@sawboman
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From what I have seen and heard, (though not from my source in a little while) routine maintenance work is both planned and undertaken. The designs have been improved over time to make it less arduous. This might be one factor out of several that make gearboxes less of an issue. I believe, though have not had this stated to me, that telemetry checks pretty much constantly and any detected change out of normal running is instantly highlighted. Blade failure is highly undesirable, it tends to be very destructive. I believe they are planned to last for the life of the installation. However, unless the failure was destructive, I guess similar methods are used to remove and install any new item. I do not expect they are yet stock items, certainly not from B&Q, Wicks or ScrewFix!
Eon, did not appear to see decommissioning as a huge issue for them and I believe that they have a bit of experience. Rather, they were suggesting that it was part of routine planning, maintenance and capital allocation for them. Having said that, blades are possibly the biggest issue for a dismantling and recycling operation, hence my suggestion of using a purpose built vessel.
The Blyth link was interesting though I wonder how valid any conclusion could be. It was really little more than a two unit research project using what are now considered almost ‘domestic size toys’. The entire set up produced less than half of one new unit so was long longer worthwhile. There were also comments suggesting that 20 year life spans are now being upped to 25 years. That Blyth is being abandoned also appeared to be contestable, the suggestion being that new technology might well still be deployed at the site in the future since the site itself as ‘proven’. I am not surprised that disposal facilities are not yet available since the scale of dismantling is too small to yet warrant large investment. With marine sites, I assume that a dismantling ship may well be involved. A dedicated vessel able to take down old gear, shred unusable parts, erect replacements and hold reusable kit would appear to be a sensible answer to avoid multiple handling. I am not surprised it does not exist at present.
I sincerely doubt that the emerging generation of installations will be a one shot wonder to be abandoned after 20 years, replaced or augmented after 20~30 years appears rather more likely with an emerging new business of managing the replacement cycle being a vital part of the future process.
Perhaps I share your apparent lack of taste for so called FoE, (a foe to everything) and Greennoise. Both make their turn by bigging up every disaster they dream up. Why anyone should have any sympathy with their wild unthinking protests and lack of alternative ideas is for others to guess.
Thank you, Lee, that I plan to try to achieve.
Bob, those photographs go some way toward recording the wide open and essentially flat nature of the area. In fact many would suggest it has so few features that the windmills lift the aspect by providing some height and improved depth. Be that as it may, I suspect that it also makes the area well suited to marine windmills. The absence of other geological or building structures minimises wind deflection and, I understand that the sea depth is not great. I do not know the range of wind speeds that are encountered, nor the number of still languid days.
Based on the limited performance of early terrestrial installations, excess hyperbole and the general ignorance of many at the time I never expected wind installations to achieve much. I was wrong, huge advances have been made and the contributions can be both large and beneficial. Seasonal factors are being worked through, coupling this with improvements in the efficiency of power consumption I see the prospects of their value continuing to grow. Perhaps not at the speed that some might desire, but at a pace that might be physically and economically achievable. Diversifying the range of sites is still desirable, but geological and climatic demands limit which areas can be utilised. Managing slack output times remains an issue, so some form or forms of energy storage are vital. I remain sceptical that stored water will be more than a fractional possibility in the UK, batteries in forms that are currently emerging or might be yet to emerge are an exciting prospect. Hydrogen, has ever been the bridesmaid never the bride to date, people say its time is coming, perhaps it will. If power production cost continue to reduce along the current trend lines its production would be cost manageable and its ability to provide a range of utilisation options appeal. However, I see it as an industrial option not a widespread deployment into many consumer level choices. Even this could change Toyota are very gung-ho for it and their fuel cell, I am happy to be proved wrong.
I have some limited experience of silting, said to be the major issue with many plans for tidal and river barrages. I can therefore understand the position of those technical experts who suggest such scheme might have very short life spans due to the effects of site. Then there are their possible impacts of local ecology and in some cases trade and industry. No one can afford nor wants more white elephants.
No, not a real search, I just tried to wake up forgotten brain cells that get stuck with words I cannot spell. Some are easy, but man made and those loved by the modern battery sector, are a different issue. Their prices/value also fluctuate quite widely.
I suggest the traditional metals and not the modern exotics which many have possibly not heard about.
After 25 years or so of use my aerial feed produced similar performance to that you which reported. It turned out that the coax had essentially rotted away on the passage from the roof to somewhere more useful. I do not ‘do’ roof visits, so I needed the help of an expert who had not seen a rotted installation like mine work at all. The inner and outer were not separated by anything except a bit of surface corrosion. The connections you are looking at are an obvious first port of call, but there might just be other issues.
Ed, I’ll grant you that one advantage, though the downsides included all the miners with black lung and other worse complications. On balance, it was probably about a 1% upside and 99% downside. The point I was trying to make was that overall, even the most terrible downside of well sited windmills are probably close to the other way round. Poorly sited land based and even poorly sited marine installations are a different bowl of poison. Some barely generated enough output to run their services while creating noise and many other disturbances. They gave the installations a bad name.
Several tall buildings had wind generators embedded in the building at higher levels with the idea of generating power to at least keep essential service working. I have yet to hear of any such bright idea installs generating anything of value, most had been decommissioned due to their damaging side effects and negligible output.
It is the old story, a good idea done well is fine, even the brightest idea done badly fails.
I suspect that the information is generally available, but that one site wanted you to sign in so that they could track who was interested. I am going from memory now, I saw the factory back in about 1963/4. The units I remember seeing were larger than those referenced on the illustration. However, be warned in the same trip I also saw some torpedo milling lathes and boy were those big beasts. They could turn things that were up to perhaps 2 or 3 feet in diameter and maybe over 20 feet long. They were not for amateurs!
The previous advantage of spinning devices is said to have been their inertia and thus resistance to sudden changes. My understanding is that there is a current generation of solid state devices as good at producing stable, frequency controlled outputs. However, their deployment into networks with a heterogeneous array of devices that lack such finesse, while mandated had not been completed during the previous big outage – the one worsened by the train sets with controllers that were out of spec.
I have considerable sympathy for the operators of the highly complex mix of demands and capabilities now being presented by today’s network topology. It is dynamic with a range of variables as huge inductive loads and presented and removed, there are changes in power-factors with the increasing use of e.g. LED devices with their capacitor droppers and so on. As far as I can see some demands may lie outside the supply agreements accepted by customers. At one point some generator sets were kept spinning as parasites providing their characteristics to help stabilise networks, that might still be the case.
Over 50 years ago I visited a Vickers plant near Southampton where they manufactured and then serviced the Vickers VSG units. VSG stood for variable speed gear or gears. In essence, it was a series of small pistons that ran in a plate that not only rotated but could be tilted. In the neutral position the piston did not go in or out relative to the plate so nothing was pumped. As it was tilted so the travel of the pistons increased and with suitable valves so the pumping action increased or decreased. The oil was piped to a similar setup where the pressure drove the unit. Both ends were capable to altering their angle of attack of their swash plates so very fine speed and power transfer control was possible. They said that some units were returned for service after 60(?) or more years of use with no signs of wear. Perhaps, because the moving parts were submerged in and constantly lubricated by oil. As I understood their presentation many units were quite heavy and were intended for marine use. I agree that a less heavy version does sound suited to such use as the management system for a windmill, subject to licensing and development considerations. No doubt Not Invented Here syndrome might have been an issue. There are other variable and constant speed device designs available. You might need to consider cooling the oil as it is likely that it would be worked very hard during strong wind conditions.
I guess I am not in the mood to challenge much. So far, I have no issues it is all working smoothly, thank you, Lee.
It is amazing how many side issues creep out of the woodwork when you change one item in some software.
There are upside and downsides to everything, hot or warm water outfalls from power stations do modify local micro climates causing some plant and animal life to flourish and some to reduce. The effluent from coal-fired stations had no health benefits and tried to lay forests waste along with animal, other plant, insect and bird life. As I said earlier, marine windmills do require extensive artificial mini reefs and within short periods they are colonised by plant and then fish life and used as spawning grounds as the spinning disks keep some flying predators away and the underwater weed provides protection and food.
I was surprised to see the extent of windmill deployment in rural USA, their wide open largely flat if slightly undulating plains appear to provide ideal wind areas, they change views but can appear relatively restful and with suitable design not too intrusive.
Ed is right, early examples did have a habit of expensive and sometimes catastrophic failure and I share his understanding that gearbox designs have had to be improved. Youtube had some November the 5th worthy examples of costly failures when systems ran out of control and self-destructed. I also understand that some sites were later found to be sub-optimal as adjacent buildings, hills, valleys or other features caused excessive vortexes. Blade failures were another earlier feature of some design. I believe this may have been coupled with the gearbox and variable blade alignment issues.
That is not an issue I encounter as I do not use a signature. In fact, I have seen no issues to date.
January 11, 2020 at 5:08 pm in reply to: Read First if flying on a Boeing 737 Max–or maybe not! #39614Bob, having lived and worked out there I can understand something of what very likely went on. Different silos exist with few if any channels of communication directly between them. There is also a lot of ‘face’ to protect. No one would trust the lot next door. I have just dug out this nugget, quote, ‘Gen Hajizadeh also said the aircraft was shot down by a short-range missile that exploded next to it. He said he informed the authorities about what had happened on Wednesday, days before Iran publicly admitted its involvement.’
I have had to change my draft after find his revelation but feel that the next part still stands as likely.
Even there the sticky, smelly brown stuff, does not easily travel upwards or across. Often the only way that the silos exchange information is after it reached the top and only then can it cross the barriers. Usually after it has been filtered and cleansed. Now it has hit the fan. Some senior ranks of what passes for the government are said to be livid as are large numbers of the general populace. Blaming the probably poorly trained, weakly supervised, relatively trigger-happy moron who fired the missile is only part of the problem. While some passengers and crew probably did know, however briefly what hit them it is only today that some relatively senior government members possibly found the lurid truth. This was days after those outside and some inside already had a fair idea of the hideous truth. No wonder they are writhing about like fish on a line. They are the fish, and they are on a very uncomfortable line. Somehow they have to convince the populace they are not running a cowboy shambles. Duck shoving will be their first instinct.
Sadly we cannot run our children’s lives, we can only stand on the sidelines and hope that wiser councils may one day prevail.
January 11, 2020 at 8:22 am in reply to: Read First if flying on a Boeing 737 Max–or maybe not! #39589Iran has now admitted that they shot the plane down, I for one am not surprised that was the outcome, if for no other reason than the evidence both real and more circumstantial was pointing rather strongly and increasing that way. It does look like trigger-happy human error as have many of the previous incidents of this type, what is interesting is that this time the ‘guilty’ party have now come out and quite honestly eaten a generous slice of humble pie.
I can now say my previously private thoughts were, missile, bomb and catastrophic engine explosion possibly through a fuelling error, though this was a considerably less likely event. The loss of all radio output did point to something destructively and totally disabling. Engines rarely let go with that degree of complete destruction, though they can rarely cause additional damage not compatible with sustained flight.
Yes, whatever you do, avoid speculating it only brings worries. The appointments still go on, it is just that they are not so intense now. In fact, she has another in a week or so. This will be a six-month one I think, but there are others still in the pipeline for blood tests, injections for another four years and so on.
Because of Graham’s bother I did not speak of the other Christmas entertainments we had. On Christmas eve I was dropped off for a 7:00 a.m. appointment for a hip injection. I waited, gaining an idea where some NHS money goes. Patients were not prepared in time for the theatre, so for every one the operating theatre staff came up and to find their missing customer. I was finally ushered into the changing room, come store cupboard, come broken kit dumping area. I closed the curtain only to hear my name being called. The doctor/surgeon was so annoyed at the delays he came up in person to collect me. I had barely started to get changed. He was far from pleased, the theatre costs £20 per minute, so he said “you and I are paying for all this lost time“. I calculated that one morning had lost at least £1,400 of theatre time. Later, he saw me in recovery and dictated his letter. I received it in the mail a few days later. Sadly, the procedure was only diagnostic and has not worked, so back to the drawing board, but knowledge has been gained. I was barred from driving, signing contracts or anything else risky for 48 hours after the anaesthetic, so had a quiet Christmas time. Just as well, my wife’s issue then flared up. She has a throat pouch and was suffering severe refluxing. A trip to the locum GP produced a great treatment and within two hours relief swept in, much to her relief.
My sinus scan last Saturday went well, in and out again in just over half an hour, result.
Oh, one other upbeat note, I might have said in the past, our disabled daughter is on a foundation course. She has received an invitation to one of her choices of University for the end of the month. That might be looking up, supported living has really turned her round, she has also ditched the ‘boyfriend’ finally admitting that it was going nowhere.
I am not sure what you have done, or what has been done to upset the apple cart, but I do feel that could just be a little hard or harsh. However, I do speak as someone who has been out of the loop for a while and has only recently returned, but for the moment I am not facing any issues. Another site from which I receive regular mails does have problems because stop list are regularly being invoked by certain carriers who then take for ever to clear the blocking. BT I am talking about you behind your back.
While I cannot say I have used it myself, in my experience anti-depression medication is widely misunderstood and not always well-used. It is not a solution, but if used correctly and in the correct formulation it can buy time for a depressive to clamber out of the hole into which they have been cast. However, there are many causes of depression, post medical trauma is only one. It may be more easily treated and be suitable for a range of treatments, e.g. ‘your look at the experience in a positive manner’. Can undoubtedly be the starter for a route back to better understanding and health.
Those with more deeply seated problems may require other treatments. Depression is widely misunderstood and in many cases a realisation that it is an almost automatic part of any medical trauma can almost instantly make the issue ease its grip. It usually opens a window through which positive futures can be seen. Good rehabilitation is key.
Last night my wife said after her two years of cancer treatment, during which she felt a bond with those she saw during treatment, she now feels at a loss. The intensity of action and the social contact with those sharing the adversity has been severely reduced, leaving a vacuum. I suspect that applies in similar form in many medical situations.
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