Alternative energy - Windmills

[enigmaT120]

We have a bunch of the big ones near the Columbia River, just east of the gorge.  I think they're some of the most beautiful things humans have made.  Oddly they remind me a little of nuclear reactor cooling towers.

[Kbeitz]

SD, there is a huge one planned on Irving land off Route11 near Merrill in Aroostook. That is if the company (now SunEdison) doesn't go under. Swirling around the toilet bowl at the moment!

I only live a few miles from rt 11.  I looked it up it  extends 1,645 miles.

[AfraidChocker]

They were going to put 28 across the ridge where I live, but the naysayers in town got together and voted it down. I lost out on 3 Jennies at $1100/month. Let me think about that, $3300 per month and taking 1 acre out per windmill...now where do I sign?

Worse yet was the town of Jackson. They had TOWN LAND on top of a mountain where the windmill company was going to pay the town $500,000 per year for all the windmills they could put up there. Their 650 residents only had a total property tax amount of $650,000 a year and yet they turned it down. Their tax bill per landowner would have been NOTHING. The reason, they wanted the windmills to be 1 mile from the nearest house and not a 1/2 mile!

Yeah I am still mad about this.

[Slingshot]

  I can understand the people not wanting to hear the roar of those turbines
24 hours a day. Those things sound like jet engines.

[SwampDonkey]

SD, there is a huge one planned on Irving land off Route11 near Merrill in Aroostook. That is if the company (now SunEdison) doesn't go under. Swirling around the toilet bowl at the moment!

As far as I can tell these are the windmills just installed in the last year that we now see. They are running now.

[SwampDonkey]

  I can understand the people not wanting to hear the roar of those turbines
24 hours a day. Those things sound like jet engines.

I've heard jet engines and I wouldn't equate them to that. : But you do hear those big fins moving through the air when you're near. Just like any sound of a windmill in Holland.  ;D

[Al_Smith]

There's a huge windfarm in the Van Wert Ohio area which is about 30 miles from me .Wind turbines for miles clear into Indiana .Flat land about like to top of a table .The wind picks up speed coming out of Indiana or so it seems .

Odd though with all that hoopla it seems only a small portion of them are running on any praticular day from what I've seen . It's also very odd all the sudden just like magic they found huge deposits of natural gas near Cleveland Ohio right near where Rockerfeller drilled for oil over 100 years ago .Like it wasn't there all along ?

Another oddity ,ethanol .They built ethanol plants everywhere only to close a majority of them down in less that two years .Took corn used for cattle feed and good whiskey and turned in into high tech moonshine now they don't want it ?--Makes you wonder what in the world is going on .

[Ianab]

Odd though with all that hoopla it seems only a small portion of them are running on any praticular day from what I've seen . It's also very odd all the sudden just like magic they found huge deposits of natural gas near Cleveland Ohio right near where Rockerfeller drilled for oil over 100 years ago .Like it wasn't there all along ?

100 years ago they didn't want gas. No oil? Just this useless gas, plug the well....

Now you drill a good gas well, pipe it to an efficient combined cycle power station, and it's worth the investment.

Here in NZ wind generators work in the right spots. Of course there is the NIMBY thing. Everyone wants clean power, but no one wants a windmill or new hydro dam near their house.

They have the problem that they are intermittent generation, you can't rely on them for reliable base load. Luckily we have a lot of Hydro, and so they do work well together. No wind, you can draw down the hydro lakes. Wind picks up and you reduce the hydro flow and refill the lakes. You can get a week or so of higher than average generation from a Hydro, as long as you have a break to let it refill. If you are relying on thermal generators, then you have to have the full capacity on standby in case the wind dies down. That messes up the economics.

Those things sound like jet engines.

Not in my experience. Standing under one, there is a bit of a "whir" as the blades rotate past. 1/4 of a mile away? Nothing.
They are more like the wing of a big glider, same sort of aerodynamics and noise going on. OK, maybe it's a glider the size of a 737, so it's not quite silent. But it's a 737 with the engines off  :D 

[Al_Smith]

Timely subject because just this morning in the editorial portion of the local newspaper was an article written by a resident of that area I mentioned .

She pointed out the fact most land owners have never been paid for the leases and 39 sites have mechanics liens against the company for over 1 million dollars per site .If they go belly up the removal of the mills is the problem of the land owners .I kind of think there's some shady dealings there or PT Barnum is still alive . If it sounds too good to be true most of the time it isn't .

Odd part is there is a bill that states by 2020  or 2025 20% all electrical power within the state of Ohio is supposed to be from renewable sources.They aren't doing so well with that .

[Brad_S.]

SD, there is a huge one planned on Irving land off Route11 near Merrill in Aroostook. That is if the company (now SunEdison) doesn't go under. Swirling around the toilet bowl at the moment!

As far as I can tell these are the windmills just installed in the last year that we now see. They are running now.

No, that is the Oakfield Windfarm. The proposed one is west of there at the end of Rte. 212.

[SwampDonkey]

Ok, that makes sense, because there is no route 11 through Merrill, unless your going north through Patten and up to Ashland. They do merge up there at Knowles Corner, way above Patten. We drive up through that area some and go to the Patten Lumberman's Museum in August for bean hole beans and biscuits off the reflector ovens. ;D

[spyder68]

Funny thing the Kennedy family is really green, but wait they didn't want the windmills where they lived.

[Al_Smith]

In the never ending debate on wind power a new problem has been aired .It seems the companies who did the mega wind farm near VanWert Ohio have caused other problems .

First let me say this area of Ohio was  part of the great black swamp at one time .Some of the richest farm land in the USA if not the entire world .As such it required enough drainage tile to about reach the moon .

In installing the underground cables to connect the wind generators to the grid they cut a majority of the drainage tiles .Now the farmers are stuck with repairing them so they can get the surface water off to plant crops .It will probably get to be a great debacle before it's over .

[SwampDonkey]

I can't imagine the regulators including the USDA even allowing farm land to be crossed with cabling and digging up drain tile. Someone was asleep at the switch. Drain tile on farmland around here since at least the 1980's has to be marked with post and sign.

I gotta laugh, had an outsider proceed to tell me those signs and posts mark telephone cable. For one there never was a telephone line in the area we were talking about, there was power though, no phone. It was the 40's. Second, the guy can't read I guess or figure out pictorials of drain pipe and water. Plus I've lived here for awhile on farms that made a living, not hobby farms. Seen lots of tile go in.  Any decent farm ground here is under the FLIP program. ;)

[SwampDonkey]

Well, it's not going well for this wind farm. Bad foundations.   Notice to, they are on dry productive forest land (second growth), not bogs.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/cracks-in-foundation-led-to-wind-turbine-collapse-1.6312668

[thecfarm]

Not a good thing.
As I see that is a costly error. 

[Brad_S.]

I use to work for the company(s) that own/owned the Mars Hill turbines. Every year we would perform "RAT" (rock anchor tensioning) on all turbines in Maine. In a nut shell, you pull on the anchor bolts holding the turbine to the bedrock and re-tension bolts if needed. If 4 test bolts that were pulled on a turbine base didn't need tensioning, the turbine passed and it was on to the next one. If any one of the 4 failed, all bolts (16-20 depending on the make and size) would need to be re-tensioned. It was rare to have to re-tension a turbine without many years passing in-between.
Turbine #5 on Mars Hill (#1 is northern most) failed annually. As I said, I am no longer with the companies but last I heard, it has gotten so far out of plumb that they don't operate it anymore.
SD, next time you're by Mars Hill, see if the 5th turbine from the north is operating.

[stavebuyer]

I'll take the 2 degrees and natural gas.

Turbine 'torture' for Greek islanders as wind farms proliferate (msn.com)

[SwampDonkey]

I use to work for the company(s) that own/owned the Mars Hill turbines. Every year we would perform "RAT" (rock anchor tensioning) on all turbines in Maine. In a nut shell, you pull on the anchor bolts holding the turbine to the bedrock and re-tension bolts if needed. If 4 test bolts that were pulled on a turbine base didn't need tensioning, the turbine passed and it was on to the next one. If any one of the 4 failed, all bolts (16-20 depending on the make and size) would need to be re-tensioned. It was rare to have to re-tension a turbine without many years passing in-between.
Turbine #5 on Mars Hill (#1 is northern most) failed annually. As I said, I am no longer with the companies but last I heard, it has gotten so far out of plumb that they don't operate it anymore.
SD, next time you're by Mars Hill, see if the 5th turbine from the north is operating.

They were up there with cranes fixing a couple turbines last year.

[dogone]

   We are just beginning windmills here in western Canada. The oldest ones close to me are only six years old. Do any you live where the mills have been up for many years. No one here seems to know how long they last till obsolete or worn out.
    Also: what becomes of them after shutdown?

[beenthere]

Age of windmills
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148113005727

And how they are brought down..
Felling of a Thermally Damaged Wind Turbine - Controlled Demolition, Inc. - YouTube

[Ianab]

No one here seems to know how long they last till obsolete or worn out

Design life is usually about 20 years. Could last longer, but that's what they base their financial predictions on. After that they plan on replacing them. It's not so much becoming obsolete, but there is a finite life for the blades, a bit like an aircraft wing, which is what they most closely resemble.  

So like any machine, they eventually wear out and/or maintenance costs get too high. 

For reference, a gas turbine power station is expected to run for 30-35 years. They might not replace the building, but it will be a new power plant inside it.

[SwampDonkey]

They've got to have a good base to. There is a wind farm here that is having to replace the concrete base under most of their windmills. I bet whoever poured it first is going to be bankrupt.

[peakbagger]

If the company that poured the bases that were failing installed them to the design, they may not be liable. It could be the designer who made a mistake of the geotechnical firm that made the geotech recommendations. It also could be defects in construction materials. Usually, the lawsuits are the shotgun approach, sue everyone and let the court settle it out. 

[SwampDonkey]

I just looked at the old news article and it was a design flaw, so the company is going to eat it. 50 have to be replaced. They figure the work will be done by the end of next year.