The best projections of the viability of intermittant renewables such as wind and solar are around 10-15% of the available power required. As others have said, it simply needs storage to get past that 15%. I love reneawables, but I acknowledge the problem.
I am glad to see that the price is dropping, but you did not say anything about storage. How can wind generation amount to more than a couple percent without some way to store the generated energy? When the wind stops, is it not true that the generator draws energy from the grid to keep it warm, to spin it up as the wind increases, control circuits, etc.? And with absolutely no energy storage there must be a coal /gas / ?? always running at 100% to pick up the complete load within a couple cycles of the wind dropping (or cloud crossing the sun).
Without storage solar and wind (even if the hardware were free) can never amount to more than 10% of energy needs. True, we could put up enough generators and solar panels to cover all demands... momentarily, but night comes when no panel works, and days come when even the Santa Ana winds don't blow.
I personally have no concerns about the appearance of modern windmills. I don't understand why anybody would find them aesthetically intrusive. I find their slow steady turns fascinating to watch!
Nadine, I like your point about visual appeal, or lack thereof. They are not fun to look at, although the ones in California I've seen tend to be located away from people.
You make a good point. The ROI increases as more users/buyers invest. I'm curious to know how the savings break down. Has the initial cost dropped significantly or just operating? Or, is long-term maintenance where the significant savings are?
Where the savings lie makes a difference for future investors.
And, on a separate note, better design would help lesson the NIMBY factor. Many communities still fight against wind farms as a visual blight.
Thanks, Rob, I agree about the good news. I find Jerry's input about what I expected, meaning, here's a technology that's not too expensive and it's been around a long time, but has not seen mass adoption. I think much of the reason has little to do with economics or technology, and more to do with psychology. It's the early adopters vs the mass market, as we've seen in many industries, most notably personal electronics. And not that many people live on farms or in the country anymore.
Nice article, Ann. That's quite impressive that wind is becoming competitive with gas and coal, especially with gas costs moving so low. This is very good news for alternative fuels.
Every time I drive through West Texas I wonder why we don't hear more about energy from wind farms - they are certainly out there and at least in Texas there are many more than a single turbine on the occasional farm...seems like these technologies have been around a long time (like solar) but are extremely slow moving. Some folks are fascinated by renewable energy and are determined to live "off the grid" but it just doesn't seem to be very popular in the mass market place...
That WT's in small sizes are not really cost effective is because of greed, bad busines model or something else as I can make them for well under $1k/kw vs the $4k/kw most units cost now.
Remember they perfected them in the 30's!!!! Many of them are still running like the Jacob's and others.
A 2k WT enough to run an eff home in an average wind site is more simple than a moped!! So why are they so expensive? I see a great market with large profits I'l be filling within a yr. I can get 200% profit and still beat the others by 50% and even beat the Chinese.
I did go into production of some in the late 70's but the market wasn't there but it is now for a quality unit.
Done right they need little maintaining other than a yrly check and new bearings every 3-5 yrs if designed and built right.
Thanks for your comment, Lou. Since most of the technical and manufacturing efforts for wind turbines right now appear to be aimed at making them in high volumes for wind farms, I'm not surprised that an individual agricultural farmer finds a single wind turbine impractical and payback is slow. It doesn't sound like the rental model is working very well for the individual farmer, but that model could, of course, be tweaked to make it more attractive and productive.
Andrew Morris designed a circuit that could detect a stroke victim's groan and convert the sound into a signal so caregivers would know when help was needed.
New disc magnet motors fit into the design trend of stepping up to closed loop performance while maintaining the cost advantage of stepper motor technology.
At the Design News webinar on June 27, learn all about aluminum extrusion: designing the right shape so it costs the least, is simplest to manufacture, and best fits the application's structural requirements.
On April 21, NASA launched a novel project, putting into orbit three satellites that employ an off-the-shelf commercial smartphone as the control system.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
0 
