World's First Floating Windfarm To Take Shape Off Coast of Scotland (theguardian.com) 123
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The world's first floating windfarm has taken to the seas in a sign that a technology once confined to research and development drawing boards is finally ready to unlock expanses of ocean for generating renewable power. After two turbines were floated this week, five now bob gently in the deep waters of a fjord on the western coast of Norway ready to be tugged across the North Sea to their final destination off north-east Scotland. The ~$256 million Hywind project is unusual not just because of the pioneering technology involved, which uses a 78-meter-tall underwater ballast and three mooring lines that will be attached to the seabed to keep the turbines upright. It is also notable because the developer is not a renewable energy firm but Norway's Statoil, which is looking to diversify away from carbon-based fuels.
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30 MW for $256M (Score:1)
Installed cost of over $8500 per kW. A gas fired combined cycle plant runs from $500 to $1000 per kW.
This project will only make money because stupid people will pay extra for the joy of it.
Absolutely stupid.
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Re: 30 MW for $256M (Score:1)
Hugo? Hugo Chavez? I thought you had passed away,
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It's not different. Energy of any kind should not be subsidized.
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Are you saying there is no power generation market in the US?
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Dishonest businessmen take their ideas to governments. Senators don't care about making good investments, they are looking to buy campaign donations with taxpayers' money.
Well, if we're playing this game;
"Investors don't care about making clean energy, or cutting CO2 emissions they are looking to make a profit within the next 10 years."
A significant amount of investment is needed in order for new technologies to develop and replace existing/obsolete technologies. There is no reason why this investment has to come from the private sector alone, particularly when the technology is something that will benefit everyone, and not just the pockets of the investors.
So feel free to
seen this scene before somewhere... (Score:2)
When I first came here, this was all ocean. Everyone said I was daft to build a wind farm on a ocean, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the ocean. So I built a second one. That sank into the ocean. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the ocean. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest wind farm in all of Scotland.
Peak or average? (Score:2)
Is that $8500 per peak watt or after taking into account the "capacity factor" that the wind blows, on average, a certain percent of the time?
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Move to areas with better wind if the wind gets to fast, stops or gets too slow?
They will be anchored to the seafloor, and once in place they won't move. But it doesn't matter: in the North Sea, the wind never stops, nor does it often even slow down. The whole point of putting the turbines out at sea is for the strong and steady wind.
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Re:Peak or average? (Score:5, Informative)
Not so bad when you still have the vestiges of an entire industry devoted to building offshore platforms nearby.
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Except for the cost of putting turbines out at sea...
Duh. Of course the cost is higher at sea. But the winds are stronger, and power goes up as the cube of the windspeed, so the same size rig can generate far more power. Sea winds are also steadier, which means less expense on peakers [wikipedia.org].
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Imagine the German navy's delight if this were 1939...
In 1939 the Royal Navy couldn't retaliate with Trident ballistic missiles, and nuclear Tomahawks. Seriously, which navy do you think is going to attack these turbines? Any nation state would suffer overwhelming retaliation. Any terrorist organization already has many far softer targets.
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You are a dumbass if you think that nuclear weapons would be used as a retaliation strike for sinking a wind turbine platform. Not only weapons of mass destruction are ultima ratio, but given the proximity to the British isles they will receive a substantial amount of their own fallout and it will also poison their fish stocks.
Re: sunk costs (Score:1)
Are you saying you think he was suggesting that if someone destroyed the platform, Britain would retaliate by nuking the remains of the platform, and not the people who destroyed it?
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Imagine the German navy's delight if this were 1939...
In 1939 the Royal Navy couldn't retaliate with Trident ballistic missiles, and nuclear Tomahawks..
And nobody really knows if it could do it today. Trident missiles are designed, manufactured and serviced in USA. Would they even launch without additional authorization code in case UK and US interests diverged?
Re:30 MW for $256M (Score:5, Insightful)
Installed cost of over $8500 per kW.
It is expensive because it is the first of its kind. We will learn from it, and version 2.0 will be better.
A gas fired combined cycle plant runs from $500 to $1000 per kW.
That is the installation cost. You still have to buy gas. Of course the gas will be cheaper because that is mature technology, and many of the costs are externalized.
Absolutely stupid.
If you only look at the short term gain, yes. If you consider the long term, including the value of knowledge, then no.
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You still have to buy replacement blades and generators...
Nope. Both the blades and turbines are designed to last the full 25 year operational life of the windfarm.
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Nuclear and fossil fuel plants are fire & forget - you just get them going and leave. Have you every seen anyone working in a power plant once it's been completed? Of course not...
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They don't let you in an operating nuke plant unless you're there on an official tour or work there.
But what else do you think the maintenance breaks done on the plants are if not to, well, maintain and work on keeping operating safely nuclear plants? They just want a long holiday????
(PS I've never seen anyone working on a solar or wind farm once it's completed either. And never on a rooftop mounted one on homes, and those are all around me)
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I now can't tell if that's a sarcastic response to my sarcastic comment. I now feel like I'm googling recursion [google.co.uk]!
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Once again, since you missed it previously: /.) because it is camouflaged by the ubiquitous background of actual cluelessness.
Sarcasm is invisible on the internet (and especially on
Pretend cluelessness is indistinguishable from real cluelessness.
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I'd take money on that. Planned or not planned, things happens, blades have fractures that eventually give way, generators will seize up, etc.
Ferret
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So you believe they'll NEVER have to replace a blade or generator? I'd take money on that. Planned or not planned, things happens, blades have fractures that eventually give way, generators will seize up, etc. Ferret
A certain percentage of blades will fail earlier, the rest replaced when their design life is up. While the generators claim a 25 year "design life", maintenance over those years will likely replace the windings and most of the parts, some more than once.
I suppose the movement of these 'bobbing' structures might increase the difficulty of blade replacement.
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As you wouldn't for gas turbines?
Face it, with wind power the cost of fuel is 0 and that makes up for a significant part of the running costs. Eventually, like with every development known to us, all other running costs will be optimized.
Re:30 MW for $256M (Score:4, Insightful)
What of the external costs of wind power? We know that there are some.
Indeed. When wind turbines spin, they suck angular momentum out of the earth, causing it to slow, and eventually fall into the sun. Besides that, is there some other external costs we should know about?
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Re:30 MW for $256M (Score:4, Insightful)
Local climate is affected in terms of temperature and rainfall.
Wow. Slightly less rain falling on the North Sea will have devastating consequences. I can't imagine how humanity will survive.
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As long as we build half facing the other way we should be safe.
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"The existence of regulation causes costs. The absence of regulation (free market) by definition eliminate or minimize them"
Cost: Companies are leaking lead into the water supply.
Regulation: If you leak lead in the water supply you get a fine that is large enough to make you stop.
So the freer market was causing the cost and the regulation got rid of it.
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You're not thinking about externalities. Regulations are appropriate to limit external costs (i.e., costs not borne by the people making the decision to inflict them).
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i think i'd prefer renewables as they do not poison, cause oil slicks as a result of tanker accidents, pollute etc etc.
Please add to the list of external costs to help the list grow.
1. construction
2. ongoing maintenance
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Coal was (and is) dominant because of practicality. The driving force behind coal use was DEMAND for electricity.
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You have just demonstrated the ignorance I spoke about. There is pollution in the production of wind and solar power. These waste products are toxic and disposing of it properly is not trivial. Compared to nuclear power wind and solar are terrible for the environment. Even compared to natural gas and low sulfur coal wind and solar really aren't that great.
Everyone wants to talk about the external costs of coal and pretend that there are no external costs to wind and solar. Renewable energy does poison
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Explain how a wind turbine or a solar panel generating electrical energy is creating pollution.
http://www.nationalreview.com/... [nationalreview.com]
http://cyprus-mail.com/2017/06... [cyprus-mail.com]
Nuclear is fine until your have an accident.
Solar power is fine until someone falls off a roof. Nuclear power is the safest energy source we have today.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/... [nextbigfuture.com]
Solar power is expensive, unreliable, toxic, and just generally a bad idea. Nuclear power is ten times safer, ten times cleaner, ten times more reliable, and just generally a better idea ten times over.
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someone falling off a roof is a human accident, again nothing to do with power being generated by the panel. Why not include all the human error accidents by fossil fuel workers in comparison e.g. oil tanke
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Please identify the pollution created during power generation by turbines and solar, maybe you misunderstand what i actually mean.
Where is the pollution created by nuclear power during power generation? There is none. With solar, wind, and nuclear all the waste and pollution is in the construction and decommissioning. If we are going to compare them then we need to be consistent and realistic. Wind and solar produce more waste than nuclear and waste that is just as toxic to the environment. With the less waste from nuclear we have a cleaner environment in the end.
someone falling off a roof is a human accident, again nothing to do with power being generated by the panel.
Bullshit. That person would not be on the roof if not for the sola
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You may well be right there, but it doesn't mean what you appear to think it means. If people accept external costs, that doesn't mean the costs don't exist, but that people are willing to pay them. I've accepted a lot of costs under the belief that the costs were worth it, but that doesn't mean I would prefer to have spent less money. If a certain amount of energy c
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That's right. All wind investment is automatically good and smart. No matter how high the cost or low the practicality for scaling. Its wind and wind is always good and smart. Only idiots think otherwise.
False dichotomy + strawman + no true Scotsman..
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Which is ironic since it's being installed in Scottish waters.
Re:30 MW for $256M (Score:4, Informative)
The first-of-a-kind nature means supply chain complexity, too. “We have 15 main contractors. For the future we cannot have 15, we can have between 5 and 10,” said Leif Delp, project manager for Hywind. Expect costs to come down.
Bear in mind that it is an Oil & Gas company that decided to pursue this project.
Re: 30 MW for $256M (Score:3, Insightful)
The first chip to roll of an Intel stepper costs a lot too. Doesn't mean Intel should have stuck with the 4004.
Re:30 MW for $256M (Score:5, Insightful)
I love the idea of somebody telling an oil company that they don't know how to make money.
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Stupid people is right... like you. So you're saying that a first floating windfarm is going to cost about 10 times what gas-fired would.
There's just one thing wrong with your costing: how much will the gas-fired plant pay for fuel per year? Over the next five years?
The windfarm pays NOTHING.
Thin on details... (Score:2)
As usual, TFA is short on some important details. Wind turbines, great. Floating, anchored in (relatively) deep coastal waters, great. How does the power get back to shore? The northern coast of Scotland isn't really a very highly populated area, how does this project tie into the existing power grid?
T. Boone Pickens had an idea a few yeard ago - build wind farms across the panhandle of Texas, then run the power back along railroad right-of-ways. Trains might run through the middle of nowhere, but thei
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As usual, TFA is short on some important details. Wind turbines, great. Floating, anchored in (relatively) deep coastal waters, great. How does the power get back to shore? The northern coast of Scotland isn't really a very highly populated area, how does this project tie into the existing power grid?
T. Boone Pickens had an idea a few yeard ago - build wind farms across the panhandle of Texas, then run the power back along railroad right-of-ways. Trains might run through the middle of nowhere, but their destinations are always in towns.
It's more populated than you think - most of the towns in that neck of the woods are coastal. Also Peterhead has a 3 gas turbine power station plus Aberdeen is just down the road with a population of 200,000. Finally Scotland is criss-crossed by the National Grid distribution system due to amount of Nuclear Stations that were [and some still are] dotted around : a network which is of course tied into the UK as a whole.
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Looking at the map, the towns you mention are on the northeast "finger" that sticks out.
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There was a link in the article to a prior one that contains a map of the Hywinds location.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/16/worlds-largest-floating-windfarm-to-be-built-off-scottish-coast [theguardian.com]
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Two chains just won't work in the event of an accident. Just imagine monstrosity like this swinging about on one chain until the second one gets pulled tight! Even a boat in harbour is normally moored with four.
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A ship will have four anchors so that you don't have 150m ships swinging around a single point. I have however seen small ships anchored in the Solent at the bow only, although that's a sheltered area. These anchors will also be - for all intensive purposes* - permanent. The anchors themselves are Suction Caissons [wikipedia.org] (source), not stockless anchors.
* Obvious troll is obvious :-)
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I know little about anchoring turbines, but I've never moored a boat with four anchors in my life - and removable boat anchors are much less reliable than permanent mooring systems.
I'm all in favour of redundancy, but it's not the only solution to making things safe. I've flown in many single-engine aircraft, and I've driven over plenty of bridges which will fall down if any one of their pillars collapses.
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Boat Way-Stops (Score:4, Funny)
I imagine some day, electric boats might swap batteries at floating stations that recharge the depleted batteries via wind turbine or tidal power.
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I imagine some day, electric boats might swap batteries at floating stations that recharge the depleted batteries via wind turbine or tidal power.
Why would we use boats when we could use a gravity train instead.
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It's reasonable, despite the trolling... (Score:5, Insightful)
The development is entirely reasonable, and follows the normal pattern of risk reduction in an emerging technology.
Oil drilling started off on land, then it moved to shallow waters, then it moved to deep waters. The technology developed on the easiest sites then moved to the harder sites when there were not enough easy sites.
Some of the first wind farms in the UK were on Scottish islands. Not only did they have plenty of wind, the inhabitants of the islands used diesel generators, which were over four times the cost of mainland electricity; so the site was likely to be profitable even if it used first-generation parts. It reduced the risk of a highly visible venture site being unprofitable, and blocking the chance of making others.
Putting windmills in shallow water is quite like building them on land. You sink piles into shallow water or boggy land. The existing technologies can be used with longer piles, but in the end another solution is going to be cheaper. The cheaper solution is going to be anchored platforms. The people with the most experience of these are oil companies.
Instead of asking, "why an oil company?", ask "why not all oil companies with offshore drilling?". The US division - fossil fuels are freedom, wind and renewables are tree-hugging socialism - does not hold in Europe.
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"Plenty of wind" is subjective. Unless it has a constant wind it will fluctuate, making it useless for providing a reliable baseload.
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All power plants fluctuate. Nuke stations need refuelling and maintenance at least twice a year dropping or stopping output. Coal power stations too. Both thermal plants need enough cold water without things like jellyfish clogging the inlets and without that they stop. This variability therefore makes coal and nuclear power useless for baseload....
Re:It's reasonable, despite the trolling... (Score:4, Informative)
All power plants fluctuate. Nuke stations need refuelling and maintenance at least twice a year dropping or stopping output.
Nuclear refueling cycles are almost always 12 or 18 months. Not 6, you have an inaccurate source of info that you should no longer trust or repeat. The outages are planned for low demand times, typically Spring and Fall, and therefore do not present the same problems that widely varying output on an hourly basis that we can see from wind.
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That's actually what has me wondering why this costs so damn much. Isn't the "technology" exactly the same as a floating oil rig, except instead of doing the considerably harder task of sending a pipe down to a fixed spot on the sea floor, they're just sticking a wind turbine on top of it? The R
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That's actually what has me wondering why this costs so damn much. Isn't the "technology" exactly the same as a floating oil rig, except instead of doing the considerably harder task of sending a pipe down to a fixed spot on the sea floor, they're just sticking a wind turbine on top of it?
I guess the next question would be, how much does it cost to set up an oil rig? It may be that a floating rig is expensive to set up regardless of what you do with it.
OTOH, if you're right, and there's no inherent reason for the additional expense, then I would expect costs to come down quickly once it has been established what works and what doesn't work in terms of off-shore wind. Everything costs more the first time, since you are still experimenting and often making sub-optimal or overly-conservative
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It is reasonable if you don't ask what is paying for it.
This is government money paying for this project not the oil companies money.
If private investors had to pay for any of this it would never ever happen it makes no financial sense.
Cool Idea (Score:1)
Ferret
Does it spoil the view (Score:2)
Does it spoil the view from The Donster's golf course? Wouldn't that be a pity!
Faulty Map (Score:2)
The map has a couple of problems.
The Hywind project is nowhere near "North east Scotland". It looks to be near Aberdeen. That's east certainly but it is pretty close to the middle north-south of the mainland. The other Dot, next to that claims to be a place called Kingcardine. That is a hundred miles away. This may not seem much to people in the USA but it does here.
If the map is faulty, how reliable is the article?
What about potential environemntal impact? (Score:2)
Law of Salvage? (Score:2)
Couldn't help but wonder: if one of them puppies "accidentally" broke free of its moorings and started drifting away .. and I just happened to be there with a tugboat (or a bloody rowboat, for that matter!) and got a line on it ...
Would it be mine?