Wind Energy Problems

Minorities in Parliamentary Governments Can Have Influence Out of all Proportion and Lead to Incompetent Policies

for scale, notice the man, lower right

The blades made at LM Wind Power's Cherbourg plant are 107 meters long (351 feet) — and measure some 5.4 meters (almost 18 feet) in diameter at their wide end. Images credit: GE Renewable Energy/LM Wind Power. They weigh about 55 tons, and there are 3 of them on each tower. The towers are 984 feet high and weigh 2,550 tons. The 12 MW (megawatt) generator and gearbox and cover weigh 600 tons. Imagine transporting such equipment from factory to dock to barge, and then having big enough cranes to hoist all of it up into position. Quite a challenge, and not cheap.

I’ve written about wind turbine problems before here but more problems keep coming up, so will expand on it today.

I’ve been having trouble understanding how so many countries are acting so stupidly (sorry, but that’s the nicest word for it) by trying to ban all coal and oil and nuclear power generation, before finding out if renewables are going to be adequate. “Doomberg” has an explanation, or at least a partial one. You can read the whole article, but the gist of it is that countries who have a parliamentary political system have a vulnerability – one minor party can get just enough votes to put it into a position of power all out of proportion to its actual popularity. It reminds me of the way a 3^rd party candidate in the US can get just enough votes to sink one of the other two.

“Nowhere has such disproportionate leverage been played more decisively by marginal interests than in Germany, where the Green Party has completely hijacked seats of power in government despite never gaining more than a modest standing in the Bundestag. In the nine German federal elections since 1990, the Greens have held, on average, just 9% of the seats in play… Nonetheless, the Greens have exhibited an exceptionally disciplined approach to spending their limited political capital, focusing the vast majority of their efforts on destroying Germany’s energy sector. In the process, they have brought one of the mightiest economies in the world to its knees.”

It’s going to be a long, cold winter in Germany. They’re foolishly shutting down their most reliable sources of electricity – all their nuclear power plants.

SCIENCE

wind turbine blades

sometimes they need patching - which is a little scary, on a 55 ton blade 330 feet high…

in fairness, patching pitted blades is better than not maintaining them at all, but it’s quite a process:

From windpowerengineering.com

“turbines can have tip speeds of over 200 miles per hour. At these speeds, raindrops can take on the impact of small stones, and blowing sand has the erosion power of a plasma cutter. Studies have shown blade roughness and accumulated debris on the blades can reduce wind turbine performance by 5 to 30%. Blades that aren’t working efficiently can also create vibration that contributes to gearbox failures.”

…restoring surface damage can require a number of steps. The crew usually masks off the portion of the blade surrounding the work area. A plastic film attached to masking tape works effectively and is easy to haul uptower, says Sadlo. The defective portion of the blade is cut out and then ground using ceramic grinding abrasives. The area has to be rebuilt with fabric and resin according to OEM criteria for strength, density, and structural soundness. After placing the last layer of fabric, filler helps restore the blade’s aerodynamic shape. Several epoxies and polyurethanes are available in easy-to-handle cartridges that offer short cure times. A repair technician can begin sanding in as little as 30 minutes.

Once the repaired section is sanded and painted, wind protection tape can be applied and the tape’s edges sealed and beveled to create optimal aerodynamic characteristics. Sadlo says the tape can also act as a shock absorber to lessen the impact of flying debris such as bugs or hail.”

Block Island Wind Farm is about 3 miles off the coast of its namesake island, a popular vacation spot. Offshore wind developer Deepwater Wind spent roughly $300 million in 2016 to build the project. (It would cost much more today.) Making the floating wind farm a reality took some creative engineering and a police escort. The five Haliade turbines, constructed and installed by GE Renewable Energy, tower 330 feet above the Atlantic Ocean—just taller than the Statue of Liberty. Each turbine has three 27-ton, 240-foot-long blades.” that was in 2016 - fast forward to 2023 after a little more history…

from “Energy Musings”

“The first offshore wind farm, Vindeby in Danish waters, was constructed in 1991 (32 years ago!) with wind turbines with a 0.5 megawatt (MW) capacity.  They stood 115 feet tall with blades 115 feet in length.  The 2016 30-MW Block Island Wind farm has five 6-MW turbines standing 330 feet tall with blades 240 feet long.  The current generation of wind turbines, such as the General Electric Haliade-X with 12 MW of capacity, will stand 853 feet tall with 722 foot-long blades. I’m having trouble finding the price of one of these 107 meter blades. According to a NREL report , the total “cost” of a 100 meter blade is $547,000. I assume the manufacturer wants tpo make a profit, so let’s add about 20% for marketing costs and profit, bringing the total up to $656,000. Somewhere I read that it’s more like a million dollars per blade in actuality, so you’d want to be careful not to dent or damage a blade during transport and installation.

big barges

Barges were readily available to haul early wind turbine components to the installation site.  But a barge to haul Haliade-X or similar turbine components must be nearly six times longer.  Not only are there few such barges, but they require more horsepower to be moved offshore, and much larger docks for loading components.  

big cranes

Likewise, larger, and more powerful cranes are necessary on the installation vessels to lift the heavier and larger tower components and blades.  Most installation vessels are four-legged platforms with a crane mounted on them, occasionally there may be a three-legged crane platform, but they are physically limited as to how large a structure they can handle. 

The primary challenge for cranes is connecting them with the components to be lifted, especially the blades.  With the supply barge alongside the installation platform, the lifting danger is the barge heaving up and down with wave action.  Wind turbine blade edges are made from composite material that cannot be dented.  Therefore, connecting the crane to the blade is a delicate operation.  A dented blade is worthless, and the installer would be at financial risk for the cost of a new blade unless indemnified, and a turbine installation project would be delayed as it would require a replacement blade that may not be available.  Who can afford to take these risks?  The result is that installation times depend on offshore weather and sea conditions.  Estimates are that conventional installation units will, on average, only be able to work 50% of the time.”

getting the power from offshore wind farm to land

Security is needed. Wind farms send their collectively generated electricity to land by undersea cables, which could be vulnerable to sabotage.

The cable connection to the land had to be replaced – from the “Institute for Energy Research”

“First Block Island, offshore Rhode Island, and now wind farms offshore Europe are experiencing problems with transmission cables requiring millions of dollars of investments. The Block Island offshore wind farm, a 30-megawatt facility off the coast of Rhode Island, found that its high voltage cables that carry electricity to land were not buried deep enough and were being exposed as the seabed was being worn away by tides and storms, making the exposed cables dangerous to swimmers. National Grid and Ørsted, the current owner, are replacing the cable to a greater depth, which state regulators had originally wanted, but were over-ruled by a state board supportive of the project. National Grid, which owns the cable that connects the island to the mainland, will charge customers of the Narragansett Electric Company to fix its portion of the problem. National Grid’s reconstruction cost is expected to be $30 million and it will be recovered through an undetermined surcharge on ratepayers’ bills. Ørsted’s cost, which cannot be passed on, is unknown. This is a costly undertaking.”

From Reuters, Oct.26 on protecting the underwater cables

“Solutions include underwater drones to monitor subsea infrastructure, small radars and cameras to observe ships, and sensors inside power cables to detect unusual movements…Installing such equipment on a large wind farm would cost between 20 million euros and 60 million euros ($21 million-$63 million), according to three industry sources. Overall cost data is not widely available but as an indication, that would be less than 2% of the cost of one project, Sofia, being built by Germany’s RWE in the North Sea.”

transporting

Transporting large wind turbine parts can be pretty tricky

this video shows the amazing ingenuity it takes to transport giant wind turbine blades up a curvy road, then it continues to show how the worn out blades are recycled and made into a pulverized material that can be used in construction

recycling

Recycling the discarded wind blades is another problem. The older blades weren’t recyclable.

“CARBON COUNTY – Hundreds of wind turbine blades from three Wyoming wind farms (one in Glenrock, Wyo. and two in Saratoga, Wyo.) will be disposed of in Casper until next spring…Nearly 1,000 blades from those three wind farms have to be buried in the Casper Regional Landfill due to the fact that they are un-recyclable as they are made of fiberglass. Newer turbine blades aren’t made from that type of material and can be recycled, but the blades being shipped to Casper are nearly two decades old. When they were first created, the engineers didn’t have the foresight to make them recyclable materials.”

the newer blades can be recycled, but it’s quite an expensive operation. Watch this 6 minute video:

Bing Videos -why wind turbine blades are so hard to recycle

fire

From windsystems

“A wind-turbine fire can cost upwards of $8 million, according to insurance experts quoted in Firetrace’s recent report, “Reducing Fire Risk.” As most wind-turbine towers exceed 250 feet, they are often out-of-range for ground-based firefighting. Sending a team up to fight the fire presents a significant health and safety risk. Therefore, if no fire suppression system is in place, it will be left to burn out, irreparably damaging the turbine… Fire risk is not only a concern for the wind farm’s balance sheet. A wind-turbine fire can spread to the surrounding environment, sparking wildfires and potentially spreading into nearby communities… In Canada’s Ontario province, fire suppression is not only mandated for installation in new energy projects but is also required to be retrofitted to existing sites…It is only a matter of time before a similar level of scrutiny over fire protection is rolled out on a national scale in the U.S. The wind industry must ensure it is proactive in ensuring it is following best practice for preventing and suppressing fire.”

tipping over

From Popular Mechanics

The taller the wind turbine, the harder they fall. And they sure are falling.

Wind turbine failures are on the uptick, from Oklahoma to Sweden and Colorado to Germany, with all three of the major manufacturers admitting that the race to create bigger turbines has invited manufacturing issues, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Multiple turbines that are taller than 750 feet are collapsing across the world, with the tallest—784 feet in stature—falling in Germany in September 2021. To put it in perspective, those turbines are taller than both the Space Needle in Seattle and the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. Even smaller turbines that recently took a tumble in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Wales, and Colorado were about the height of the Statue of Liberty.

…or just falling apart

“Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, (and wind farms?)
    give careful attention to your herds;” Proverbs 27:23

oregonlive.com  Jan 17 ’23, reported by Ted Sickinger, the Oregonian

PGE temporarily shuttered its Biglow Canyon wind farm last year after a massive blade from one of its towering turbines broke loose, launching the length of a football field and landing in a wheat field where workers had been delivering fertilizer hours earlier… The 135-foot piece of fiberglass, wood and metal weighs more than seven tons…

Industry research suggests that damaged blade bolts due to stress and metal fatigue is a frequent cause of turbine failure. The newsroom’s investigation found that in the year prior to the blade throw, PGE found broken blade bolts on four turbines but kept them running while it awaited spare parts. The company said that can be within manufacturers’ specifications. During inspections after the blade throw, maintenance reports for the project show the company found broken blade bolts on another half dozen turbines… PGE, which opened the first phase of its $1 billion Biglow Canyon wind farm in 2007, has long known about falling items and oil leaks, but did not consider them reportable violations of state rules, or in the case of the oil leaks, worthy of immediate retrofits to fix the problem. In fact, the utility cut its spending on maintenance and operations at the aging wind farm by 40% between 2013 and 2021 and projected another reduction last year.

PGE has now promised to replace or repair core components in the project’s 217 turbines by 2035… the components it has pledged to replace or repair are some of the most expensive in the machines. The cost will likely be borne by the ratepayers of Oregon’s largest electricity provider… If the investments don’t significantly extend the life of the project, that could be problematic as the company seeks to recover the cost from ratepayers, according to Bob Jenks, executive director of the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, a ratepayer advocacy group.

The newsroom’s investigation found the seemingly isolated blade incident was part of a wider set of maintenance problems and equipment failures that include regular oil leaks, transformer failures and fires, and plummeting equipment from overhead towers that can reach 90 miles per hour when falling.

FINANCE

“You shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the testimony and the cause of the righteous.” Exodus 23:8

Argentina election

Bill Bonner’s take – from “Bonner Private Research” 10/27

“Here was a clear choice. One candidate – Massa – represented the status quo. He was the candidate put forward by the Peronist party, which has been in control since 1946, almost permanently... Not only that, Massa is currently the finance minister, more responsible for today’s 200% inflation than perhaps any living human.

On the other side was Javier Milei. Crazy? Maybe. He is advised by his dead dog.  We see nothing disqualifying about that. Much better a dead dog than a live economist. The advice will be better. 

The choice was clear. More of the same…or something different. Milei is not a mainstream, modern economist…but he is a serious one. He is a follower of the “Austrian school”…which is close to the ‘moral philosophy’ approach we follow here. He is probably right about how to improve the Argentine economy – cutting expenses, using the dollar as the currency, and burning down the central bank –…though, there may be huge and impassable political barriers to getting the job done...as we will see…  

So, what did the benighted Argentine voters…do? They voted for Massa…the man most responsible for their misery!”

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

― Margaret Thatcher

“Owe no man anything, but to love one another…” Romans 13:8

What Bill Bonner has to say about the national debt is worth repeating:

“…today’s US budget deficit – at 7% of GDP – leaves little for the next generation. Little is left to build new factories and create new jobs. As for rebuilding the factories of the Eastern Ukraine or hospitals of Gaza – who’s going to do that? Instead, we borrow more money to provide weapons to the world…

Back in the US, our existing capital base – our manufacturers, infrastructure, schools and hospitals – wear out. How can they be replaced?

And we, the Baby Boomer generation…we have presided over a degradation of the USA in almost every category. Financial, economic, political, technological, moral…

…what do we have to say for ourselves?  

And what do we do when it becomes impossible to keep living in the style to which we’ve become accustomed? Do we own up…and straighten up?  

Or print more money?”  

Treasury bonds

“Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest” from the parable of the talents, Matthew 25:27

I give credit to Jeff Remsburg of Investor Place Digest for bringing up the following…

In August, the US Treasury started boosting the size of its quarterly bond sales for the first time in 2 1/2 years to help finance a surge in budget deficits so alarming it prompted Fitch Ratings to cut the government’s AAA credit rating a day earlier…
The bump in issuance showcases the rising borrowing needs that contributed to Tuesday’s decision by Fitch Ratings to lower the sovereign US credit rating by one level, from AAA to AA+.

Wednesday 11/1 the Treasury Department announced plans to continue to accelerate the size of its auctions as it looks to handle its heavy debt load…
Treasury will auction $112 billion in debt next week to refinance $102.2 billion of notes set to mature Nov. 15, raising more than $9 billion in extra funds…

Look for an update next week, on how that auction goes…interest rates fell this week, apparently on the hope that the Fed won’t be raising their rates any more. But as Yogi Berra said, “Predictions are hard to make, especially when they’re about the future”.

FAITH

“…Thus says the Lord God, “Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob (another name for Israel; Jacob’s name was changed to Israel) and have mercy on the whole house of Israel…Ezekiel 39:25

The war in Israel has many wondering if this is in some way a fulfillment of prophecy. Ezekiel chapters 38-39 says Israel will be surrounded and attacked by a large group of enemies. Israel has been surrounded by enemies and attacked several times before this current conflict, but the timing of the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy is a matter of conjecture. Ezekiel predicts victory for Israel, with God’s intervening power. As Jonathan Turner, of KeyCom, says, the important thing is to be ready for Jesus’ return. I agree.

next week - more on wind turbines, especially the recent abandonment of many offshore wind farm projects despite the massive subsidies