A CASE FOR WIND ENERGY
I come to you, Dear Readers, from my desk at work. Both of my bosses are out of the office (one's doing a company audit in Spain, the other is idk where...), my office mates aren't here, the guy I did some work for last week said he'd get back to me in the afternoon, and I've got nothing to do in the mean time. So let me tell you a little bit about Wind Energy.
And as I'm usually a lazy bum, I finished this this week here in Denmark during downtime between inspections. Woot.
The Basics
Renewable Energy is slowly becoming more and more reliable, more and more cost efficient, more and more energy efficient, and more and more prevalent throughout the world. This is great news, because this type of energy does not consume fossil fuels in the process of energy generation.
Wind Energy is one form of Renewable Energy, that specifically harnesses the power of the wind. You probably knew that. But just how does it do that, you ask? Let me try and explain it.
Well... So, as we know, wind is pretty much everywhere. And sometimes it can be annoying (for example riding your bike against the wind, I hate that. Or playing Frisbee...), but sometimes, in places where there are a bunch of open spaces, it can be used for good.
There are many different types of wind turbines. The most popular are Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWT). These are the ones you see everywhere.
The other prevalent type are Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWT). These are more popular for smaller applications. With many different versions of this type under test and development, they are slowly making a bigger case for widespread use. There are different types of these VAWTs using different blade configurations, but I'm not going to go into that. Here's a basic variation.
Both types and pretty much all different concepts generate energy through the same principles as an airplane. Differing pressures on different sides of the blade cause the blade to turn and spin the main shaft. For many large and small wind turbines, the main shaft is connected to a gear box, to increase the speed of the shaft. After the gearbox, the high speed shaft is input into a generator, that turns mechanical energy (a high speed shaft) into electrical energy (power that gets sent to the grid). Pretty cool.
Here's a simplified schematic of most large-scale wind turbines in use today.
Problems with Implementation
So why isn't this technology in place all over and solving all of our clean energy needs? That's a damn good question in my book. A big portion of that question has to do with governmental policy and regulations. Because it is a fairly new technology and implementation is not wide-spread, there are still many things that need to be figured out and okayed. And with that, and large lobbies from Oil and Gas, coupled with many more problems, renewable energy policy is not exactly high on the list. Although it should be given more attention than it gets, it's still sometimes hung out to dry.
Another is acceptance into the location. As you've probably heard, plans for wind farms get shot down due to a lot of things. Complaints from locals saying they destroy the view, or make too much noise. Sometimes it's environmental, saying that the wind turbines could damage wildlife or too drastically affect bird or other animal species. In terms of the sound effects, studies have shown they have no negative health impacts (Article Summary) (Article Excerpt). So complaints are more based on people finding them annoying rather than detrimental to health.
Another problem lies with the technology not being advanced enough or the infrastructure not being able to handle it all. Onshore is a pretty established and running machine. There are tons and tons of wind farms throughout the world that are built on land and already outputting clean energy for society to use. Offshore is a different animal. There are tons of MWs generated every day, but the industry is a much more complex beast which has many more moving parts and players. So with time, and with more experience, this industry will increase in size and efficiency, but right now, it is still working out a lot of the kinks.
Thoughts and Sentiments from a Pioneer
Elon Musk is the boss. Here's what he has to say about getting to a full slate of renewable, clean energy. I agree with what he has to say, and think the things that he does, and he stands for, are the pinnacle of what could go down. Absolutely admirably awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rce5RZHCzLkEnergy Sector's Newest Power Player - Elon Musk
Minds like this should be more prevalent in our day and age. Especially with making things more accessible, more reliable, more widespread, and more cost efficient for your average Joe, this type of work is what is going to help our society get to where we need to go.
New Offshore Plan off of Oregon Coast
Having an interest in Wind Energy, being able to work in this industry, and having a love for my home city, state, and region (Olympia, WA, PNW), I would LOVE to see these three things combine. There is a growing presence of onshore wind farms in the PNW (Cle Elm, WA, along I-84 in Northern Oregon, and every time I drive by them I geek out). That is awesome to see.
Here I've been working almost exclusively with Offshore wind. Learning about the plethora of wind farms in operation, under construction, and in the planning and concept phase in Germany's jurisdiction in the North See and Baltic See. Here is a super sweet map showing all of the offshore sites in Europe and information regarding their current status. This is also a sweet resource that I've used a lot so far for work.
One of the reasons that things are budding, especially in the North Sea, is that there's a giant continental shelf that keeps the water depths to reasonable levels (around 60-70m at most). Well, we don't have that so prevalent on the West Coast. Once you get away from the beach, the water depth drops really quickly, and at the same distance away from shore as in the North Sea, where it could be 60m deep, we could be 200-400m deep. This makes things a lot more challenging for mounting turbines offshore.
But, great news was recently shared, that plans have been in the works for an offshore floating wind farm off the coast of Coos Bay, OR, and would be the first offshore wind farm on the West Coast. It's called WindFloat Pacific. I really hope this goes through without any major hiccups, and can be an example of what we could be doing with our huge coastline to help reduce our energy burden in sustainable ways.
This project would consist of floating turbines. So, unlike most current offshore platforms, the foundation is not rooted into the ground, but anchored to the sea floor as the majority of the foundation is floating and supporting the turbine. This model has proven its worth and ability in Portugal, and should do well at this location. But, as there is still not a very widespread use of floating platforms, there is still some unfortunate skepticism behind it.
Gah, everything about this project gets me pumped for what could come afterwards.
A Plan
Some geniuses and movers-and-shakers put their minds to work. Their result? A road map for EVERY STATE in the US to be run solely off of renewable energy by 2050. We have no excuses, we just need to light a fire and make it happen. How absolutely awesome would this be? A realistic, sustainable future for everyone in the US. Citizens, companies, the government, everyone contributing to a clean future. And who knows what other benefits could come from such a thing. I want this to happen. Really bad.
Summary
This was just a splattering of stuff I've crossed so far in my internship. I'm sure that, over the next 4 months, many more cool things will come up. And depending on trade secrets, I'll try and write up about as much as I can. Let's keep looking towards a green future.
EDIT 1: This article/opinion paper hits the nail on the head. It's about time we do something.
EDIT 2: This article about the progression of renewables in Germany.
Original Publish Date: March 5th, 2014