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Japanese breakthrough will make wind power cheaper than nuclear
A surprising aerodynamic innovation in wind turbine design called the 'wind lens' could triple the output of a typical wind turbine, making it less costly than nuclear power.
Mon, Aug 29 2011 at 2:47 AM
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Snapshot from video
NOTE: Some major wind projects like the proposed TWE Carbon Valley project in Wyoming are already pricing in significantly lower than coal power -- $80 per MWh for wind versus $90 per MWh for coal -- and that is without government subsidies using today's wind turbine technology.
The International Clean Energy Analysis (ICEA) gateway estimates that the U.S. possesses 2.2 million km2 of high wind potential (Class 3-7 winds) — about 850,000 square miles of land that could yield high levels of wind energy. This makes the U.S. something of a Saudi Arabia for wind energy, ranked third in the world for total wind energy potential.
Let's say we developed just 20 percent of those wind resources — 170,000 square miles (440,000 km2) or an area roughly 1/4 the size of Alaska — we could produce a whopping 8.7 billion megawatt hours of electricity each year (based on a theoretical conversion of six 1.5 MW turbines per km2 and an average output of 25 percent. (1.5 MW x 365 days x 24 hrs x 25% = 3,285 MWh's).
The United States uses about 26.6 billion MWh's, so at the above rate we could satisfy a full one-third of our total annual energy needs. (Of course, this assumes the concurrent deployment of a nationwide Smart Grid that could store and disburse the variable sources of wind power as needed using a variety of technologies — gas or coal peaking, utility scale storage via batteries or fly-wheels, etc).
Now what if a breakthrough came along that potentially tripled the energy output of those turbines? You see where I'm going. We could in theory supply the TOTAL annual energy needs of the U.S. simply by exploiting 20 percent of our available wind resources.
Well, such a breakthrough has been made, and it's called the "wind lens."
Imagine: no more dirty coal power, no more mining deaths, no more nuclear disasters, no more polluted aquifers as a result of fracking. Our entire society powered by the quiet "woosh" of a wind turbine. Kyushu University's wind lens turbine is one example of the many innovations happening right now that could in the near future make this utopian vision a reality.
Yes, it's a heck of a lot of wind turbines (about 2,640,000) but the U.S. with its endless miles of prairie and agricultural land is one of the few nations that could actually deploy such a network of wind turbines without disrupting the current productivity of the land (Russia and China also come to mind). It would also be a win-win for states in the highest wind area — the Midwest — which has been hard hit by the recession. And think of the millions upon millions of jobs that would be created building a 21st century energy distribution system free of the shackles of ever-diminishing fossil fuel supplies.
It's also important to point out that growth in wind power capacity is perfectly symbiotic with projected growth in electric vehicles. EV battery packs can soak up wind power produced during the night, helping to equalize the curve of daytime energy demand. So the controversial investment currently being entertained by President Obama to pipe oil down from the Canadian Tar Sands would — in my utopian vision — be a moot point.
It is indeed a lofty vision, but the technology we need is now in our reach. And think of the benefits of having our power production fed by a resource that is both free and unlimited. One downside often cited by advocates of coal and gas power is that wind turbines require a lot more maintenence than a typical coal or gas power plant. But in a lagging economy this might just be wind power's biggest upside — it will create lots and lots of permanent jobs, sparking a new cycle of economic growth in America.
Editor's note: Want more info? Karl breaks down the math in his next post.
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Nuclear power leaves a huge footprint. Check out this NRC report showing the dangerous radiation that nuclear power plants spew into the environment around each nuclear power plant. Find the power plant closest to your back yard and see what radiation is found in the surrounding water, fish, veggies, etc. Radiation can cause cancer and some of the radiation lasts for hundreds of years.
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/tritium/plant-info....
The best part of this whole idea is what no one has even mentioned - build tons of wind mills to slow down the earth's rotation, and therefore time, and we all get to live a lot longer. Yeah, group this post in with the rest of the ill-conceived ideas to solve an invented environmental crisis.
Local changes in wind speed and weather patterns have already been noted downwind from even small wind farms.
One thing this means is that individual mills need to be spaced much farther apart than thought in order to have enough wind to generate at stated capacity, so the area required goes up as does the amount of maintenance road needed, and the amount of cabling.
you do know that the turbine are spun by the win creating stronger push forces right? so actually it would, even though logically impossible, push the earth's rotation faster.
Please see my post above. Case in point.... sheesh.
The wind technology in fusion with solar energy are basically a holy grail for future energy for now. Nuclear, gas, coal, and oil are not everlasting energy. This is not an arguement.
You're right! Radiation created in nuclear power plants lasts for thousands of years! The radiation nuclear power plants release into the environment just during their normal operations like cesium-137 lasts hundreds of years and it ends up in the food, air and water...you know, the things we need to survive.
We're beyond batteries for energy storage at the research level, at least for solar. Do a search for "storing solar energy as hydrogen" and you'll find the articles. It's pretty amazing, but we're close to having a usable everyday way to store solar energy in a form that could be used as a replacement for gasoline, and clean burning. What's the disadvantage of huge solar farms in deserts???
The coal and oil companies will have purchased the patents and shut this down before years end. There will be a small article about how the new lenses aren't practical for some reason, or they kill too many birds or cost more than initially projected, etc. and we'll never hear about these things again.
Uh - you apparently don't even know how patents work. Patents REQUIRE public disclosure of a device in exchange for legal protection on gains made from the device for a LIMITED period of time, typically twenty years. You can't hide technology by purchasing a patent.
Also, this device cannot be patented because it has already entered the public domain. It's a ducted fan, which has been around for nearly a century. Any patents held on it have long since expired.
If the facts don't fit the conspiracy, build a bigger conspiracy.
Even if the claims are true, where are you going to get power when the wind isn't blowing? That is is why wind never a primary source of power. You will always need a second source of reliable power of the same amount because wind is so variable. You have to add that in the economics.
FYI wind tends not to blow when temperatures are at their daily peaks. Bad news for AC lovers.
Giant momentum wheels can store energy very efficiently.
Quite true, which is why the suggestion in the article that this can somehow replace all electrical production is idiotic.
Wind power can still be a useful supplement, however. But touting it as a wholesale replacement is ridiculous.
If you look closely, there are not six blades, there are three, the other three structures are supports which hold the turbine's axle in place - no unicorns required, just a little common sense, which you seem to be lacking.
They kill birds. They're killing eagles in California all the time with windmills.
So do not put them where there are eagles. And I wonder if they kill as many song birds as do automobiles. Do we have to design our society so that everyone has to individually zoom around in almost a ton of steel?
1/4 the size of Alaska - why didn't the author just say the size of Texas?
Because Texas is 1/2 the size of Alaska.
Great idea. I would rather see one of the in my back yard than a nasty looking coal plant. We can sacrifice an area the size of Alaska and start doing something about nixing our dependency on oil or we can just wait for it to run out and try to figure something out in the midst of mass hysteria.
"We can sacrifice an area the size of Alaska." - ROFL - noob post of the century. Do you have any idea how big Alaska is? If, as the author suggest, we put these windmills in the midwest, we'd literally be covering the ENTIRE midwest. Every square mile of it. And then some. It's quite clear the writers on this site are not engineers.
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