E.O. 13514:Agencies Leading by Example.”
A 600-kilowatt wind turbine — some 245 foot tall — stands on the wintry VA grounds, frozen in time and temperature, essentially inoperable for the past 1 1/2 years. No one is working to fix it, though many attempts were made to repair the turbine, once billed as a model green energy project.
“The St. Cloud VA is a hospital, and our focus is on our patients and we like to think that we treat our veterans very well here,” said Barry Venable, a public affairs officer for the VA in St. Cloud. “We’re embarrassed that this turbine does not operate as advertised.”
That’s quite the about-face from the buildup in December 2009 over the announcement of the central Minnesota turbine, the lone Department of Veterans Affairs project included in the White House document touting President Obama’s executive order for federal agencies to lead the way on renewable energy.
And in Vancouver, they built the “Eye of the Wind” atop Grouse Mountain in time for a 2010 Olympics greenie propaganda binge. It is visible from the city, weather permitting.
It has hardly turned a blade since.
http://www.grousemountain.com/web-cams
They used to have an online meter where you could see the generation stats, but they were so bad they pulled the plug on that source of open government.
It is now often referred to as the “Lie of the Wind”
These turbines shut down and stand there like a deer caught in the headlights. An apt metaphor for Obama’s leadership and for how stupid the rabid climate freaks like David Suzuki, Fat Al Gore, Andrew Weaver and so many others are beginning to look to EVERYONE.
You cannot buy entertainment like this.
I drive out to the Trochu three hills area probably two to three times a month – going past a sizable wind turbine conglomeration of a few dozen fans. They are state of the art – just a few years old. Most of the time conditions are too calm to move them.
About 30-40 km to the west is a fairly new gas turbine facility – vapor exhaust is almost always coming out of the stacks.
I think both facilities are owned by enmax (aka city of Calgary power).
I await the day when the juxtaposition ripens to that of derelict wind turbines and humming gas turbines.
I live about 30 miles from this fiasco. Never heard of it, after the fanfare at the beginning. I just hope that when it falls over, it does not hurt anyone.
Let all these wasteful projects be funded solely by the people clamouring for them. When they fail- as they do- the removal of these bird-killing eyesores can also be funded by the fool who parted with his money far too quickly.
Apropos of absolutely nothing, did you know that waterjet cutting tools come in a portable, hand held version? That’s portable? As in, you can take it from one place to another!
I am going to go out on a limb here by assuming that rigging
points exist above the fan shaft, gearbox and generator ,and
that ample space exists to place large components like the
gearbox lid on the floor of the nacelle. Also, there should be rigging points above the fan shaft in order to suspend the shaft so that the bearings could be replaced.
There should also be one long ass chainfall or motorized hoist
capable of lowering or raising the heaviest of components; IE
Bull Gears,s gearbox bearings, gearbox shaft, or motor rotor
and stator, as well as gearbox lid if there is no room inside
the nacelle.
Also, temperature, vibration, level switches and overspeed
devices have been around since the time of the first bird
shredder (1887,) so high oil temp, low oil level, vibration
and overspeed protection should have been installed on all of
these components.
If these machines lack the ability to do on site repairs or
safety devices to protect the equipment, the designers should
be treated the way the Soviet Union dealt with engineering
failures.
If they were properly designed, (2) $100.00 temp. switches on
the fan shaft bearings would protect shaft damage, the only
deal breaker is it would require the removal of the fan and
the shaft with one big-ass crane.
Gearbox and generator bearings would also be protected. In
short, a few good Millwrights could repair every possible
problem but fan shaft galling from a failed inner bearing
race if it was properly engineered.
Since these boondoggles were mandated by government, it is
unlikely that any of these engineering features exist. This
might explain why 30+ percent of these pieces of crap have not
been turning in more than 2 decades.
I am sure that this subject is too complicated for the feces
throwers on this Blog. I am probably the only mechanic in
America with a $5,000 LASER shaft alignment kit and a $3,000+ vibration spectrum analyzer.
G forces, amplitude, frequency and displacement are Greek to
these Trolls! Their only talent is to insult those who
challenge their leftist faith in the Messiah Al Gore and
his Apostle Michael Mann.
Neither of these men will submit to any debate that challenges
the global warming hoax!
When posers, dilettantes and scientific illiterates insult me,
I hit back!
I’m going to go out on a limb here and speculate that this monstrosity was built at least in part from hospital operating funds. If so, my question is simple, how many veterans died or had their health care impacted by funds being diverted to build it. After all,
“…our focus is on our patients and we like to think that we treat our veterans very well here…”
Leonard, of course it can be repaired. The whole point is that the hospital has discovered that the repair costs are extraordinary compared to the value of the electricity it puts out. And for the reason I’ve suggested, they can’t find the money to do it without drastically slicing into the hospital’s main operating budget. Like so many dupes for the green energy scam, they’ve discovered these things don’t pay for themselves.
One of the most commonly used turbines, the Vesta has critical design flaws that often make it too expensive to repair. The ring gear is one piece. The tracking motor that meshes to the ring gear often fails, and chews up the ring gear in the process. Instead of designing the ring gear in sections that could be relatively easily replaced, removing the ring gear requires that a tall crane be brought in, blades removed, and the nacelle and generator removed, before the ring gear can be replaced and the whole thing reassembled. In many cases the cost of the repair isn’t worth it, and no, Vesta doesn’t warranty the failure, even though it’s a design error.
Investing in wind power is a big mistake. Wind farms all over the world are not meeting expectations. Very few are producing more than 20% of their installed capacity. As well, they are extremely high maintenance and the useful lifetime falls short of expectations. The high-tech materials used to make them produce a lot of pollution during manufacturing and cannot be recycled. The concrete foundations are very carbon intensive…. the list goes on.
“A fool and his money are soon parted” definitely applies to wind power.
I absolutely agree. As a Millwight, I worked on CoGen systems
as small as hospitals and dairies, as well as oil refineries
and paper mills.
I have to stress the fact that due to the government subsidies,
the only way to explain the fact that solar and wind power
exists, is that people are being bribed to produce and consume
them.
Do you even know the difference between a Ring gear, a bull gear,
or a pinion gear or a pile of shit?
You have just revealed your stupidity!
You cannot compete with a man! And you certainly cannot compete with a man with nearly 40 years experience in the mechanical trades.
Bring it on you Internet Troll, you poser, you dilettante!
The vocabulary in personal insults which people choose to use always reveals their greatest fears, insecurities, and weaknesses. It always divulges their true characters. It’s an easy way to understand the true motivations of people on public forums. It’s like a ‘tell’ when watching people gamble. It also indicates when they’re off their meds. Confident, intelligent people don’t resort to personal insults, they don’t have to. Facts and objective opinions are always more persuasive.
Leonard, one of the interesting items when you actually look at the detailed specs in a Vestas brochure is the qualifications. I’m thinking specifically of their 1.5 MW turbine. In it, it lists the max output, 1.5 MW. It also lists the expected operating lifetime, 20 years. But you only get that operating lifetime if the average output is run at much less than the 1.5 MW. The degradation rates in the machine increase sharply at about 75% capacity factor.
This shouldn’t be a surprise, it’s fundamentally a large rotating object with a very high centre of gravity, so inevitably there’s going to be some optimal speed above which mechanical wear and tear increases at some logarythmic function. And I don’t particularly blame Vestas for this; if you know how to read their tech specs it’s all right there.
But there’s no excuse for the propagandists claiming that 10 of these machines means 15 MW of generating capacity for the next 20 years. Vestas’ own performance figures state that isn’t achievable.
All machines have some optimal operating speed at which energy output is maximized and operating costs are minimized. For nuclear plants, typically that’s desgined to be at or close to 100% capacity factor. But wind turbines are curious devices in which the maximum capacity is not the optimum capacity.
CGH, these devices are so heavily subsidized by governments, that
the hospital only paid a fraction of the cost to install it.
Also, I would have to climb one of these beasts to inspect
rigging points to make a determination as to what can be
done in the field in the way of repairs.
These bird shredders where mandated and subsidized starting
with the Carter administration, so this may have been designed
by committee, much like a WWII German tank.
The Germans captured a Soviet tank and decided to copy it’s
best features and add to them. They ended up creating a
monstrosity. This was the model before the Panzer.
Another example is the 650 million spent on the Obamacare
website. Anything designed or mandated by politicians is
bound to fail.
I did a job on an Ingersoll Rand XLE at a power plant in
Ventura Co. California. Top row:
https://www.google.com/search?q=ir+xle+air+compressor&rlz=1C1KMZB_enUS542US542&espv=210&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=BFcuU9mNLYe8oQT_uIDoDQ&ved=0CGYQ7Ak&biw=1014&bih=520
They placed an I-beam longitudinally over the unit. With
a beam trolley and a chain fall, it made the job so easy!
LP head, LP piston, LP cylinder, intercooler, HP head, HP
Piston, HP cylinder. The job progressed more quickly than
any I had ever been on.
These features facilitate repairs. I have little faith in a
government as design engineers!