German wind turbine industry bidding to replace nuclear sector

[Fledermaus]

Hanover, Germany - Germany's wind turbine industry said Tuesday it could replace the country's nuclear power production with ease - provided conservationists dropped opposition to the turbines spoiling local skylines.

Germany has currently taken eight of its 17 nuclear plants out of service since the Fukushima disaster in Japan and officials in Berlin say a current three-month review is likely to speed up the timetable to end domestic nuclear power completely.

At the Hanover Fair, the Federal Wind Energy Federation (BWE) said its member companies could build erect turbines in two to three years to replace the power generated by the eight idle reactors.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1630900.php/German-wind-turbine-industry-bidding-to-replace-nuclear-sector

BWE quoted a study it ordered from a scientific team suggesting that wind could generate 390 terawatt hours of electricity per year in Germany, provided 2 per cent of the country's land area was available to build wind towers on.

That generating capacity would be double the current input from nuclear power. In recent years, one quarter of German electricity has been nuclear-generated. But BWE warned that wind power varies with the weather, and needs back up from reservoirs.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Will there be egg beaters? Please say there will be egg beaters,

[gateley]

2. I hadn't seen those -- cool! And they're not taking up acres of land - just hanging

out over an ugly autobahn. :hi:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Sorry, didn't check my work, it's a student design concept, however this is

promising and who knows, we may see them over some highways in the future.

http://www.abdolian.com/thoughts/?p=2806



At a mere 36 inches tall, the Jellyfish plug-in wind appliance can generate about 40 kilowatt hours each month, that’s enough to light a home using high-efficiency bulbs.

The Jellyfish Wind Appliance consists of the following parts:

A vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT)
A solid-state controller
A variable-speed induction generator

In order to reduce the demand for costly transmission infrastructures, the Jellyfish can work in tandem with the existing power grid and can deliver power exactly where it is needed.

[gateley]

15. Interesting nonetheless. I hope the companies seriously review these student

concepts instead, as usual, with just going with what we have -- no innovation.

I REALLY like these things! :hi:

[Buzz Clik]

3. Whoa! Why isn't every inch of interstate highway peppered with those things?

[Nihil]

4. Maybe because photoshop is different from real life?

Or do you have roads that look like the left side of that photo?
:shrug:

[Buzz Clik]

8. ..

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. It's a student's design concept, read here:

http://inhabitat.com/student-designs-highway-power/

The great thing about collaborative design sites like Archinect is that they allow brilliant student ideas to escape the confines of studio and get the attention they deserve. Case in point is Arizona student Joe who posted this amazing idea on his Archinect school blog for a highway wind turbine would harvest the wind created by fast-moving automobiles to send power back into the grid. If feasible, this wind turbine project could be easily retrofitted to transform most of the world’s highways into endless power sources. Imagine highways being known for their power generation instead of their traffic!

[Nihil]

7. Sadly, the student doesn't know much about the laws of thermodynamics.

> Case in point is Arizona student Joe who posted this amazing idea on his Archinect
> school blog for a highway wind turbine would harvest the wind created by fast-moving
> automobiles to send power back into the grid. If feasible, this wind turbine project
> could be easily retrofitted to transform most of the world’s highways into endless
> power sources.

TANSTAAFL.

The "wind created by fast-moving automobiles" is generated mostly by petrol,
some diesel and a tiny tiny fraction of electricity. In other words, it isn't
"wind" as such, it is a measure of the inefficiency of the vehicles passing
underneath which are losing energy input (the fuels listed above) by means
of moving the air in front, to the sides and above the vehicles. This means
that the more aerodynamic the vehicle, the less "wind" is created by their
passing.

Now the above is in a "free world" situation where the air movement can
propagate until it fades out. If you insert a baffle in the path of that
air (e.g., a windmill blade) then there is suddenly a lot more resistance
to movement away from the vehicle and so it will take a lot more fuel to
overcome that resistance in order to keep the vehicle moving at the same
speed.

Hence any electricity generated by "the wind created by fast-moving automobiles"
is actually being generated (in a particularly inefficient manner) by the
increased fuel consumption in those vehicles. (And that's before taking
the inefficiencies of the generator, conversion & transmission into account.)

Architecturally pretty for sure but scientifically abyssmal.

[Buzz Clik]

10. Sometimes the wind just blows.

The basic concept (wind from cars) may be flawed, but the I like idea.

[PamW]

11. Correct - the designer knows nothing of thermodynamics

The "wind created by fast-moving automobiles" is generated mostly by petrol,
some diesel and a tiny tiny fraction of electricity. In other words, it isn't
"wind" as such, it is a measure of the inefficiency of the vehicles passing
underneath which are losing energy input (the fuels listed above) by means
of moving the air in front, to the sides and above the vehicles. This means
that the more aerodynamic the vehicle, the less "wind" is created by their
passing.
============================================================

This is about as bad as a California inventor who wanted to put little "ramps" on the roads such that when
the cars passed over them and pushed them down, the recovered energy would be turned into electricity.

http://www.greenrightnow.com/kabc/2009/07/10/electro-kinetic-road-ramp-powers-up-by-pushing-down/

The ramps add resistance to the passage of cars, and the energy expended in pushing down the little ramps
comes from the engine of the car. Therefore, this scheme was merely a rather inefficient way of harvesting
the power of the gasoline engines of the cars. A more efficient scheme would be to buy some gasoline engines
and hook them up to generators.

Any time you think you are getting "free energy" or a "free lunch"; a study of the laws of physics will show
you that is merely a delusion on your part.

PamW

[kristopher]

12. That analysis is myopic

It presupposes that somehow the electricity produced has an attached increased energy cost of operation of the vehicle. It doesn't. The wind is already being pushed by the car whether the turbine is there or not.

I doubt it would be a meaningful contribution to our energy problems; not because of your inappropriate invocation of physics but because there are better wind resources where we would get more bang for our scarce energy infrastructure buck.

[GliderGuider]

13. I agree. the problem in this case is less one of thermodynamics than of scale n/tt

[Buzz Clik]

9. Thanks!

They'd better make the egg beaters bullet proof. ;)

[grahamhgreen]

14. Simply put, wind is cheaper, safer, cleaner, faster. And the price of wind never goes up.

[txlibdem]

16. MagLev Wind Turbines

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWKNMt9rsIA - generates as much electricity as 500 "regular" wind turbines, needs 100 acres total for each site.
...and...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7Qs2gFlt-o

Why mess around with tiny 3 or 5 MegaWatt wind turbines... Go for a 2 GigaWatt magnetically levitated wind turbine.