# sailors and wind farms



## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

I'm really curious to know what sailors think of wind farms, onshore or offshore. I'm working on a report right now for the Ontario Nature Federation (ON Nature), and I'll eventually get something up on the Georgian Bay cruising website. There are quite a few projects under way around the Great Lakes in Ontario, and some (heck, most) have run into controversy, mainly from property owners who really don't like the idea of looking at them or perhaps having to listen to them. My unscientific survey to date says sailors generally like the idea of them (they employ the wind, after all), but I would welcome feedback, especially from sailors out there who have actually encountered them in their area. 
thanks


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

They're looking to put on in on Nantucket Sound, down my neck of the woods. I think wind farms, properly designed and implemented, are a good thing... but they'll need to clearly mark the individual wind gens on the charts, as they're a serious navigation hazard, much like the off-shore oil platforms down in the Gulf of Mexico.

Also, depending on how large an area the wind farm covers, it might make sense to have them marked and lighted in such a manner that the different wind gens are clearly identifiable. If you've got 30-50 of these sticking up out of the water, it would be nice to be able to tell if you were at the first, the fifth or the fifteenth of them... and roughly how many you had left to get by, without having to try and guess from your DR position.


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## PBzeer (Nov 11, 2002)

Biggest problem I've seen with wind farms, is everyone wants them, BUT, not where they can see them.


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## skfnek (Jul 15, 2006)

We are absolutely infavor of the wind farms. We saw lots of them around west texas in ranchland. Now there is one slated for offshore Galveston, Tx where we now live. I have wondered how they will be marked and like the idea that SailingDog put forth about numbering North to South as a standard or something similar. We need all the renewable energy sources we can exploit, so we need to learn to compensate for the changes in our lifestyle.

SKFNEK sailing "Miss Guided" out of Galveston, Tx


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

The real reason I think the individual wind gens should be easily identifiable is that Nantucket Sound often gets some serious fog... and if you can't see the others, it would be nice to be able to use the wind gen as a navigation mark, and make it much easier for you to avoid hitting the others... since you'll have a much better chance of knowing where you are in relation to them, even in the fog.


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

The Georgian Bay Association, which is a creature of waterfront property owners, is really lobbying hard not to have them along the bay's shore. Their own committee report actually downplays the whole sound issue, but they clearly just don't like the idea of looking at the things. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. There's a big battle right now on Wolfe Island, near Kingston, Ont., between shoreline property owners and rural landowners who want to lease land for wind farms.
Toronto has one big generator on the waterfront, not in the water. I think people generally like it, as it says something about clean energy. I don't know if they'd feel any differently if there was a whole farm, or if Humber bay was dotted with them. Cpn Malcom makes excellent points about visibility and safe navigation. Denmark has massive wind farms offshore, and I'm not sure how they've handled this issue.
My thanks to everyone for the prompt and thoughtful replies. This is going to be a big issue along our shores, where it isn't already.


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## AjariBonten (Sep 7, 2007)

*N I M B Y ........*



PBzeer said:


> Biggest problem I've seen with wind farms, is everyone wants them, BUT, not where they can see them.


Everybody want there to be an energy alternative; nobody wants to change anything about the way _they_ live.

I know, a gross generalization; but true enough to be a PIA.

I think wind power is here to stay. It's the most viable alternative in the largest geographical part of the world. Solar may take precedence in some latitudes; but for most the sun is too shallow to be efficient enough. Also, it's the most proven, and technologically simple, alternative.

I don't want to start the "peak oil" debate; but for the purposes of this discussion let's agree that petroleum _is_ a finite resource. IMHO it is too important for _so many_ other uses that to burn it for energy more than absolutely needed is a tremendous waste.

Are there environmental impacts of wind generation? 
Of course; _everything_ has an impact on _something_.

Is wind the one true solution?
Of course not, it will be an important part (one of many) of our energy supply from here on in.


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## Giulietta (Nov 14, 2006)

I don't mind them, and they will reduce our dependence in fossil fuel.

We have many many farms in my country and in our coasts.

The tree hugers tried to block, but none of their conclusions were proven...we built and are happy.

Besides, the wind is for everyone...GO WINDMILLS!!!!


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

ROFLMAO... I was wondering who the hell Cpn Malcom is... Just FYI, Captain Malcolm Reynolds isn't me... he's the captain of space-going tramp freighter named Serenity, in the short-lived TV series Firefly and the movie Serenity. I just loved the quote he says about starships...and thought it was equally applicable, with a bit of modification, to sailboats.



Diva27 said:


> Cpn Malcom makes excellent points about visibility and safe navigation. Denmark has massive wind farms offshore, and I'm not sure how they've handled this issue.
> My thanks to everyone for the prompt and thoughtful replies. This is going to be a big issue along our shores, where it isn't already.


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## TrueBlue (Oct 11, 2004)

TPI, a fiberglass fabricator with a plant at our marina that also produces hulls for Pearson, JBoat and Alerion - among others, had a contract to produce vanes for a land based wind farm project a few years ago. I was amazed over the scale of these vanes, as hundreds of them were regularly trucked out on flat beds. The molds still sit in the boneyard behind the marina.

Some time after that the Dutch and Swedes constructed a massive offshore windfarm. The photos and videos from that project were used to educate the public by the group of private investors planning the Nantucket Sound project - the first of it's kind in the US.

For those who haven't yet seen the scale and magnitude of these things, check out some of these photos from the Dutch installation. The TPI project pales by comparison.

A promotional digitized image:








A series of actual construction photos:



































































































I agree that we need to consider all directions for reducing our dependance of foreign oil - but, I am ambivalent about it being in my back yard. There are similar discussions as Nantucket Sound, for an offshore installation off Newport RI - between Sakonnet and Sachuest Points, which would create some navigational hazard issues for all boaters - especially during typical fog conditions.

In spite of all the negativity though - it is a good thing.


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## Idiens (Jan 9, 2007)

There are a lot of wind turbines going up in UK waters. Lots of studies done, the ATC can see them on radar and so on. All the one's I've sailed past are on sandbanks where I don't care to go, so they tend to say "shallow water". Its a bit odd at night as their lights add to the puzzles in places.


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

sailingdog said:


> ROFLMAO... I was wondering who the hell Cpn Malcom is... Just FYI, Captain Malcolm Reynolds isn't me... he's the captain of space-going tramp freighter named Serenity, in the short-lived TV series Firefly and the movie Serenity. I just loved the quote he says about starships...and thought it was equally applicable, with a bit of modification, to sailboats.


There I go again. Thanks for the correction.


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

TrueBlue said:


> TPI, a fiberglass fabricator with a plant at our marina that also produces hulls for Pearson, JBoat and Alerion - among others, had a contract to produce vanes for a land based wind farm project a few years ago. I was amazed over the scale of these vanes, as hundreds of them were regularly trucked out on flat beds. The molds still sit in the boneyard behind the marina.
> ...
> In spite of all the negativity though - it is a good thing.


GREAT photos, thanks. There was a program on CBC television on which someone visited one of the Danish windfarms, rode the elevator up one of the towers, and then popped his head out the top of the turbine housing to have a look around. Just a stunning view.

Update: I just looked up the program. It was a documentary called Earth Energy and it aired on the program Nature of Things in September. There's a web page about it here. 
http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/earthenergy/index.html
No video unfortunately, but there is a pic of filmmaker Bill Lishman standing atop one of the Danish offshore turbines.


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

TrueBlue said:


> TPI, a fiberglass fabricator with a plant at our marina that also produces hulls for Pearson, JBoat and Alerion - among others, had a contract to produce vanes for a land based wind farm project a few years ago. I was amazed over the scale of these vanes, as hundreds of them were regularly trucked out on flat beds. The molds still sit in the boneyard behind the marina.
> ...
> 
> In spite of all the negativity though - it is a good thing.


What's really interesting to a sailor in these rotor blades is the amount of twist in the angle of attack. The outer ends of the blade of course are moving through space much faster than the chord close to the hub, and so have to deal with major differences in apparent wind speed. Otherwise the outer part of the blade would be stalling like crazy. Maybe this reduces noise as well by limiting turbulence.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

They have one of these, albeit a bit smaller, in Hull, which is a significant navigation landmark for anyone sailing Boston's Outer Harbor, and another, even smaller one in Dorchester.


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## Idiens (Jan 9, 2007)

There is an impressive line of turbines east of Copenhagen. See Google Earth

55 41 08.14 N 12 40 13.95 E

They show up nicely from above


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## PBzeer (Nov 11, 2002)

Would think a simple AIS transponder could be a helpful addition as well.


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## TrueBlue (Oct 11, 2004)

A single turbine was installed by the Portsmouth Abby School a couple years ago. At first I thought it was visually obtrusive, but don't mind it at all now. The sound is not discernable at all from our slip, about 2 miles away - but the turbine is certainly visible.

It forms a very distinct visual reference from all areas of the upper Narragansett Bay. I even use it for taking bearings while sailing.


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

PBzeer said:


> Would think a simple AIS transponder could be a helpful addition as well.


Without trivializing the hazards they might present in fog or inclement weather, at least these things are standing still and can be precisely marked on a chart, unlike freighters, fishing vessels and everyone else wandering around out there in bad visibility.
Some people will still hit them. A number of years ago I was in a regatta in which a 30-footer under spinnaker t-boned a lake freighter dead midships. They were all so busy trimming the chute and the main that they failed to notice this very large and very long multistorey wall of metal right in front of them. As I recall, their excuse was, "well, it was kind of grey and kind of hard to see."
(I'll try not to encourage thread drift here.)


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## Idiens (Jan 9, 2007)

PBzeer said:


> Would think a simple AIS transponder could be a helpful addition as well.


There was some talk of the coast guard transmitting AIS coordinates for dangerous structures. The turbine does not need its own transponder, as long as the CG coverage is adequate.


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## TrueBlue (Oct 11, 2004)

Idiens said:


> There is an impressive line of turbines east of Copenhagen. See Google Earth
> 
> 55 41 08.14 N 12 40 13.95 E
> 
> They show up nicely from above


Thanks for those co-ordinates Idiens, very impressive when viewed in Google Earth as a fly-over - the detail is very good when zooming in. There are also several photos linked, this haunting image being one:


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## Giulietta (Nov 14, 2006)

Diva27 said:


> Otherwise the outer part of the blade would be stalling like crazy. Maybe this reduces noise as well by limiting turbulence.


That's not the reason the blades are twisted.

They are twisted to ensure that lift at the tip is equal to lift at the root.

This is achived by twisting as you say, thus reducing angle of attack and aspect ratio, guaranteeing that lift os proportaional and the same along the lenght of the blade.

If this was not so, the blade would colapse and fold, due to the greater lift present at the tips.


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## JohnRPollard (Mar 26, 2007)

I'm opposed to anything powered by the wind.


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## Valiente (Jun 16, 2006)

I think wind power is generally a great idea. 

There are some concerns with the fact that the best wind patterns tend to also be the most favoured bird migration pathways, a big concern on Lake Ontario, where two of the four North American "skyways" for birds converge.

But I can live with a few bird strikes if it keeps a few fossil fuel plants from being built, because these plants are obviously the source (if not the only one) of particulates, sulphur and C02 emissions. The "brown band" around the Toronto skyline in summer is largely due to American coal plants southwest of here, although there is a large coal plant on Lake Erie that contributes a portion.

One of the criticisms of wind turbine power is its intermittant nature. If used to feed directly into the electrical grid (after transformation to AC, one assumes), this criticism is correct. What needs to be built is a storage facility that includes co-generation in concert with the wind power.

This could take the form of electrolysis of water and the storage of hydrogen in fuel cells (static fuel cells are far more practical at the moment than the ones being developed for cars), or for use to boil water for steam turbines. Another use would be to power the pumps involved in geo-thermal extraction of heat energy, which would also power traditional turbine generators. A less desirable method would be to use the wind power to reform natural gas.

In other words, when the wind blows, you convert the power gathered into some medium that is able to be stored and used when the wind isn't blowing. 

Of course, this is precisely how it works on a boat with a large battery bank.


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## bobmcgov (Jul 19, 2007)

The twist does incidentally reduce noise caused by stalling at the tips -- on many smaller turbines, the blade tips actually have a negative angle of attack, because their apparent wind is essentially in the plane of the blades, the tips are moving so fast. Some of those machines have tip-speed ratios of eleven or higher (tips moving eleven times actual wind speed).










About 35 miles north of my house in Wyoming is Foote Creek Rim, home to one of the largest wind farms in America. At last count, 183 big Mitsubishis on a mesa near Arlington. We also have large farms in Medicine Bow and on the Terry Bison Ranch south of Cheyenne. I fancy them. They look quite splendid along the skyline, like kinetic sculpture. But I'm biased -- wind power drives my entire house and business.

Designers could do a better job of blending the turbines into the landscape without making them significantly more a navigation hazard; visual impact is the number one complaint against them. Noise is the second, but that's not too honest: I've stood beneath the Arlington beasts in full flutter, and they are not loud. Had trouble hearing them over truck noise from the highway, which no one seems to notice. Third gripe is some vague notion of bird mortality. This perception, that wind machines puree birds by the thousands is provably false, and nearly all the websites devoted to hand-wringing over the issue are, provably, financed by the fossil fuels industry. The raptor mortality rates at Arlington are 0.03 birds per tower per year; more birds probably die on our front picture windows.

Some sailors use sea-based turbines as lighthouses and racing buoys. I love the idea of giving each tower a distinct code -- maybe the nav lights flashing colors? Blue-white-white means the twelfth to shoreward, style of thing?

Here's a funny Casper Star-Trib article on the Arlington installation: note the date (late October 2007), and the 105-mph wind speeds. Yeah, I recall that couple of days. It was pretty windy. (Now y'all see why I wanted a boat with some ballast?)

As for the "not in my back yard crowd": clean up your back yard first, then you'll have some standing in the matter. Anyone burning thirty-five kWh per day of electricity is in no position to pick and choose its provenance.


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

Giulietta said:


> That's not the reason the blades are twisted.
> 
> They are twisted to ensure that lift at the tip is equal to lift at the root.
> 
> ...


Much thanks for the explain. But I did think apparent wind was also at play. In multielement wing sails for C-cats, they introduce twist in the top to prevent stallage that would otherwise occur. Apparent wind is higher at the top of the mast (as in all sails) and from a different direction because of wind gradient.But with rotating blades maybe this is less important than the lift loading issues.
Always learnin.'


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

Valiente said:


> I think wind power is generally a great idea.
> 
> One of the criticisms of wind turbine power is its intermittant nature. If used to feed directly into the electrical grid (after transformation to AC, one assumes), this criticism is correct. What needs to be built is a storage facility that includes co-generation in concert with the wind power.


One of the solutions wind power proponents have is that you put enough installations across a wide enough geographic area so that there never is a serious or persistent wind shortage. "It's always windy somewhere." The key is to feed a shared grid, not to rely on one installation to provide power only to its immediate vicinity. And if solar is part of the mix, then you hopefully have sunshine somewhere when the wind's not blowing, and conversely wind when the weather is cloudy.


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

bobmcgov said:


> The twist does incidentally reduce noise caused by stalling at the tips -- on many smaller turbines, the blade tips actually have a negative angle of attack, because their apparent wind is essentially in the plane of the blades, the tips are moving so fast. Some of those machines have tip-speed ratios of eleven or higher (tips moving eleven times actual wind speed).
> 
> I was at a sailing club meeting last night and we somehow afterwards got on the subject of onboard wind generators. A friend told me about being up in the North Channel and visiting aboard with a guy who had a wind generator mounted at the stern. The guy was proudly telling him about how many amps the thing could put back into his battery bank, and my friend could barely make himself heard over the noise of what sounded like a small Cessna bolted to the boat.
> I too have heard that the sound from the big generators is fairly benign, more like gentle ocean surf. Setting standards for acceptable noise levels and residential setbacks is a really sticky issue. The wind farm industry in Ontario argues that there's no one-size solution, that each installation has to be judged individually for setbacks. But they also argue that background levels of 40-50 dB should be expected at the setback perimeter. I guess the objections up on Georgian Bay from the cottagers (above and beyond their NIMBY predilections) is that when you live somewhere that you can normally hear a pin drop, suddenly introducing a steady 40-50 dB of whooshing noise is going to be noticeable. (That would also apply to cruising anchorages.) But I bet the wind in the pines cranks out something at that level. It always sounds windier along the bay's coast than it usually is because of the way the pines generate sound.
> I'm with you on the aesthetics. I generally like the look of them.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Diva-

I think that the larger wind gens tend to be less noise since the blades don't have to move as quickly to produce electricity. That is why many computers have gone from an 80mm to a 120mm cooling fan... since they move the same volume of air but spin slower and are less noisy as a result.


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

Diva27 said:


> Much thanks for the explain. But I did think apparent wind was also at play. In multielement wing sails for C-cats, they introduce twist in the top to prevent stallage that would otherwise occur. Apparent wind is higher at the top of the mast (as in all sails) and from a different direction because of wind gradient.But with rotating blades maybe this is less important than the lift loading issues.
> Always learnin.'


My vector math was wrong. With the C-cat, increased wind velocity due to gradient or sheer at the masthead moves the apparent wind direction aft, thus requiring twist to avoid stalling. With the rotating blade, true wind speed is constant but forward motion changes from root to tip. That means with the blade moving faster at the tip than the root, the apparent wind direction moves forward, as has been noted.
I would think they manage loading by changing the lift area along the length of the foil. Lift force varies in direct proportion to the square of velocity, so you need very small blade area as you move toward the tip to produce the same amounts of lift that you do near the root.
That's enough aerodynamic theory of out me for a while.


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## Giulietta (Nov 14, 2006)

You are all very funny.....

do me a favour, will ya??

go to search in advanced bar type:wyoming, casper, and douglas....

see the dates....and a hint...I work in the Power business...

Now piss off....

Bob....you joined Sailnet in June....see what's from March 2007....


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## bobmcgov (Jul 19, 2007)

Giulietta said:


> You are all very funny.....
> do me a favour, will ya??
> go to search in advanced bar type:wyoming, casper, and douglas....
> see the dates....and a hint...I work in the Power business...
> ...


Mwahhaaahaaa. That's pretty funny. SOME people call it the Ends of the Earth. I call it home. Piss off yerself, G. I don't laugh at Portugese mountaineers, even tho your *tallest* hill is 300 meters lower than my toilet seat....

Next time y'all are bobbing around wishing for wind, know a few crazy bastards in Wyoming have the rail buried in whatever tiny frigid alkalai lake we can find. Yeah, it was minus eleven F here last night. You just wait until June, when the ice melts again.... We will go sailing!

(FWIW, even Wyomingites consider Douglas dull. That's saying sumthin.)


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## Valiente (Jun 16, 2006)

Diva27 said:


> One of the solutions wind power proponents have is that you put enough installations across a wide enough geographic area so that there never is a serious or persistent wind shortage. "It's always windy somewhere." The key is to feed a shared grid, not to rely on one installation to provide power only to its immediate vicinity. And if solar is part of the mix, then you hopefully have sunshine somewhere when the wind's not blowing, and conversely wind when the weather is cloudy.


I agree. It's my key to running a home stereo system in the Southern Ocean....

My comment was addressing the main knock against wind systems: I don't think they should ever feed into the main power grid UNTIL they have "banked" in some form or another enough of a surplus to guarantee a steady "feed" from some form of co-generative capacity.

I suppose if you built a wind farm beside a huge organic landfill, you could mine methane on calm days...


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

I like them. I like the way they look. They are new looking, but certainly not ugly. My retirement property is on Lake Huron, and there are a few turbines about a half hour south of me. I find that far preferable to the nuclear plant that is about an hour south of me.

I had not realised that there was a lot of opposition to them on the part of landowners. There is a section in our municipal Zoning Bylaw encouraging them.

But then, the Georgian Bay crowd has always been a little "arriviste" I guess.....


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

Sailormann said:


> I like them. I like the way they look. They are new looking, but certainly not ugly. My retirement property is on Lake Huron, and there are a few turbines about a half hour south of me. I find that far preferable to the nuclear plant that is about an hour south of me.
> 
> I had not realised that there was a lot of opposition to them on the part of landowners. There is a section in our municipal Zoning Bylaw encouraging them.
> 
> But then, the Georgian Bay crowd has always been a little "arriviste" I guess.....


A major wind farm planned at Collingwood, Blue Highlands, was vigorously opposed by residents (read: ski chalet owners) and was abandoned in the planning stages. Cottage owners along the Tiny shore of Nottawasaga have been fighting the Robitaille wind farm project, and got pretty exercised when they heard Beausoleil First Nation was thinking about turning Christian Island into a wind park. Cottagers near Parry Sound have been fighting a wind park project on Parry Island being pursued by the Wausasking First Nation. One cottager told the local paper that his property values would plunge $300,000 as soon as the towers were built. I find this "property value" argument rather galling. If you know anything about land treaties in Ontario, you'd know how shockingly ripped off the bands were by the Williams and Robinson treaties in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The land the govt pretty much stole from them was then sold off for cottage development. The bands lost more land when it was expropriated for railway development. (There's an unresolved land claim by the Henvey First Nation for a chunk along the south shore of the Key River, expropriated for a railway port that was never built. The govt then just sold it to cottagers.) Now the Wausasking want to put up some wind generators and the cottage gentry are whining about their property values. I should write, "Don't get me started," but it's too late...
Much thanks to all for their thoughtful input.


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

*Tons of Wind Power in Palm Springs*

We were on vacation a couple of years ago when I first saw the massive windmill farms near Palm Springs. It was kind of creepy looking at first -- so completely foreign to anything I'd seen.

After seeing them for a few days, they started growing on me and I realized what a great way to use the wind whipping between the mountains.


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## davidpm (Oct 22, 2007)

There is a issue regarding how many birds are killed by windmills.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-01-04-windmills-usat_x.htm
It may reduce the number of "dump ducks" which some may find a good thing.
Vertical turbines are purported to not have that problem.

A row of 50 windmills spaced appropriately would make a challenging race course to slalom around.

With all that power going through the water I wonder if some minor misconnection could cause massive galvanic corrosion to boats in the vicinity.


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## Johnrb (Sep 21, 2002)

Valiente: " One of the criticisms of wind turbine power is its intermittant nature"

Check vanadium redox batteries as one possible solution:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorne_Hill_wind_farm
http://www.vrbpower.com/


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## Valiente (Jun 16, 2006)

Cool, John. I hadn't heard of this particular type of battery. I guess the end cost would be driven by the availability of vanadium itself commercially, and concerns about its toxicity, or potential therein.

Of course, lead is nasty, and I believe it's been mined since the Bronze Age.


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## Johnrb (Sep 21, 2002)

Valiente: Here is a link to an interview with the president of VRB Power on CBC radio. Scroll down to Jan. 29. According to the source linked below, vanadium toxicity is considered low.

http://www.cbc.ca/biznet/archives.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=10382561&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google

Cheers,
John


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## ReverendMike (Aug 1, 2006)

Back to the aesthetics issue: It's both funny and sad how many people here in MO write letters to the editor about how ugly the new wind farms are and how they hate the sight of them, while the fact that the whole state is the main training ground for '******* Yard of the Week' doesn't rate a mention.....

Ah well, it's only ugly if it's new....


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

> One cottager told the local paper that his property values would plunge $300,000 as soon as the towers were built.


I have NO sympathy for those folks. Unless he sells in the next four or five years, his cottage is going down anyway...


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## bobmcgov (Jul 19, 2007)

I'd love to know where this cottager got that figure, or even the notion that values would drop. Hasn't been the pattern in Europe. Look, visual impact is a big deal with wind turbines. The best return comes from large units in large groupings, and the need for clean air means they tend to occupy high ground. They can't hunker in a sandpit like a coal-fired power plant.

There are iconic places where they are not visually appropriate in large numbers: the Blue Ridge Skyline, Boothbay, Cape Hattaras, the Teton Ridge. There are other places where they might disrupt wildlife: Altamont Pass is the chief disaster there: a thousand small latticework towers in a narrow slot that happens to be the chief migratory bird flyway in the US. Some birds have large nesting colonies near seashores; turbine siting should pay heed to that. And it may be wise to research what effect the installations or operation might have on marine mammals, cetaceans, or fish. Law of unintended consequences applies to wind power, too.

(As an aside, most bird strikes are on the tower, not the blades. Vertical axis turbines actually have a higher solidity than propeller types and should be more, not less, dangerous to birds. If VAWTs existed in numbers. If they worked. Which they don't.)

I've camoflagued my turbine a bit, turning a white and yellow nacelle dappled blue and grey; it vanishes against the background now. Dark blades are harder to see than white ones, and a little light patterning could break up the mass of the tower. Even the oil industry here has begun painting its tanks and pumpjacks to blend in with the dirt. It really makes a difference! Would 
painting turbines a color other than Glaring White really increase the danger to boats, birds, or airplanes? Softening visual impact would vastly increase public acceptance of wind power.


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## sailingfool (Apr 17, 2000)

The proposed wind farm in Nantucket Sound is to be locatd on Horseshoe Shoals. Even though it is 5-6 miles off the Cape, the Horseshoe shallows to 1' of water in places, so plopping dozens of windmills on it need not add to any navigational hazard - the Shoal is already that in spades, and the towers may not make it any worse. I would see a benefit - for those boaters who don't read charts are less likey to run up on the Shoals...

And if you think I jest, a few years ago I was departing from Vinyard Haven one sunny Saturday morning when a 30'+ power boat pulled up and the skipper hailed from the flying bridge "what island is this..". When I replied Marthas Vineyard, he asked "where's Edgartown?". I pointed SE and off he went.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

But SF... I can navigate in 15" of water...  So it is a big navigation hazard to those of us with extreme shoal draft boats.


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

sailingfool said:


> And if you think I jest, a few years ago I was departing from Vinyard Haven one sunny Saturday morning when a 30'+ power boat pulled up and the skipper hailed from the flying bridge "what island is this..". When I replied Marthas Vineyard, he asked "where's Edgartown?". I pointed SE and off he went.


Thread drift risk here (on my own thread), but Kenneth McNeill Wells, who had a global readership for his Owl Pen books, wrote a wonderful cruising guide to Georgian Bay in 1958 (Cruising the Georgian Bay) in which he recounts this conversation with a "sailorman" piloting a large powerboat off the Bustards:

"Where?" asked the sailor man on the bridge, "Where am I?"

We told him.

"How did I get here?"

We didn't know.

"I ain't where I thought I was."

We believed him.

"How do I get where I thought I was?"

We couldn't guess.

"I gotta road map."

We congratulated him.


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## bobmcgov (Jul 19, 2007)

It's actually germane to the issue. It's like bridge abutments on land (or in the SF Bay!). You could paint 'em bright pink with lime green stripes & strobe lights, and the people most likely to hit em are gonna hit em anyhow. Cuz it's foggy, or icy, or they are drunk, or fooling with a Blackberry, or asleep at the wheel.

There was some discussion about my wind turbine tower, whether it was within the 10-mile radius from the airport which requires FAA approval. The county planner said "They worry an airplane might hit it." I said, "Any airplane buzzing over my house at 65 ft has bigger problems than my wind turbine. I promise you that."

So is a sailboat or airplane (or raptor) more likely to hit a muted-color turbine than a bright white one?


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## scottbr (Aug 14, 2007)

Interesting, I drive through the wind farm in Shelburne, Ontario, 45 turbines, every weekend on the way to the boat and I have stopped a couple of times but have not noticed they are particularily noisy. 

I will have to make a point to stop next summer on a windy day, although I'm usually very anxious to get to the boat Friday night and passing through late Sunday to get home.


I would be interested to compare the amount of birds that are killed on the migratory routes flying into city skyscrapers verses running into turbines. This is a hot issue in Long Point Lake Erie.


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## pigslo (Nov 22, 2004)

Acceptance of the goes up directly with the price of energy.
Pigslo


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

scottbr said:


> Interesting, I drive through the wind farm in Shelburne, Ontario, 45 turbines, every weekend on the way to the boat and I have stopped a couple of times but have not noticed they are particularily noisy.
> 
> I will have to make a point to stop next summer on a windy day, although I'm usually very anxious to get to the boat Friday night and passing through late Sunday to get home.
> 
> I would be interested to compare the amount of birds that are killed on the migratory routes flying into city skyscrapers verses running into turbines. This is a hot issue in Long Point Lake Erie.


Love to hear what you find. Another bun fight has broken out around Wiarton. A wind energy company wants to erect some test towers (the prelude to getting an actual site plan together) around the area, but local council has refused to let it put them everywhere and anywhere, and instead focus on particular locations for the data collection.


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## Magic_Moments (May 15, 2003)

Our local power company is putting test turbines in underwater and people have concerns about fish kills. In reality they spin pretty slowly and it turns out that the tidal currents are much stronger deep underwater than they previously imagined.
I heard about a company that sells wind generators for your home. I looked them up and the one I looked at will generate electricity in 7mph of wind. Their website is www.pacwind.net. If I thought I had that much windspeed on my roof I would check on the prices because in Washington you can sell excess power back to the grid.
A boat on the next dock over has an older wind gen on his boat which is fairly loud at times, but so are all the loose banging halyards.


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## bobmcgov (Jul 19, 2007)

MM: I've looked into that PacWind. It's probably the best of a bad lot -- vertical axis turbines are inherently lousy for power generation, but straight-blade Darrius designs like this are the best of the worst. Especially for roof-top installs, though a rooftop is a tough place for any turbine. Lots of turbulence, and the vibrations can actually cause framing to fail. Can also induce subsonic toothaches. There are plenty of nonsense claims on the PacWind site, too, about bird strikes and regulation and noise. Beware a VAWT with high solidity, ala the 'squirrel cage'. The blades downwind will be shadowed too much from those upwind. Making a desperately inefficient design even more so.

It will spin in 7 mph, but it probably won't make goodly amps until about 12 -- that's the break-even for most wind power units. You'd be surprised how few places get regular 12 mph wind days. PacWind has done a splendid job of product placement. Guess that's a perk of locating in Cali, wangling endorsements from Hollywood celebs.

The underwater current/tidal turbines are an excellent idea. If they can be marinized and aren't an undue hazard to nav or critters, they hold much promise. Easy to install, steady (predictable) power inputs, out of view, and water carries sooo much more power than air.


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

Wind farms and underwater turbines make sense to me. As for noise, sound doesn't seem to travel over water very well. I'll take this source of energy over nuclear or fossel fuel any day.


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## I33 (Mar 5, 2007)

*Whaat?*

"... sound doesn't seem to travel over water very well."
--HUH?


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Umm... he's never been in a quiet anchorage when the last guy to anchor fires up his diesel genset... 


Tucan said:


> Wind farms and underwater turbines make sense to me. As for noise, sound doesn't seem to travel over water very well. I'll take this source of energy over nuclear or fossel fuel any day.


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## tommyt (Sep 21, 2002)

bobmcgov,

There is one place that you should add to your list of inappropriate places....In my back yard! Bottom line, that is the issue. People mention that they are 30 minutes away, or 15 miles, and they are not bothered. Now, someone does probably live near them......except the possiblity of Wyoming as we have been told. There is light pollution, noise pollution, eye pollution, etc. when you can see them.

We have a few wind turbines in northern Michigan. One in Traverse City, and a few that can be seen from the Mackinac Bridge. Large wind farms are being built as we speak in the Thumb area, and seem to be accepted there. The Traverse City wind turbine has been in place for years. The local energy company sells the wind generated energy at a premium...I believe 6%, to those that want it. 

I live in Leelanau County which is the little finger of Michigan's mitten. The company that is building the Thumb farm was doing exploratory work here. As the spine of the county is a bluff with Lake Michigan directly to the West, we have pretty consistent wind and lots of farm land. The majority of the farm owners liked the idea as they could generate income from the rental of the land under the turbine, but as time wore on even they were having second thoughts. The plan was to put up to a 100 of the turbines along the spine of the county.

Picture a resort area that prides itself on its natural beauty, fruit farms, views of Lake Michigan and Grand Traverse Bay. We have our share of light pollution now, but relative to any populated area, it is dark here. Now put up 100 400' towers, which Air Traffic will want lighted, and what do you have?

Please, not in my back yard!


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## bobmcgov (Jul 19, 2007)

Tommyt: very good post. It is perhaps worth remembering that everywhere is somebody's backyard (even Wyoming), and most people feel some affection toward the place they live. That's good! It's also good that people have a voice in how their neighborhood is used and developed.

One of the truisms of point-source, fossil-fueled power plants is that people often never see the place their electricity comes from. They are cleverly built in ravines, or behind embankments, or in poor districts or run-down fringe towns, or just out in the middle of nowhere. People don't see the big smokestacks or cooling towers or transmission pylons (which kill birds, too), they certainly don't see the gas pipelines or oil fields or huge coal strip mines that feed the maw. (I do, cuz most of em are _here._)

They also don't see the 50-70% transmission loss that results from siting power plants far away; nor the airborne mercury, nor the acid rain that for decades killed every fish in the lovely resort area of the Adirondacks, courtesy coal-fired Midwest power plants; nor the particulate smog that smudges even lovely landscapes and chokes our kids to death. Wind turbines have the misfortune of visibility; their impacts fall, as it were, at their own feet -- rather than miles away. They are a palpable reminder that our comfortable lifestyle requires hard choices. People hate to be told that.

Your mention of 'resort area' points to one factor involving wind power (or any industrial site): wealthy people, who use by far the greatest whack of natural resources, also object most strenuously and effectively to living near the machines that feed their appetites. They want fillet mignon, but they don't want a cattle feedlot upwind. They drive big cars a gazillion miles but won't have an oil refinery in their quaint little bedroom town. And so on. It's been called 'economic racism,' though I consider that phrase unhelpful.

But so many potentially great wind sites just happen to be in mountains (Aspen) or coastal areas beloved of people who don't want their expensive postcard viewshed altered and have the clout to stall development. See Ted Kennedy and his opposition to a Massachusetts offshore wind farm -- hey Ted, weren't you just ripping the Administration for sucking up to the oil, gas, and coal lobbies? Oh -- but you are a Kennedy _and this is your backyard._ I see.

But let's leave class and money out of the equation. I propose a merit-based scale for voting yea or nay on power plant siting: Any reprobate household which uses over 30 kWh per day doesn't get a vote. They are Part of the Problem and don't get to choose where their juice comes from. Households using 15-30 kWh are considered redeemable and may submit petitions, speak at public hearings, and vote in referenda. Households using under 15 kWh have got their karmic ducks properly aligned and shall have the casting vote in disputes over any new power sources, including wind development.

Whatd'ya think?


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

As a guy who does environmental studies for a living - I hate wind farms on the water. They want to put them in Lake Erie. I think the benefit to total cost ratio is bad. I really hate to see the things in the lake.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Another issue with coal fired power plants is that the ash is rather nasty toxic stuff... it has all sorts of heavy metals in it, etc.... Wind farms don't generate the levels of waste that coal-fired plants do.


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## tommyt (Sep 21, 2002)

Bob,

And, your choice would not be considered "economic racism"? I have to admit that in your pecking order I would not get a vote. I don't consider myself wealthy, but your definition and mine might be different.

I agree that we need to find some alternatives to fossil fuels. We and many other nations have been talking about that for 40 years with only slight results based on the time. Nuclear would seem to be the answer but nobody wants those in their back yards either. Just took one of them down along L. Michigan in the last couple of years. Wind farms are gaining and currently seem to be " in vogue", but the efficiency is still not there. Let's see how the "voters" in your equation vote when they find out that they have to pay an additional 6% a month to save the world. That is usually when the proverbial %^&*( hits the fan with them. 

At the end of the day where these alternatives(whatever they are) are located will be done by a vote. It will be the local municipalities that decide and everyone will get there vote as long as they live in the municipality. 

Fortunately, it will be up to the people and not just the local office holders to make this decision. That could be dangeroous. Remember, townships, county, and state offices are where people practice before they go to Washington or Ottowa. We all know how effective that practice has been.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

The major difference between wind farms and nuclear power plants are that wind farms tend not to leave nuclear waste lying around as a byproduct.  Granted, the nuclear power plants are probably a lot more efficient in terms of space required, but there's a lot of open windy areas where wind farms would make a lot of sense.


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## bobmcgov (Jul 19, 2007)

Tommy: my inclusion of the sliding scale was (somewhat) tongue-in-cheek, but it points out the real basic problem here: demand breedeth the need for capacity. And acute demand -- strained transformers, rolling blackouts -- breedeth poor decisions, as people want their electricity NOW. Americans use over twice as much electricity per household as Europeans or Japanese. That's largely because it has been so cheap and so plentiful for so long. There's been no reason for efficiency. Until now.

Depending on your statistics, the median US household consumes between 30 and 35 kWh per day. That number could easily be cut by two thirds, at some expense but with little to no degradation of creature comforts. I promise no one will have to fry eggs over a wood stove by candlelight. Now, people will have to change their behavior, but only insofar as that behavior is presently idiotic. To wit: don't heat your house to eighty in winter, then cool it to sixty in summer. Just reverse those numbers, you'll be fine.

Thirty-five kWh per household per day. For comparison, I consume 4.5 kWh per day for a (combined) 1200 sqft house and a light manufacturing business. Yeah, I run a modern, mechanized cabinet shop for one seventh the electricity most Americans use on just a house. So I know absolutely that it's possible. And what's more, it's easy. I don't sit around shivering in the dark, hacking ice off the sofa. And what's more, it's cheap. I pay $200 a year in utilities, for a little tank of propane that lasts 18 months.

So I do wonder if a person who uses electricity at the American median or above has any moral standing when they say "Not in my back yard." Because it's their behaviors and appetites that have forced us to choose between bad alternatives. They've placed the country in a bind, and I have precious little sympathy for their aesthetic sensibilities, sorry. Let them cease being the *cause* of new power installations, and I'll grant them standing in which flavor we choose -- and where it gets put.

Imagine a world where conservation got the median American household down to 12 kWh per day. In day-to-day living we'd barely notice the difference -- but Oh! what a difference. Then we could pick and choose where our electrons come from. Boutique energy sources like wind or solar become both feasible and economical, and they could provide a legitimate half of our needs. They'll never do that at current patterns of consumption, not tho wind turbines populate every hilltop and coast. We could retire the old, rotten coal plants and install the best clean coal technology and scrubbers.

At meetings over where to site wind turbines, someone could point to a map of Michigan, to Tommyt's backyard, and say: "Let not put any here. That spot is just too pretty." And everyone could agree, because we just don't need power that badly.

The greenest, cleanest, cheapest, most sustainable watt is the watt that's never generated. Conservation requires the smallest investment, yields large, immediate, and ongoing returns, and requires only proven technologies that are on the shelf today. Yet no-one is talking much about it. Until we face the fact of our own gluttony *and fix it,* the debate over power sources and siting will resemble nothing more than people standing in their Own Back Yards arguing over where to put the dungheap.

Tt and every who cares about these matters, I'd urge you to first get your own electricity use under 15 kWh per day. Or sooner or later, there will be wind turbines on your lovely piece of Michigan, because electrons are more valuable than cherries in America. (I'd like a world where we have both, please!)


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## Valiente (Jun 16, 2006)

Interesting post, Bob.

Being the product of Depression/war/thrifty Scots family, I am the guy in the house who follows my family around, turning out lights. Those lights are these days CFs or very low "ambient" lights (15w or 7w incandescents, just enough to see where you are going at night).

Our usage is way down, but could go further. I run a graphics business, and know that the draw on my old tower-sized PC is about 225 watts and that the new one is 325 w. I know this because I have a UPS that reports power usage. So I turn off my computers a fair bit, and have found that switching to LCDs saved watts.

But here's a problem: A lot of appliances today eat "phantom" power in the form of little LED displays or "pre-warmed" circuits or charging elements and the like. Few of us bother to actually UNPLUG certain appliances, but it is revealing to unplug the fridge and the wall clock and the obvious stuff...and to still see that little wheel in the electricity meter slowly twirling...

That's why in some ways I look forward to moving aboard a boat, where I will be MAKING every watt and KNOWING to which purpose/appliance it will go. I can't do that easily now in a house.


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## ReverendMike (Aug 1, 2006)

Very nice post, Bob.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Very well said Bob... there's a lot to be said for conserving energy... but given the American passion for McMansions and getting everything bigger and better... something I don't believe in personally... it is very hard to see that happening on a wide scale. 

When I sold my house in the DC area two years ago, the people who bought it decided it was too small and tore it down and built a 3500 sq. ft. house in its place. The house I sold was a five bedroom, with three full baths, and none of the bedrooms was smaller than 10 x 12. The lot was only a quarter acre lot... and the house that is on it now looks pretty ridiculous... The AC electrical service went from 100 Amps to 300 amps from what my realtor told me...


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## Valiente (Jun 16, 2006)

Can you imagine having 100 amps to play with on a boat? I'm trying to keep it to 150 amp/_hours_...

Our toys will hurt us, if we aren't careful.


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## TThomsen (Oct 9, 2007)

Back to the twist in the prop. This goes back to when I once upon a time learned to fly.

"..... all parts of the propeller, from the hub to the blade tips, have the same forward velocity, the rotational velocity – and thus the helical path of any blade station – will depend on its distance from the hub centre. Consequently, unless adjusted, the angle of attack, will vary along the length of the blade. Propellers operate most efficiently when the angle of attack at each blade station is consistent (and, for propeller efficiency, that giving the best lift drag ratio) over most of the blade, so a twist is built into the blades to achieve a more or less uniform angle of attack.

The blade angle is the angle the chord (chord def.: from the leading edge to the training edge of the blade" line of the aerofoil makes with the propeller's rotational plane and is expressed in degrees. Because of the twist the blade angle will vary throughout its length so normally the standard blade angle is measured at the blade station 75% of the distance from the hub centre to the blade tip. The angle between the aerofoil chord line and the helical flight path (the relative airflow) at the blade station is, of course, the angle of attack and the angle between the helical flight path and the rotational plane is the angle of advance or helix angle. The angle of attack and helix angle vary with rotational and forward velocity."

As for noise. I would not like live under a windmill. In Denmark as example you are not allowed to build a windmill within 150-200 meters from a house. due to noise. As the wind picks up the blade spins faster and becomes more noisy. 

Ever stood next to a Cessna 185 taking off. If it has a three blade prop it is not bad, but if it has a two blade prop it hurts. The reason is that the blades are longer and the tip actually breaks the sound barrier.


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## tommyt (Sep 21, 2002)

Bob,

I would think that you would probably not like the 10,000 plus Christmas lights that come on at dusk and go off 6-7 hours later based on timers. I do have to admit that they are a PITA to put up, but my wife and I think they are pretty, and they are only on for 30 days, so we deal with it. I looked at the meter once, but it was going too fast, so I covered it. 

Seriously, I know that we have a problem, and that we are a part of that problem. We burn carbon like it will never end. I also believe that we will find an alternative in our lifetime, and find a way to continue consuming. We are a spoiled group of generations, and will continue to be. Hopefully we leave our children and grand children enough to pay the utilitie bills. More important, we finance the educations that will find alternatives when the general public is willing to accept them.

Currently, I am looking for investments in coal and water. Coal, because as a country we have a huge supply and need to find a clean way to make it work. Water, because at the end of the day it is our biggest problem. Not because we will have to dodge the wind turbines, but because the world will run out of it first. 20% of the worlds supply is in the Great lakes, and it is going away too fast for my liking. Currently, nobody with a gun or a vote is pulling it out, but between what goes to cities on the lakes and what goes over the falls, things are not looking good. It takes something equilavent to 2 years to flush Lake Erie, but when it takes a hundred years to flush Superior, and it is down 8" this year, the stuff is about to hit the fan. Erie is still full, but if you don't live on it, who cares when Superior, Michigan, and Huron are down? Now there is another back yard to worry about, and it extends to the deserts of the Far East. Who cares what the price of oil is if the price of water is higher? Everyone does!

Plus, if you find a really clean way to generate power you will put Alex out of business. Have you ever seen a prettier boat and owner? Do you really want to spoil that for all of us?


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Valiente-

You do have 100 Amps available on your boat... just not for very long... 


Valiente said:


> Can you imagine having 100 amps to play with on a boat? I'm trying to keep it to 150 amp/_hours_...
> 
> Our toys will hurt us, if we aren't careful.


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

Been away for a while from this thread I started. A lot of good conversation happening. A couple catch-up points:
1. One of the vexing things about vacation property owners objecting to wind farms is that by definition they own two houses draining the grid: the big one back in the city, and the playground on the shore. And it's not a case of them occupying each only half of their living time, thus splitting the energy drain between them. Family members use the places, they're rented out, and when there's winter many of them are kept heated (often by electricity) just to keep the pipes from freezing so the owners can come up a couple days at Christmas. I have good friends who own vacation properties that can only be reached by boat and have a minimal energy footprint, but the trend here is toward full-fledged homes with more bells and whistles than my place (which is a proper two-story home, not some rural shack).
2. There was a good report on CBC the other night about the shocking mess of the Alberta oil sands project, which is basically a pollution spewing strip mine the size of Vancouver Island. A good book is out on Alberta's environmental mess, called Stupid to the Last Drop, which I haven't read yet. Out of sight, out of mind.
3. All comments about lack of consumer self-restraint are true. Like any gas, our consumption desires fill any space we allow it. Another television piece (maybe CBC again) had an exasperated consultant talking about how stupid our suburbs are. We build houses with black shingle roofs in subdivisions with no trees and with cavernous interiors because we assume that we're going to be able to air condition them to death. A lot of homes being built today are absolutely uninhabitable without central air, and I'm talking about homes up here in the Great White North, not in Arizona.
I don't think conservation really starts to happen until you own the consequences, either through higher costs (and I think a 6 percent increase is close to trivial, given the alternatives), environmental degradation, or some impediment on your ability to run eight loads of laundry a day and three plasma big screen tvs. Twelve years ago I moved out of the city to a property where I have municipal electricity, but my water comes from a well and my toilets and sinks drain into an aquarobic septic system. When you're running the pipes in and the pipes out, you pay a wee bit more attention. I think looking at a wind farm, whatever the aesthetics, is a pretty basic way of acknowledging that the energy you use has to come from somewhere. In Canada, we've done well to minimize our carbon emissions from utilities by using hydroelectric power (as well as nuclear), but that has come at the cost of tremendous amounts of terraforming by eliminating rapids and flooding huge areas of wilderness in the case of Hydro Quebec's James Bay/Great Whale projects. Ontario Hydro years ago even turned around an entire river heading to James bay and sent it to Lake Superior for hydroelectric generation. Compared to this kind of invasive strategy, a 21st century windmill seems almost laughably benign. The largest wind farm in Canada is now just outside Sault Ste-Marie, called Prince (the name of the township) on the east shore of Lake Superior. 126 turbines crank out 189 megawatts for the provincial power grid, enough to supply 40,000 homes. Maybe 80,000 if they turned down the air conditioning...


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## TThomsen (Oct 9, 2007)

There are well over 200 windmills on three wind farms in the Pincher Creek area of SW Alberta. They are operated by TransAlta Wind. TransAltaWind also operates windfarms in New Brunswick and Ontario.

Current production of Windpower in Canada is about 924MW, approx. 330 MW is produced in Alberta, and Saskatchewan that accounts for approx 3% of the population accounts for 17% of the wind electricity produced in Canada.


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## codmander (May 4, 2006)

great till ya hit 1...............


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## TSOJOURNER (Dec 16, 1999)

Very interesting thread; the size of some of the machines is pretty amazing. As all things there are negative and positive factors and most of these were pretty well presented here. Some of the same mindless who gives a **** about tree huggers and the enviroment remarks and some actual thoughtful options. The location is very important and should be tested and investigated to not have the same negative effect that the Altamont site caused in a narrow flyway. With thoughtful planning and more research hopefully wind will contrubute positivly to our energy problems......... learning to conserve is a very good start and long term cruisers seem to be very good at using eneryg wisely. Thank you for this thread and all the useful information.


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

An additional comment from me on the Ontario situation. In November 06 the NGO Energy Probe (which by nature is sympathetic to clean energy solutions) released a study of wind power performance in Ontario from May to OCtober 06. It was troubled to see the following issues:

• Capacity factor so far is 22.3% (not including results from a wind farm apparently experiencing start-up problems);
• Periods of very low or no production were particularly common during high-demand periods;
• High but highly variable wind production during low demand periods was common;
and
• The hourly production pattern in most months demonstrated a declining average output during the 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. period – a period when consumer power usage consistently increases.

So the solution is not perfect. I believe the wind farms need to function at least at 30 percent capacity to be economically viable (or sensible). Energy Probe was also concerned that siting decisions were being made without paying much attention to grid demands, energy loss in transmission, and the possibility for coordinating with neighboring jurisdictions (ie Quebec, Manitoba, border states) to ensure that the the infrastructure was built in the right place for the broader needs of the integrated grid. I've demonstrated my impatience with the NIMBY crowd, but I must say I'm also sympathetic to the possibility that large wind farms could end up being installed in entirely the wrong places (above and beyond wind).
One of the things the Energy Probe study underscored was a potential for meaningless "feel-good" installations. The single wind generator on the Toronto waterfront looks lovely, but the operator, Windshare, wouldn't even provide Energy Probe with its full capacity and operating figures for the months of the study. Energy Probe did learn that in its first 42 months of operation, the turbine's average capacity was a dismal 14.7%. Toronto is just not a place to go spending money on wind farms. Local sailors know all too well why Humber Bay right offshore is called the Humber Hole, especially in August, when all those air conditioners need juice.


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## Johnrb (Sep 21, 2002)

Diva 27:

I've also read the Energy Probe report and reliability of wind is a problem. Unfortunately for Ontario, wind resources aren't often in the right places when it comes to grid efficiency, demand, etc. Another constraint is known in the business the "Orange Blob" (link below). This is area where the Ontario Power Authority has placed restrictions on new projects due to transmission constraints. This area also conforms to many areas where there are decent wind resources.
http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/sop/Page.asp?PageID=829&ContentID=4061&SiteNodeID=162

With respect to wind turbine variability, check the work being done with vanadium redox batteries. I've provided some links below. See the Sorne Hill wind farm in Ireland where there is a large scale pilot project to load shift using this type of battery (built by VRB power in Vancouver).

http://www.vrbpower.com/applications/renewable-resources.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorne_Hill_wind_farm


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

Much thanks for the tip


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## slocum2 (Jul 4, 2003)

Today oil reached $100/barrel. Alternatives anyone?


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

Besides a Honda Civic?
Energy Probe, the nonprofit NGO I mentioned above, analyses utility initiatives in the province, looking for clean solutions that will also be reliable and meet consumer demands. It does think there's a place for windpower, or at least is cautiously supportive, with caveats. It doesn't like nuclear, but interestingly is very big on "clean coal."
Another note/update. The Georgian Bay Asssociation, an org of cottage associations on the east shore of the bay, claims it talked Ontario Power Authority out of laying a new transmission corridor up the shore to handle proposed wind power input to the grid. The Wikwemikong reserve on western manitoulin island has been talking about a massive wind farm which I now realize is supposed to go on property they own on the mainland, at Point Grondine on the east side of Beaverstone Bay. But I haven't a clue how they'd ever get all that juice to market.
Toronto Intl Boat Show opens i think Jan 12. I may have to dig myself out of the snow and go look at yacht stuff. Spring launch is still four months away.


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## Diva27 (Nov 2, 2007)

*wind power update*

Sorry, meant to get this up sooner. On January 17, the province of Ontario lifted a one-year moratorium on considering applications for wind farm installations in Great lakes waters. The province was apparently goaded into doing so by initiatives in Ohio to put wind farms in lake Erie. Georgian Bay is a highly logical place, from a power generation point of view, but it's said that because of concerns over winter ice, we're more likely to see offshore wind farms first on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. 
I've been trying to keep pace with this issue on my website, sweetwatercruising.com. 
Much thanks again for all who contributed opinions and experiences to this discussion earlier. 
doug


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## T37Chef (Oct 9, 2006)

I'm late to this discussion, but there has been allot of chat about the use of public land for Wind Farms in Western Maryland.

See here http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-te.md.wind29jan29,0,5615429.story

I am not against the farms, just not on public land designated as park land.


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## sailaway21 (Sep 4, 2006)

Energy storage is an obvious problem with most alternative energy sources. We all know the problems with battery storage. One of the nuclear power plants on the west coast of Michigan has an innovative idea that might lend itself to alternative energy as well.

The plant has an optimum operational range wherein it is most efficient. ideally one would like to run in that range continuously but the demands for power have peaks and valleys. What is done at this plant, along the lakeshore, is use the excess power to run pumps. Water in pumped many miles north to a huge man made lake where it is stored. When energy demands rise the flow is reversed and the water flows south where it turns turbines to generate additional power.

The obvious benefit is that you need a proportionally smaller power plant that you are able to run at peak efficiency continuously.

A note on conservation. It doesn't work. I should say that it doesn't work on other than a personal basis. It sounds great as a plan and yes, I'm one of those types who is always turning off the lights and see's no reason why a five foot sixteen year old girl needs more than 7 minutes in the shower once a day to complete her ablutions. (I thought five minutes appropriate but the energy czar was feeling particularly beneficent towards the daughter the day that regulation was drawn up.) I'd add, as a personal note, if you do not have a programmable thermostat on your furnace you're really missing out on some savings. They even come in versions that will lie. You can adjust the stat so that it will display 80 degrees when it's 75, so grandma "feels" warmer.

The history of energy consumption is that when products become more efficient, people use more of them. Fuel efficient cars in the 1970's through the 1980's are a case in point. There was a dip in miles driven in the seventies, along with increased car-pooling. Once energy efficient cars arrived, the miles driven not only went back up, it climbed even more rapidly. The same is true in water usage. As a water well driller I can tell you that the demand for residential water volume continues to climb each year. Low capacity toilets and water outlet restrictors have done nothing to decrease the overall water used. I've heard of a study done in an Iowa town where they installed energy efficient light bulbs in 50% of the towns houses and energy consumption actually went up. People spend the savings in increased usage whether it's water or energy. Homes are increasingly run with either the windows never opened or even no provision for opening the windows. Actual usage in homes that wouldn't have even had air-conditioning equipment 30 years ago is to run heat in the winter and transition into a/c immediately, with some homes running both systems within the same day. it's far more common than you'd think. That's why I say "conservation" doesn't work. What does?

Well, the market does. The only thing that will reduce energy consumption is cost. I live on the "Dutch" side of my street. My neighbor across the street must not share my cultural leanings. His a/c system runs all summer long. I do not have an a/c system, even though I work for a company that has a whole division devoted to heating and cooling. I could get a deal. I thought of installing a/c but I found that the trees I planted 15 years ago have taken me out of the market. I now enjoy enough shade that there are only a few days a year where I'd want a/c. I bought a window shaker unit some three years ago and have used it for one week, during one summer, since purchase. It's in the garage if Al Gore turns out to be right. The reason I did not take my company up on "the deal" is that I could envision my family using it when they were "uncomfortable", ie...if we had it we'd use it. I decided to save not only the capital cost but reap the energy savings as well. My neighbor built his house and what trees that weren't cut down during building he removed afterwards, for reasons that escape me. What will cause him to shut the a/c down and open a window? Cost, nothing less.

Everybody is in favor of energy conservation, particularly someone else's energy conservation. Mandating it though is a wrong headed policy. Let the market do it. As stated in an earlier post, you're not going to see much in the way of nukes or wind farms until the cost of energy rises to overcome public opposition. It'd be nice to think that we could centrally plan a wind farm or nuclear plant evey so many square miles but that's not how the market or the real world works. If certain areas are demonstrably superior for wind generation, wind generation will happen when the price of the energy supplied reaches a level where the acquisition of the land is such that the current owners cannot afford not to sell. Nothing else really works on a societal scale.


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## sailaway21 (Sep 4, 2006)

BTW,
The Gulf of Mexico, where all those oil platforms are, has shipping lanes set up so as to avoid striking them or submerged well heads. You cannot just set any course you want on an ocean-going ship when transitting the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, I'm not sure that you can count on all of them even being charted. The problems of offshore windfarms are certainly surmountable if the efficiencies are there.


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