Comments for Wind Farm Realities

Comment on Turbulent Character by NIABY

NIABY — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:48:38 +0000

Victims of industrial wind turbines have been asking the same things: what are the benefits that outweigh all of this suffering?

(Thanks Wayne for summarizing this interesting article.)

Comment on Turbulent Character by jmdesp

jmdesp — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 09:42:34 +0000

Actually the grid operators certainly know all of this, and have developed solution.
The current system of “must take” that most wind power works under means that the wind farm operator don’t have to care about the problem, and it’s up to the grid operator to find a solution. It’s not really something new for them, because industrial users have since long generated the same kind of problems in the reverse direction, large fluctuation of the power demand. They are several a large number of solution for short term power compensation on the grid :
http://www.alstom.com/finland/products-and-services/alstom-grid-in-finland/power-compensation-solutions/
http://tdworld.com/archive/supervar-synchronous-condenser-generates-reactive-power-ohio-grid

The two problems that this still raises is that the related expenses are not taken into account when calculating the cost of wind power, and also that at a large penetration of wind power, such solutions won’t be sufficient anymore to maintain an adequate level of power.

There’s basically no public information about how precisely the grid operators handle all of that. Getting information about what is done in Spain would be specifically interesting since that’s a grid with both large wind penetration and little connexion with anybody else.

There’s however one case of high penetration level of wind that is simpler to analyze, and about which there’s quite some info that can be collected. That’s the Falkland islands : http://www.falklands.gov.fk/our-home/renewable-energy/
It’s only winds turbine + diesel generator. It’s interesting to see that the first 3 turbines brought a 26% reduction in fuel usage, but the 3 next ones pushed that to only 35/40%. They also needed to install flywheels to compensate for short term variations.
But that wasn’t still really enough. This (no more freely accessible) page http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/feature/2042919/falkland-islands-delivered-worlds-wind-powered-smart-grid documents how the developed a system to vary the pitch of the blades in order to set production at a fixed level and not have it vary too much. The following document from Enercon has also some details about this and the computerized power management system that makes it work : http://www.vetropark.org/d/59743/d/enercon_stand-alone_en.pdf
They had considered using a 2 MWh battery to get beyond that point, but they’ve visibly given up : http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/7404/40-wind-energy-in-the-falklands/

Comment on Chapman’s Nocebo Study by jmdesp

jmdesp — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:53:55 +0000

It’s interesting to read about the town of Falmouth where the resident are fighting hard to try to get 2 turbine removed, and finding out this would be atrociously expensive.
In the following report, one can see that several of the annoyed inhabitant were initially very much in favor of the project before suffering the symptoms :
http://climatide.wgbh.org/2011/03/the-falmouth-experience-life-under-the-blades/
http://climatide.wgbh.org/2011/03/the-falmouth-experience-the-green-debate/
“Meeting with those people quite honestly blew our minds,” Argo said. “We had expected that they would be kind of wacky. And we would be able to dismiss them. And none of us will dismiss their complaints now.”

Comment on Kouwen on Noise by jmdesp

jmdesp — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:14:44 +0000

hi, do you know about this wind noise study by Chris Kapsambelis which might be an interesting addition to your own effort ?
http://windwisema.org/about/noise/acoustics-and-wind-turbine-noise/

Comment on Welcome! by Craig

Craig — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:49:26 +0000

I think N0.2 said it best:”Dr.Evil there is no government, it’s only corporations.” Living in south-east Alberta our area has been swooped in on by some BlueEarth company from the city wanting to put up all these ‘wonderful wind turbines’. What better to make our dirty, oil industry evil province look a little cleaner right? And on top of that, the power is, in theory, going to the schools. Who could possibly oppose that? Only a hand-full of us in this area do, and it’s because we’ve done the research at our own will. The only wiff of question towards them I’ve ever seen on TV or any public info, was a CBC Doc Zone episode hmm-ing and haw-ing wind turbines in Ontario, so the ending solution was to send them west. Great. But the pushing, and positive b.s. of them we all see, is very well funded, and it has become a knee-jerk response to accept anything under the label of “green energy”. The new A.D.D. generations will have to scrounge up the effort to seek out the “cons” of all the “pros” they’re only being fed. When reality is ‘like’, totally ‘neg’, they pull the ‘ignorance is capitalist bliss’ hoody over their heads, and text themselves to sleep. Temporary bliss it is. I’ll take a nuclear, and solar power source any day over these stupid, quick-buck, super-subsidized wind turbines.

Comment on Lake Huron Pictures by Sue

Sue — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 18:30:35 +0000

Hi,

I realize that I am late in getting to the table, but I would be interested in seeing your spreadsheet –if you are still interested in sharing it.

Thank you for taking the time to track this program.

Susannah

Comment on Chapman’s Nocebo Study by Wind Industry Pulling Out All the Stops to Defend Its Technology | Vermonters for a Clean Environment's Blog

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:13:41 +0000

[...] April 8: In his analysis and commentary of this study, Wayne Gulden points out: [Chapman] ”designed a study whose outcome could safely be [...]

Comment on Who Am I? by Not just NIMBYs: understanding anti-wind energy campaigners | barnard on wind

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 09:34:07 +0000

[...] Sarah Laurie (Australia), Jane Wilson (Ontario), Eric Rosenbloom (National Wind Watch, Vermont), Wayne Gulden (US and Ontario), the Wrightman clan (Ontario), various pseudonymous online types (Valewood, [...]

Comment on Chapman’s Nocebo Study by Dan wrightman

Dan wrightman — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:18:18 +0000

Dr. McMurtry has a commentary on Chapman’s nocebo study as well.
https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/mcmurtry-commentary-on-chapman-nocebo-paper/

Comment on Chapman’s Nocebo Study by Andreas Marciniak

Andreas Marciniak — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 08:59:07 +0000

One of the houses in the Photo of Waterloo South Australia, Is my Home, I don’t ever recall getting a call from Simon Chapman, asking me why I had to leave it and go and leave in my Mums shed, that just happened to be on one of the busiest streets in Adelaide, if you know Adelaide at all, her Home is by the South road over pass, very laud and noise, funny I could sleep there, and NO headaches , after 1 year I had to move as Mum past away, then because I could NOT go back to my Home, My brother in law offered me to stay with him, as he also had bad inexperience from the Turbines in Waterloo and he knows how badly we get affected from the Turbines, so much that he wrote a letter of complaint to the Sydney Uni to complain about Simon Chapman and his attitude towards the people that are effected by Turbines .
I also know three of my Neighbours, two Families have been there for generations , they also moved out because of the Turbines , I bet that Simon Chapman didn’t talk to them , and asked them why they moved, it’s funny that isn’t it ?.
Now I would like to also let you know that Dr. Sarah Laurie is NOT a scare monger, she is a wonderful Lady, that I invited to come to Waterloo AFTER we send letter of complaint to Council , E,P,A , and Roaring 40s and lets not forget Truenergy the new owner of the Industrial Waterloo Turbines , when she came to my Home to let me know what might be going on , she first asked me and 4 other people that I asked to come and see what Dr. Sarah Laurie could tell us , she first asked each of us about what we are feeling and why I asked her to come, after we all told her what was happing to us , she told us that similar problem are happening in lots of other places around the word, and she is right, I’m in Germany at this time , and I have been talking to people here that have the same problems here as we do, and they been complaining for 20 years, and most of the ill effects are the same all around the worlds where you find Larger Turbines, I have done my own resurge on Wind Turbines for over 2 years, I have a Terabyte of Info from all around the world , If Simon Chapman done sum real resurge he would be fighting this just as hard as he did the Tobacco companies .

Regards, a Wind Turbine Refugee