It takes a two-person crew one day to service one machine.

The bearings are the size of car wheels, and when they return them they look like they've been lubricated with sand. They're completely shot.

If they can perfect a fluid suspension bearing, like they use in disk drive spindles, then they'd be pretty much zero maintainence.

I mean, imagine the chance that of all the wind turbine manufacturers and all of the different models and sizes they produce among them, your experience was with the 15% of one model by one manufacturer over a three year period - and only that single subset of that single model.

What are the odds that your contribution to this thread would be limited to that single outlying experience that affected only 376 machines???

actually learn something.

I reported directly to the director of generator development in Hudson MA, as a rotor dynamics engineer with 35 years of experience in the disk drive industry.

The bearings I'm referring to support the 6,000 lb generator rotor assembly, not the gearbox assembly. The gearbox sits between the rotor hub assembly and the generator. Vestas' problems involved an OEM'ed gearbox.

The replacement of the generator bearings is routine preventative maintenance, and is part of the service contract when a utility buys a machine. These are $3,000,000 machines, so it's cheap money to replace bearings rather than risk a rotor seizure and the resultant complete destruction of a three-million dollar machine. Ever see what happens when a mega-fuck-ton of angular momentum gets converted into reaction forces? The turbine shreds like lettuce.

But you go right on being a dick, sir, as it suits you so well. It's a perfect match for your ignorance.

Last edited Sat May 17, 2014, 08:35 PM - Edit history (1)

As far as I know the Vestas has a 12 month mx schedule and no provisions at all for replacing any gearbox on a routine preventative mx basis.

I'll make a couple of calls on monday and verify your statements.

I'll be getting back to you.

I don't know fuck-all about their gearboxes.

You don't get to change what I wrote in an attempt to save face.

As far as I know the service interval is 12 months (not 6) and no bearing (generator, gearbox, yaw or any other) is changed on a preventive mx schedule.

I don't have to guess, they are as close as the telephone.

bearing life, which was a major expense item for them. They even had auto-lubrication systems in place to replenish the grease as required. But you make your phone call.

I only worked there for one year before retiring due to back failure. At the time they were OEM'ing a 3 MW generator from a German firm for their V3 turbines, but we were designing a new gennie from the ground up. It never shipped - Vestas closed the Hudson design center when their plans for East Coast sales never materialized. It was a shame, really, because they had assembled an excellent design team there. Most of them ended up at Northern Power.

And then you decided to double down with name calling and shifting rhetoric. I've already checked the service manuals and they say your statement was false but on the chance that those manuals are somehow incomplete I'll call to verify.

Unless you'd care to further 'expand' your explanation.

director of generator design that the company was spending a fortune on having to replace generator bearings every six months.

You responded with a snarky reply and I responded in kind.

You think you can speak to people like they're fucking idiots and they're going to respect you?

Frankly, I don't give a rats fuck whether you call Vestas or what you post back here. You've demonstrated sufficiently low integrity for me to believe that you'd lie anyway.

But you make your phone call.

I fucking worked there and I know what I know. And I don't give a fuck what you think about me or my 'shifting rhetoric', whatever the fuck that is. My posts in this thread have been 100% consistent in their content and meaning, and anyone with the brains that god gave geese can go back and read exactly what I wrote.

Your the one who didn't carefully read my first post, thinking that I was talking about gearboxes when I clearly stated GENERATOR. Then when I repeated my claim, since you didn't read it the first time, YOU were the one who doubled down, insisting that we were discussing gearboxes when I had already reiterated that I was talking about the generator. Now you accuse me of 'shifting rhetoric'. You're quite a piece of work, do you know that? I know your type - you think you're an authority on everything. All you've shown me so far is that you have poor reading comprehension.

WTG - Wind turbine generator

It's a generic term referring to the entire apparatus inside the nacelle. Since the only problem related to Vestas bearings was the one in gearboxes that I posted about my reply it isn't a stretch.

As for your personal attacks, that's a great way to show you are correct; it is far, far better than a totally off target article. I suppose it's a good thing for my "low integrity" that you haven't figured that if you have the knowledge you claim it shouldn't be difficult for you to find some kind of reference to show you are right. Or perhaps you just don't care enough to go to that much trouble, after all, it is certainly how the obvious rage you exhibit would be interpreted by most people - you are angry because it doesn't matter to you.

Just in case you aren't aware, there is a dedicated contingent active on DU that loves nothing more than trying to create a false negative impression of renewable energy sources. Perhaps you are on that side of the fence, or perhaps you just threw out something you overheard and misconstrued - or Perhaps you are Right.

I don't mind admitting I'm wrong. How about you?

It's really more appropriate there.

I fully support the deployment of wind power, everywhere, starting yesterday. What thinking person wouldn't? I think the concerns around low-frequency air perturbations are just silly. Compared to greenhouse gasses and nuclear waste, and even the trail of toxins left behind in the manufacture of silicon wafers for solar cells, wind tech is relatively benign. About the only nastiness is the requirement to mine for the rare earth neodymium to make the high energy magnets, and the Chinese are already doing 90% of the dirty work. There's simply no serious downside to wind power.

However, I am a realist, and, I'd like to think, an honest person. During my short time with Vestas I was thoroughly amazed at the amount of mechanical and electrical engineering that goes into these machines. The engineering is comparable to, or even more difficult than, the design of, say, a rocket booster. Or a satellite. There are unimaginable stresses on the major components, and they must operate in the most dreadful environmental conditions. And yet they do.

Vestas has a stellar engineering team, and more Ph.d's working on computational fluid dynamics (blades), composite structures and power conversion than you would believe.

But at the end of the day, the lowly ball-bearing, which has been perfected for quite a long time, continues to be one of the thorniest problems plaguing wind turbine designers.

That was the only point I was making in my first response. It was not, as you chose to make it, an attack on alternative power.

I see no need for either of us to apologize for being obnoxious or wrong. It's a discussion board, and people become agitated. It's no big deal - I'm just some guy on the internet. Vestas may in fact officially recommend yearly bearing maintenance, and not six month, in their documentation. But the reality is that they do change the bearing at the six month interval, and they eat the cost.

If you want I can PM you the names of the Director and Chief Technologist. You could find them on Linked-in. They might respond, even though they're no longer employed by Vestas. They're the guys who briefed me on the bearing problems.

Lot...California has a lot that rarely are seen moving.

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[/center]

Saludos desde España / Greetings from Spain.

and there are unintended effects... that said... this is why Europe is enacting some real mitigation.

I have not lived near a strip mine for coal, I grew up within blocks of strip mining for phosphate. The noise of a giant dragline operating 24 hours a day 364 days a year (they close down for Christmas) haunted several years of my childhood. Then there were the few times they hit areas that had to be dynamited - nothing is more fun than having a blast go off four blocks from your home - or a few blocks further than from your school.

And that was in Florida with mostly sand to be moved - I can't imagine the noise from a hard rock strip mine as shown in the scene with the wind farm in the background!

This Telegraph article has a video showing the decibels for various environments: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9418769/How-noisy-is-a-wind-farm.html The wind farm seems much quieter than many of the noise backgrounds most people have to live with.

and we need to talk mitigation for those who live near them.

Realize the people who moved or live in rural areas will likely notice it more than you do, if you live or are used to a much nosier environment.

I do not notice, but I live near a large city street, and an Interstate on the other side. At times sirens wake me up. If I lived in the middle of the sticks, the turbine likely will be more noticeable. And there are indeed medical studies now regarding sleep deprivation, not just for wind turbines by the way.

It is the unintended consequences and hiding our heads in the collective sand only makes us look like idiots, IMHO of course.

And that is why the European Community is starting to look at this as part of HUMAN RIGHTS and looking at real mitigation.

It is based on manufactured outrage in a manner similar to the woo that underpins the Tea Party.

Mitigation of the REAL effects have been part of planning and developing for decades.

*When I say Koch inspired propaganda I mean that literally. There is a network of "nonprofits" funded by the Kochs etal that churn out as much of that tripe as they can think up.

I did not know David and Charles Koch controlled the European Community too. Do they also have an ALEC European equivalent, I will be waiting here.

And I did not know you hated science when it is not convenient that much.

Here, you can go try to correct these people.

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/abstract?direct=true&profile=ehost&scope=site&authtype=crawler&jrnl=14631741&AN=83629061&h=7gSL1BBdc7HAlJtofnPuyNSNmC244FRH9AaipE0e5nUdWHS%2bdORWrRu8YuzzA8%2bhayPyeaeSArbLpejlkXa6WA%3d%3d&crl=c

http://noiseandhealth.org/article.asp?issn=1463-1741;year=2011;volume=13;issue=54;spage=333;epage=339;aulast=Shepherd

Now the Koch brothers might try to use the science to STOP turbines. Those of us with our heads on our shoulders realize that we need mitigation, translated to how far you place them from homes, or worst case, imminent domain.

Oh and by the way, do you want to discuss EIRs and Scoping Reports, given that I read them for breakfast?

Yes there are environmental consequences involved in the extraction of wind energy. However, compared to other energy sources they are virtually Nothing. Those who would portray the circumstances otherwise (by doing things like pushing the "wind does harm" meme on threads like this) are, wittingly or not, doing the work of the Koch Brothers and their Alec agents.

Pointing to legitimate studies as somehow supporting the position you've been pushing here for a long while is a non-starter because they don't. All the legitimate science shows is that 99.9% of they internet hyperbole about the harm from wind and the supposed need to worry excessively about (your new codeword) "mitigation" is completely unfounded BS.

As I wrote, we've been practicing mitigation of the environmental impacts of wind for decades and very little new data has emerged to change the picture of what is required.

I can guarantee that neither You nor Your angry caps have anything to teach me. That allows me to unequivocally say with complete confidence that You are seriously distorting reality - only You and Dog know why.

have a good day.

I am done with your useless pattering. Since you cannot point to how exactly David and Charles Koch are now controlling the European Community, I guess you really have nothing.

That makes it a codeword for "harm".

If you are in favor of wind and want to do something about climate change then you have no business trying to piss on a thread that is comparing the environmental impact of wind to coal.

It isn't complicated or hard to understand. Antiwind groups have been promoting their NIMY oriented message in the same wide eyed "oh I'm not really against wind" tone since 2002. You are just another in a long, long line - nothing new at all.

this is getting hilarious at this point.

When we first moved here in 1979 we could hear the interstate traffic from ten miles away, the trains from 15-20 miles away. We knew when the plantation was moving their cattle - we could hear their truck & trailer when it turned onto the dirt road four miles south.

When flights of wood storks passed overhead, I could hear the sound of their wing strokes. At night I could hear the bats' sonar while they were hunting bugs and the barred owls for a large area holding conversations.

Now we hear people's air conditioners or heat pumps all the time - even when the weather is gorgeous like today the "new" people never open their windows. I think the only time they go outside is to mow their lawns, run their leaf blowers, or to set off fireworks (illegally).

I still hear barred owls, but only those close by - the muted sound of TVs on all evening tend to interfere with the sound of wildlife - even with their windows closed, the sound leaks out.

But the sound level of the wind farm is much less loud or annoying than lawn mowers and leaf blowers or the constant hum of unneeded air handlers on a day with perfect temperatures and humidity. Maybe if those people used their windows more often, we'd need fewer energy sources!

realize we need the mitigation. Mitigation does NOT mean not installing them by the way.

And they've been practicing it since the 1990s.

we live out in the country and can hear highway sounds from several miles away

Plus wind farms are still a part of corporate centralized energy production.

Until every rooftop in America is covered with PV panels we should not be encouraging these monsters.

so I don't see how it can be "ruined" if that's the proper term for it, at all. They are either built on or near farms, pastures, or reclaimed grasslands. You don't see too many built in forests and such, for obvious reasons.

Looks like so many of the pictures coming out of Canada these days.

and fly through the air, potentially damaging some of that strip mining equipment.

I hear they're known to fly miles when they break.

Sid

Suffice it to say, these things are dangerous!!!

Indeed they are dangerous!

Thanks for the thread, Hissyspit.

Well made! One of the biggest complaints we hear from the right is that windmills ruin the landscape. I'd rather have a windmill than a landfill.

Thanks for posting it.

I have a picture I took of a wind farm that could be seen from my kitchen window at my last house. Man, some people fought that wind farm tooth and nail and one of their excuses was it would 'ruin the view of the ridge'. I wish I would've taken a before and after. IMO, it added to the view, it didn't ruin it at all. "It'll ruin the view!" is one of the dumbest excuses against wind farms ever.

a wind farm.

strip-mining any day.

I wonder if there are dangers to birds though - I may have to do a google search on that. Still better than so many other forms of energy I can name ...

I cannot believe that they are restricting those beautiful strip mines for those ugly windmills!

and they will make us a third world country without pause if it makes them rich.

Wind "farms" do not get us away from centralized corporate energy. They do not foster independence from paying a corporate master.

Rooftop PV and water heating does however.

I didn't prepare for a discussion of more substantive matters.

I'd probably choose NOT paying a corporate master. Not sure I can make that choice. The corporate masters don't want to make it easy.

Most of the wind projects are locally owned.