Why Are Floating Wind Turbines So Huge?

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Why Are Floating Wind Turbines So Huge? Use code UNDECIDED50 to get 50% off your first Factor box at bit.ly/3UlAohG. With China producing the largest wind turbine yet (a rotor diameter of 260 meters and a rating of 18MW), it got me wondering why they’re so big. They’re almost defying imagination at this point. By sending these skyscraper-sized floating structures out to sea, we can take advantage of faster, more consistent wind energy. That still leaves some big questions, so let’s address the elephant (or maybe the turbine) in the room. Why are floating wind turbines gigantic in the first place? And can the scale of floating wind be practical for meeting the planet’s energy needs? Is floating wind…overblown?
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27 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 2 тыс.

@UndecidedMF Год назад

Does floating offshore wind blow you away? Or has all this turbine talk left you feeling winded? Use code UNDECIDED50 to get 50% off your first Factor box at bit.ly/3UlAohG If you liked this, check out How Solar Panels Are Changing Agriculture - Agrivoltaics Revisited ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ww-_U7_oQbY.html

@briangarrow448 Год назад

Interestingly enough, my daughter is on a business trip right now in Scotland and Denmark talking with wind power companies about the potential for wind turbines along the Pacific Northwest coast off of Washington state. She is part of a team from the Seattle area that is gathering information about wind power projects. I will be interested in hearing about her thoughts when she returns back to the United States.

@ricardoxavier827 Год назад

The french are starting a green hydrogen project with floating offshore wind turbines, with the hydrogen platform between the turbines, using directly the electricity to produce the hydrogen directly from the ocean water, and its only one gas pipeline to the french coast where they do the storage. If economicaly successeful, it will be the energy storage way of the future, where all vehichles since plains and trucks and ships can use. Even powerlines can be replaced by hydrogen underground pipelines, and clean up the visual environment from power lines ugly view. And we just have hydrogen powerplants inside cities, creating clean electricity as demand on real time. Just a theory yet.

@michaelharrison1093 Год назад

Matt, you made no mention regarding the electrical power transmission from these floating turbines. I would be interested to know are they favoring HVDC or using AC? And if AC are they low, medium, or high voltage? (1kV & 100kV?)

@iareid8255 Год назад

Matt, have you ever wondered why there are so many of these devices? The simple reason is, even the largest, are tiny in comparison to conventional generators with regard to output capacity. Then factor in the availability factor, 50% for the best when new and more like 35%. on average, onshore is even worse. The reason they are so large in size is that compared to fossil fuels or particularly nuclear the energy density of wind is very small so needs large devices to capture even the small amount that these generators give out.

@timkbirchico8542 Год назад

coastal environment disaster. bird migration. sea life. the effect on local people. the ugliness.

@flo3381 Год назад

Hi I’m currently doing my master in wind energy, so I’m always very happy to see people with a bigger audience talk about it, especially floating wind. Most of the points you made were really good but you were missing out on one point that is actually among the biggest drivers in size: the bigger the turbine the less of them you need. A 600 MW wind farm needs either 75 8MW turbines or 40 15 MW turbines. This means that you also need less foundations (especially crucial for floating wind where those are massive/super expensive ), but also less cables, less time to install them (expensive installation vessels) and also very important: you need to maintain and operate less of them, which is also a very large cost factor (30% of total project costs). Anyways thank you for raising interest in offshore wind! Cheers from Norway ✌🏼

@leonfa259 Год назад

Is there a path to get floating wind cost competitive? 200USD/MWh (likely LCOE) sounds very high in an industry that is very cost competitive.

@Edio47 Год назад

@@leonfa259 more demand will help reducing the manufacturing cost.

@flo3381 Год назад

@@leonfa259 Yes the LCOE will drop drastically in the next 10 years. Globally there are only 216MW of floating wind turbines installed right now which is around 25 turbines, globally. So so far the projects were really small pilot projects and now the industry is planning to enter the next stage with several smaller commercial projects of 200-500MW per farm planned to be installed in the next five years and then wind farms of 1GW coming probably by the end of the decade. Scale is a very big factor for the LCOE as the production cost per unit can be reduced massively and the bigger turbines will also play a very big factor as fewer turbines/foundations will be needed. So really floating wind is just at it's starting point right now and it will be very interesting to see if it can fulfil its potential. That being said, I think the LCOE of floating will always be higher than those of bottom-fixed turbines as those are just simpler (currently around 60USD/MWh, gas & coal around 100USD/MWh), but as mentioned in the video floating opens up whole new markets.

@Hemenesgard Год назад

Before watching this video, I thought that the main reason for wanting to install wind turbines at sea was so that they would not be installed on land, which has a much greater value, and it would be a shame to "waste" a large area just for that. Having this thought in mind, I questioned myself one day. "What will be the average power generated per square kilometer of a wind turbine grid, and how does that compare with the same area covered by solar panels?" That is, if the idea is to use the smallest possible area, which would be more efficient?

@johnsmith99997 Год назад

Not really a valid point, demand for energy is infinite. More powerful turbines don't decrease the amount of land used - just increases the energy production per land unit

@prophetsspaceengineering2913 Год назад

Apparently, the wind parks in the baltic sea have become something of a haven for marine species because trawlers aren't allowed anywhere near them. Some fish species are already bounced back in numbers due to having some new defacto nature reserves. Fishing is apparently much more lucrative in the areas surrounding the parks, too which might alleviate some of the restrictions. It's not well studied yet but the first articles on this seemed rather uplifting.

@perstaffanlundgren Год назад

Contrys can also just ban big scale botom trawling in some water areas because its good for the fish /environment without building a industry complex in the area ,so you can ban bottom trawling . In reality the fishing ban in the wind parks are often very invasive for the fishers :all fishing with " bottom contact" is forbidden . This leaves only drift netting as alternative. (If this is a technique that is used in the area at all). And drift netting is not used in the Baltic sea at least in coastal waters. So it's not only the big industry fishing that is impacted.

@karlkobler218 Год назад

Artificial structure on muddy/sandy bottoms act as massive reefs and support an incredible amount of life. All the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico created an amazing productive reef system.

@COPKALA Год назад

At the same time (except for the em-pollution) the pollution from the other sources when installing oil drilling platform is also there (and btw remember lastGulf of Mexico ecologic disaster)

@stephendoherty8291 Год назад

Yet fisherman are appealing these developments. In the UK they offered contracts to bring maintenance crew out on fishing boats for some regular inspections. This offered guaranteed income and eased local opposition. Also easier to make them no catch reserves than other sea areas.

@DeadVegaInSpain Год назад

The problem is, there’s a giant ocean and the wind mill industry wants to put the wind mills in prime fishing areas. Spots where millions of pounds of fish are caught that feed people food and people get money from. It’s almost like it’s a plan to end the fishing industry by putting the wind mills only in the hot spots where commercial fishermen go to catch… it’s a kick in the nuts to thousands of family’s

@joshmusic9766 Год назад

18 MW for one tower is insane btw. I work on these daily and our biggest on land wind turbines produce 2.33 MW each. One HUGE drawback that is not talked about enough is maintenance. After just 10 years these towers start to deteriorate and need pretty constant maintenance. It’s insanely expensive to do maintenance offshore.

@medea27 Год назад

That was my first thought... it would be challenging enough to get parts & maintainers up 100m to the generator/gearbox/etc on land, let alone doubling that height _and_ having bigger parts _and_ having it all floating on water! I don't know what kind of sea state these wind turbines would operate in, but I can't imagine they'd want to have to detach & tow them back to shore to perform repairs if they could avoid it.

@matthewgibbs6886 Год назад

its called tax credits or gov't grants its not about longevity.

@alienesquemotivation Год назад

How many houses does one 18mw turbine power?

@joshmusic9766 Год назад

@@alienesquemotivation google says at max capacity it would power 44,000 homes for a year. Based on what I’ve seen on shore towers produce in the first few years I would say a reasonable output is maybe about 50%… might be different for offshore. So I would guess about 20,000 homes for a year.

@stephendoherty8291 Год назад

True but the power generation offsets some of that extra service cost plus less cost to acquire wind friendly finite supply land. Luckily sealife can't appeal and governments own their waters

@seanplace8192 Год назад

The amount of wind turbine information in this video has left my head spinning. I'm absolutely blown away by how large these turbines are getting.

@thomasherrin6798 Год назад

So might the Chinese turbines, get blown away that is!?!

@ValMartinIreland Год назад

It is false. No wind energy can be allowed into the4 electricity grid unless there is at lease 40% of current demand generated from fossil fuel.

@CountingStars333 Год назад

@@thomasherrin6798 china bad yes yes china baaaaaaaaad 🐑

@sciteceng2hedz358 Год назад

The amount of puns in this video left me winded

@francisboyle1739 Год назад

Well, blow me down if there aren't still wind-based puns to be made.

@mrfoameruk Год назад

I'm not sure why some people are so against them being built because they supposedly ruin the view. But when they are 10 miles offshore they are so small to the eye. I've always looked at them as people see windmills, just nice decorations on the sea.

@marvinslomp3564 Год назад

To be honest even on land they don't bother me at all, i find them pretty futuristic and elegant looking and it's a nice thought that because of them there isn't some forest being chopped or mine being opened to provide energy.

@joshmusic9766 Год назад

Luckily (and somewhat sadly) civilians have basically no say whatsoever in what happens with these large companies. It’s all about the bottom dollar, not about what is an eye sore to a passerby

@bellofbelmont Год назад

We have a pile of turbines due to be built starting at 20 km (12 miles) off the coast of Newcastle, NSW Australia. Our oldest coal fired power station (Lidell) has just closed down and it will be turned into a battery complex. Good use of existing infrastructure. Thanks for the vid. Jim Bell (Australia)

@mnomadvfx Год назад

Mmmpf, batteries are not the most cost effective storage solution even if they are the most volume effective solution. When you have a country the size of Australia with such a huge amount of open, undeveloped area it makes sense to use the most cost effective solutions possible even if they take up more space.

@PineappleKarl Год назад

@@mnomadvfx That is the most lazy american capitalist thinking

@UndecidedMF Год назад

Thanks for sharing, Jim.

@brianjonker510 Год назад

So they closed Lidell before building the replacement power? I am missing something.

@stevehayward1854 Год назад

@@brianjonker510 Who said there was nothing to replace it ? Are you just assuming because wind turbines was mentioned at the same time as the coal powered generator, there was going to be a gap where no power was being generated ?

@2MeterLP Год назад

Another benefit is that you avoid NIMBYism when you are nowhere near anyones backyard.

@julianshepherd2038 Год назад

Scottish fishermen disagree

@theethicsofliberty4642 Год назад

Another advantage is that in the ocean no one will count the number of birds that these turbines will kill ... !!!

@tajfaa Год назад

@@theethicsofliberty4642 buildings and cats kill hundred millions more birds than wind turbines and no one is advocating to ban either..

@anianoenrique2115 Год назад

BLM : Bird Lives Matter

@n8mo Год назад

@@theethicsofliberty4642 if you’re so upset about birds being killed by turbines you should also be advocating for the ban of glass skyscrapers and household cats. Both of whom kill far more birds than wind turbines.

@stevehayward1854 Год назад

Wind Turbines are fantastic bits of kit but it must be part of a diverse generation, grid and storage system. The future is complex and anyone that thinks just one type of generation is the answer really needs to do more home work

@grimaffiliations3671 Год назад

it's especially well suited to California considering their powerful NIMBY groups tend to block all kinds of new construction near them

@northerncousin7862 Год назад

Excellent comment. Too many people want a simple one-size-fits-all solution. Diversity should the basic approach to the world's energy future.

@gemelwalters2942 Год назад

I mean it's funny how this comment always comes up with clean energy but never oil. I don't disagree with you but if you weren't saying the same thing about gas and oil then it would be a tad hypocritical wouldn't it.

@maxbrazil3712 Год назад

I read a recent study that discovered the cost for removing worn out blades and disposing of the waste will expend more fossil fuel than if they hadn't been built in the first place. Salt water, the wind and sand destroys the blades at a vastly greater rate than land based turbines.

@darindooley4683 Год назад

This is a great video. We install these mega wind turbines and are building new vessels to handle the larger turbines in the future. I really appreciate that you bridge the gap that Energy, Oil and Gas will finance, engineer, and install the renewables of the future. The true size of this equipment would blow your mind.

@robertbailey5239 Год назад

I often wonder whether offshore wind turbines could be combined with tidal generators to increase the production of electricity, but reduce costs by using the same structure and transmission lines.

@awilmymartinez3707 Год назад

Good Idea

@mnomadvfx Год назад

Tidal effects are most pronounced closer to shore than in the deep ocean, and certainly closer to the sea bed than the surface in the deep ocean.

@ricardoxavier827 Год назад

@adamkeifenheim1727 Год назад

If not tidal, wave power is also gaining traction. This is a good idea.

@ash-et4wl Год назад

That would heavily damage aquatic life

@chadbyrd5577 Год назад

Years ago I watched a TV show on Big Construction about large concrete hexagons that were inverted and floated on the ocean as possible floating cities of the future. If you coupled that idea with the floating, huge wind turbines, then you have a nearby grid to utilize your energy production. If not residential, then these floating properties could make ideal production facilities for marine construction or transfer of materials from larger to smaller vessels.

@FuncleChuck Год назад

Floating a city makes no sense when any amount of ground exists.

@falconerd343 Год назад

@@FuncleChuck true, but if there are no islands where you want a transfer port, or no deepwater ports on the coast to accommodate the larger ships, then this might be a feasible option.

@PlaySA Год назад

Dirty air is a huge thing in motor racing as well. Vortices in the air coming off of other cars have a huge effect on your own car's downforce and handling characteristics. The air behind other cars is less dense overall, which is better in the straights, but in the corners your downforce will be ruined by 'dirty air' (aka vortices, air moving at different speeds in the same area and other disturbances) if you're following too close.

@jpe1 Год назад

Also, following too close can cause your car to fly up into the air and flip end-over-end (at least it did for the Mercedes CLR at the 1998 LeMans race)

@pyrobedlam Год назад

we add a LOT of technology to the blades to avoid this, vortex generators and serrations on the blades..can go a long way to help with waking. Problem is that the areas we are allowed to build the bigger onshore ones, is in areas where they can reclaim the land from small older turbines, so the get the crap waked out of them.

@JeffreyBue_imtxsmoke Год назад

I'm all for these renewable sources of energy but the "elephant in the room" is still storage. I read an article the other day about a "gravity battery" energy storage system that sounds very promising and it doesn't require the use of rare earth or "hard to get" metals.

@lohengrin5082 Год назад

For a usefull reference, the Average Nuclear power plant produces around 1 Gw. The 18GW increase in 2021 is like 18 new Nuclear power plants getting built, except Nuclear power plants require decades of planning and permits. I love Nuclear but at this point its going to get leapfrogged by Wind.

@johngy6296 Год назад

It’s definitely a big advantage for construction, assembling the turbines in port and towing them into situ, making much better use of crane/plant availability and lower-wind opportunities. However this will have profound operational cost implications, if routine maintenance and repair in situ isn’t possible, or is made much more difficult/delayed.

@metatechhd Год назад

💨🌊🌬 Great to see someone with expertise in wind energy shedding light on floating wind turbines. Your insight on the advantages of larger turbines is spot on! The scalability factor is often overlooked, as bigger turbines mean fewer installations, reduced foundation and cable requirements, and more efficient maintenance and operation. These factors contribute significantly to cost savings and overall project efficiency. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and raising awareness about the potential of offshore wind. Cheers from the windy shores! 🇳🇴✌💡

@hyderalhassani4907 Год назад

I work for on Offshore wind developer, we plan these things so far in the future that we explore some crazy options that don't even exist yet. Like 25MW Turbines with diameters of 300m+

@stefanr8232 Год назад

That is near future. Medium future is like 30 km wind turbines on Venus. Petawatts. Far in the future we get astrophysical jets, Herbing-Harrow objects, quasar drives etc. Though obviously the words "near" and "far" are highly subjective.

@chloroquine99 Год назад

GE has a 250m diameter 17MW, however they are upgrading the insides to get 18MW out of the same rotor diameter.

@DannyRice01 Год назад

Ive just completed a university report on a theoretical windfarm on Irelands west coast in 50m water depths. We went with tripod jacket foundations and SG10.0-193DD turbines due to concerns on the reliability and lack of comparative research in the field of floating wind. Seeing China do 18MW floating is incredible and seems like a leap in innovation for sure!

@gabrieldsouza6541 Год назад

What would the rated capacity be of the theoretical wind farm?

@DannyRice01 Год назад

@@gabrieldsouza6541 If the wind maintained 10m/s for 1/3 of each day it would produce 730,000 MWh from 25 10MW turbines. This would be 2.3% of Ireland's 2019 energy demand. Purely theoretical of course but an interesting research topic

@Walterwaltraud Год назад

@@DannyRice01 Hi, I always wondered when looking at the current electricity load, power sources and wind capacity of Ireland how come you are not much further with land installations yet. Tons of gas import and electricity import from the UK could be saved... thoughs?

@DannyRice01 Год назад

@@Walterwaltraud Nimbyism, conservation area concerns and an abysmal grid system that needs a major overhaul means Ireland is behind on their wind installations. But now the money is there and goals have been set so it will happen in time!

@Walterwaltraud Год назад

@@DannyRice01 Hey, thanks a lot for the update! Was there anything that accelerate change? The Ukraine war? Price hikes?

@MegaLokopo Год назад

If you use wind power to desalinate water you could use reservoirs as massive batteries, that don't depend on rainfall.

@xx5949 Год назад

Fun fact, china suffer from regular typhoon attack. Those turbines are designed to harvest energy from it. They can withstand 180kmph wind. However these massive power spikes cause problem to power grid. They have to waste that energy. The average power is just 0.5% - 2% of the peak it can generate!!! If we have good energy storage strategy, 1 typhoon day would be able to surpass 100 normal day!!! So there is a long way to go in wind power

@huebeyduebey3493 Год назад

I’m about to finish technical school in a month to be a wind turbine technician. I will start out working on onshore turbines in my home state of Kansas but I hope someday I get a chance to work on one of these behemoths. The onshore turbines are already awe inspiring pieces of engineering I can’t imagine seeing one of these giants in person.

@qjimq Год назад

You may want to study floating off shore oil rig's while your working in Kansas or wherever. Your company most likely will help or pay for some night classes. This tech as he mentioned is just converting the oil rig tech to wind turbines. Good luck!

@huebeyduebey3493 Год назад

@@qjimq I’ll definitely be asking whatever company I end up with about further education options!

@qjimq Год назад

@@huebeyduebey3493 It sounds like a real exciting industry. To be young again, ha ha

@huebeyduebey3493 Год назад

@@qjimq thank you for the kind words and advice! Not gonna lie when I saw the American flag profile and the first sentence was about how I should be studying oil rigs I though “oh great another one of these boomers” but I kept reading and was pleasantly surprised.

@qjimq Год назад

@@huebeyduebey3493 Well that shows that you have an open mind and don't assume you know everything which is perfect in an emerging field which will have to compete w/ huge established/entrenched near monopolies. I'm an almost retired engineer and worked on some of GE's first land turbines in New England, when each town that invested went bankrupt. Eventually, the turbines became more efficient and competed successfully. I stayed in MFG but for different products that were struggling to compete, and what I learned is to always assume I am wrong. If I'm right in the end great, but I start from assuming I am wrong and work from there. Fight my fight, but know in the end somebody will find a better way to do it and that kept me humble and open minded and successful in an ever changing environment. I don't know if that helps you, but I'm glad you replied and your kind words. I think it shows you're a bigger person than most and that often means admitting you can be wrong and build off that. Learn and move on w/ the wisdom. I certainly still practice it today and we're working on employing 30k people at Subic Bay Philippines where people off the street amaze me w/ something new every day. Don't ignore them or judge them because you might meet a lot in the oil industry. Take what you can use and filter out the BS as best you can. Sorry for the long reply but I'm so happy that you replied w/ my off color emoji. LOL, the banana's have a bit of a different meaning over here where they export them. Thanks again for the conversation.

@ericmjl Год назад

Does anybody else love all of the puns Matt sprinkles throughout his videos?

@zebgraves4562 Год назад

I climb the land based ones for a living and have for 10 years now. My company is the largest in wind in the US and we’re planning to triple our wind production by 2027. The biggest downfall to offshore wind is the cost. With US having so much land recourses, it’s hard to justify spending the extra on offshore. Seeing these huge new towers makes my knees hurt thinking about forgetting a tool lol hopefully they all have man lifts lol

@w8stral Год назад

Well, these offshore turbines will be serviced by helicopters, so your knees will be fine.

@niconico3907 Год назад

Other turbine manufacturers are not as cheap as the american one, they all install lifts in each turbined. And all offshore turbines have lifts.

@joshmusic9766 Год назад

I think I work for the same company, if I had to guess. Without going into too much detail, I can tell you right now that although they want to triple by 2030 or whatever, they absolutely will not be able to. Many issues with company scaling, hiring, expanding, organizing. They are shooting for the stars in hopes to land among the clouds.

@w8stral Год назад

@@niconico3907 You do realize it is all about $$$ customer is willing to pay upfront and ALL turbines from ALL companies can be purchased with a manlift... They do not come standard here genius...

@niconico3907 Год назад

@@w8stral in other countries, most manufacturer don't sell turbines without lifts, because the manufacturer knows they will do the service of these turbines at least for the warranty time.

@trevortucker1 Год назад

18Mw 😮 When the 8Mw came out I thought it could never get bigger. Get a disused oil rig and maybe we could be heading for a 100Mw turbine. 😊

@steverichmond7142 Год назад

I live in Scotland and own 2 farms. One of them is off grid with battery storage. We don't get a lot of sun but do have a lot of wind. From one window I can see 26 wind turbines that have been making electricity for many years.

@segalliongaming8925 Год назад

I’m really skeptical about the economic viability of these floating wind turbines. I do like the fact that you need fewer of them compared to land-based turbines or fixed offshore turbines. But the cost of maintenance must be astronomical.

@Ikgeloofhetniet Год назад

@@rogerstarkey5390 thanks 4 ledden me no

@joshmusic9766 Год назад

Roger doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Maintenance on land is huge, when you go offshore, you need divers, underwater welders, specialty technicians, boats, ect. The cost of maintenance is astronomical and this the driving factor in making them as big as possible, so that there are fewer to repair. As they start to age (10 or 15 years old) the maintenance costs only go up. (I work in the industry)

@pfd1970 Год назад

Ugh, Matt the puns 😂 Fantastic video. I know wind power has drawbacks but it produces so much energy with such a small footprint compared to solar. I think we just need to find the right balance between solar, wind and other clean sources. Very inspired. Thank you!

@jordanhicken7812 Год назад

So. Many. Puns. 😅

@MattSmith-tv3sv Год назад

Love the puns, very mischievous!

@ioandragulescu6063 Год назад

I'm curios about the resilience of these turbines in case of powerfull storms, even hurricane level ones. Best case scenario I would see, is if they enter a shutdown mode to protect themselvs in which case they would produce nothing for the duration of the storm. Other relevant questions would be lifespan and maintenance costs, especially for the floating ones.

@joshmusic9766 Год назад

There is storm stow, they face the wind, spin freely, and angle the blades to catch the least amount of wind, but wind direction can change rapidly. For this reason, it’s likely that they avoid areas prone to hurricanes completely. And yes, maintenance is a HUGE cost factor. When turbines start to age (10 or 15 years only) the maintenance costs go up and up and up

@GodefroydeSavignon Год назад

Three things. 1) the number of GW given is when windturbin are used at 100% all the time : the average % of a working windturbin in real life during a year is around 20% on land (I don't know on sea) 2) The energy produced when not needed by users, say during the night mainly, just goes away, not being stored : huge waste of electricity... Unless we can create mega huge batteries linked to those windturbins, it will never be a good solution for the future compares to nuclear plants. 3) Nuclear plants are already built and connected to the electrical grid : we will destroy them at a gigantic cost while giving also a gigantic amount of money to build new windturbins that also cause ecological problems... Think about it.

@andynewsom Год назад

Glad to hear you touch on environmental impacts, but I think there might be another angle to consider. The biggest impact to ocean eco systems is large scale fishing, which probably wouldn't be possible in a wind farm, so although there would certainly be some initial disturbance, these areas could serve as safe havens for life over the longer term.

@paulogden7417 Год назад

Why do you think there would be no fishing in an offshore wind farm?

@jpe1 Год назад

@@paulogden7417 do you want to be on a fishing boat that just snagged an electrical cable carrying 420,000 volts? Perhaps you are thinking of a few guys in their cigarette boat, knocking back beers while their fishing lines dangle a few feet into the water, or maybe a few guys with a small seine net? Commercial fishing involves massive gill nets that are 6 to 10 miles long, or long lines that are typically 20 to 40 miles long. Not the sort of thing that can be safely used around wind turbines with anchor cables and power cables enmeshing the area. Aquaculture might be possible within an offshore wind farm, but I don’t see how that could be economically preferable over onshore locations.

@andynewsom Год назад

Exactly, what Paul said.

@devins7457 Год назад

@@andynewsom Can't trawl in a field of cables and anchors.

@andynewsom Год назад

@@devins7457 Meant to agree with John Early, not Paul! heheh.

@matthewgibbs6886 Год назад

whats the service life of these systems? whats the actual carbon footprint, how much toxic was is generated during production and decommission. how much money does it generate vs cost and maintenance.

@Sandi_shores_lands_fish Год назад

The motor would need some maintenance The steel structure.. well 100 - 300 years

@erniecolussy1705 Год назад

One thing you didn't talk about was the differences in wind speed at the top of the sweep of the wind turbine blade versus the bottom. This may require a change of the pitch angle as the blade rotates for maximum efficiency. Do these large wind turbine do this? Or do they function like typical size wind turbine and only adjust pitch angle to maintain the correct output frequency?

@bitey-facepuppyguy2038 Год назад

Good point....the wind difference between the top and the bottom of a turbine can be a real issue when warm air blows over cold water. In these conditions you can get a powerful low level jet at the 100 - 500 meter range but not so much wind down at the water surface. This happens more frequently near land, and especially in the spring and summer.

@niconico3907 Год назад

There are also other reasons to pitch the blade when they are up or down. The rotor turn around a shaft that is not horizontal, its tilted a few degrees up to give more space between the tower and the blade which is in the low position. This tilt means the blade going up has an angle of attack that is different than the angle of the blade going down. The angle of attack changing all the time means the mechanical stress on the blades also changes all the time which is worse for the blades life than a constant stress. The wind is also slower near the tower.

@gdm2417 Год назад

@@niconico3907 I guess "teetering" (ala chopper) is out of the question for the same reason - tower-strike.

@perstaffanlundgren Год назад

I think the blade angels are the same at all blades , you cant rotate the blade hub fast enough to compensate for passing the tower wind speed bottom and top , you would have to a very short life span on the central hub mechanics if it was moving all time. The blades often rotate in case of the turbine trying to maintain the rpm envelope, if the rotating is accelerated the gear box first try to change generator axle output generating more power (breaking), and if the rpm on the turbine is still raising the blades pitch is changed . There is also a mechanic break in the nasell turbine house, to regulate rpm on blades. The blade rotation from high pitch to no neutral takes some Time maybe 5-10 seconds. On helicopters the blade hub is constantly shecked, because of the high mechanical load and constantly pitching blades.

@joshmusic9766 Год назад

The blade angle actually changes multiple times per second! Very small adjustments so that there is less resistance to the main rotor. This force you are talking about is already taken into account!

@AntonioNoack Год назад

@4:08 pi * r² is just the area of the circle 😊, wind turbines scale with their covered area

@joblo341 Год назад

A couple of years ago I saw an interesting study. They said that if something like 10,000 turbines were placed offshore of Florida, it could reduce the intensity of a hurricane by 1 full level on the Hurricane intensity scale. Placing wind turbines in the Great Lakes is not really feasible. They have to face the fact that the lakes freeze in winter. Ice, blown by wind needed to activate the turbine, is a very powerful destructive force. I read a study that simply painting one of the turbine blades a contrasting color (black) is enough to significantly reduce the number of birds killed.

@johnburn8031 Год назад

It's amazing how much renewable energy sources have improved in the last 30 years. 🙋🏻‍♂️

@ricardoxavier827 Год назад

@mnomadvfx Год назад

Wind has increased much faster in output per turbine than solar has per panel. Which is a big part of why it is so much less expensive per kwh. Even at the most ideal efficiency solar will never be as cost efficient as solar sadly.

@josephpiskac2781 Год назад

Really neat I had no idea that this expansion in size is going on. I saw the first big wind farms in California thirty years ago. Five years ago I viewed the extreme growth of this technology in Texas and mass production appears not to be a problem.

@mnomadvfx Год назад

It's even bigger than that. Plans for contra rotating turbines are spiralling up to the range of 40MW each for the future from some companies. The implications of being able to get a gigawatt from just 25 turbines are huge, even if the turbines themselves are pretty huge too 😂 That being said we desperately need utlity scale storage solutions to match all this extra power generated from renewables, otherwise a great deal of it will simply go to waste.

@joshmusic9766 Год назад

Wind companies are expanding as fast as humanly possible. Right now the major constraints are internal: takes a long time to hire, hard to organize the expansion, problems arise with new technologies and new programs that control the towers, tech support, ect. The demand is through the roof, the money is there, it’s all internal issues.

@zano187 Год назад

By far my biggest concern is finding a way to refurbish the blades instead of throwing them away every time they wear out.

@perstaffanlundgren Год назад

When the blade is worn out it is maybe possible to recycle the materials in the future. But the blade as is is probably worn out mechanically, in one or several components . The scale up of the components probably makes if age faster also. There are data that support the theory that this very large turbines last shorter time than the smaller ones.

@joshmusic9766 Год назад

Carbon fiber is hard to recycle. These turbines last for 25 years, sometimes longer. So it’s not like they are just throwing them out Willy nilly when they start to get some dirt on them.

@ggosbenton Год назад

Hahaha! I would love to count all the wind puns, but I couldn't count that high 😂

@zibbitybibbitybop Год назад

It's gonna take an absurd amount of materials to build all those turbines, and the global mining industry is not currently up to the task. Someone else in the comments also noted that the blades of defunct turbines can't be recycled and would be hard to transport, which probably means dumping them in the ocean. I'm skeptical about the viability of this tech on a massive scale, it's a lesser contributor at best.

@glenndennis6801 Год назад

These, although massive turbines, are a tiny fraction of the materials that go into cars, buildings or roads. If you want to be overwhelmed look at how much materials go into pavement.

@Charlie1821 Год назад

Or replace hundreds of turbines with one nuclear plant.

@theforest8882 Год назад

they Don't want that because these channels try to push the climate change bs to everyone

@ParkerDD Год назад

What about their end of life disposal? First time I saw the mass field graveyards of turbine blades I realized this is not the solution.

@Haroldus0 Год назад

Well presented. I hope this gets shared in environmental science classes. The biggest factors favoring offshore wind are 1) laminar flow, so the air itself moves smoothly round the blades. This leads to less wear and tear, quieter operation and smoother transition from low to high wind speeds. True there are still gusts, but overall less severe. 2) less people and animals to annoy 3) ability to easily lay out wind-farms in economic linear grids without having to deal with roads, bridges, houses etc 4) local cabling kept cool due to immersion in water so less energy loss before high voltage transformer . Cabling length is be a major factor in wind turbine cost and placement especially in remote areas. I have run small scale wind power for 40 years and its brilliant if well installed.

@woutb.5210 Год назад

Terrific and very informative video, understandable for everyone. Topic here in Europe where we have many windfarms is defending those farms agains sabotage of the powerlines and or wind turbines and destruction. That would bring us too fat as this video gives an insight of how things work. Thank you Matt !!

@nahimgudfam Год назад

Even my two year old started building wind turbines after watching this. What an inspiration.

@simon7790 Год назад

Yesterday 9 European countries signed an agreement to boost investment into offshore wind. "The nine countries aim to boost their combined North Sea offshore wind capacity to 120GW by 2030 and 300GW by 2050." (The Guardian). An increasing proportion of that will be floating turbines.

@mnomadvfx Год назад

Makes a lot of sense, especially with the entire Ukraine-Russia war sanctions constraining energy supply.

@albinekb Год назад

Great video! Thank you for correctly using SI (metric) units in these engineering videos.

@ValMartinIreland Год назад

Wind farms on or off shore are a scam. Now that on shore wind farms have failed the vultures move to off shore because they have never bee tested. This presenter cannot even feed himself.

@DemPilafian Год назад

The mix of imperial and metric units is a little distracting though. Even as an American, I'd rather hear all metric than a jumble of two systems. I would bet that everyone watching this channel is into science and technology and is familiar with meters.

@GilmerJohn Год назад

Well, looking at your "scaling" equation, is says that the power generated is proportional to the Square of the turbine radius. That's all well and good. But, but ... roughly speaking, the "mass" of the assembly would increase as the Cube of the size or roughly the cube of the radius. To brings things back to earth if you double the radius, you get 4 times the power. But the mass would increase by a factor of 8. The power per "pound" would be cut in half.

@jarvisnederlof35 Год назад

Costs for these things make them only feasible in very specific areas. They won't solve our energy problems but maybe with enough time they can contribute to a solution.

@calindinis2050 Год назад

Too many puns. Jesus Christ! It's like early 2010s

@deekayunited3445 Год назад

Compare a 3gw nuke (Hinkley Point C) v a 3gw offshore windfarm (Dogger Bank). Compare the costs, the energy generation, the build time, the materials, the waste disposal and so on. The windfarm wins hands down. No real windfarm storage options though - yet. But they are coming.

@mnomadvfx Год назад

The windfarm wins, but only when the wind is actually blowing. Without scaled storage to take the slack that the grid doesn't need a lot of that will simply go to waste. This is the greatest problem facing renewables that those dinky Tesla Power Banks just aren't going to come close to solving economically.

@FreeOfFantasy Год назад

While I agree with you, for offshore wind you will need a lot more to power to reach the energy output of a 3 GW nuke plant, probably about 12 GW Plus storage.

@deekayunited3445 Год назад

@@FreeOfFantasy For sure. But you could build 2 Doggers plus an energy storage solution for the price of a Hinckly - and in a fraction of the time.

@thomasnewlands9593 Год назад

The problem is that we can’t store the wind energy effectively for long periods of time and when the wind isn’t blowing there isn’t much that can be done in terms of energy generation. Whilst I do agree with the points you have presented, it’s better to think of nuclear and renewables as complimentary sources of energy rather than opposing. Despite the large investment required, we need nuclear energy to keep the lights on when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.

@chrisplatten2293 Год назад

@@deekayunited3445 Huge variation in UK generation from wind this month. right now on gridwatch, wind is at 1.35GW. We have had a poor April for wind this year. You would need both those doggers and storage to match the output a new Hinckly would have produced. To be fair though, our nuclear output hasn't been that great with an unplanned shutdown of one plant and Sizewell's still offline for refuelling and not due back until early May, a good two weeks later than planned.

@gawebm Год назад

This was one of your most well done, informative, and impressive videos. Great presentation on the pros, cons, and challenges. My one takeaway, and most fascinating , was that if you take the cost factor out of the equation there is currently a truly sustainable solution to the earths energy needs available right now. And it's not some hi-tech engineering marvel of technology that is years from proving feasible.

@allroad42blzit Год назад

12:42 Those monstruos cables aren't just far from land, they're far from CHEAP! 🤣 MATT that's GOLD! 🥇

@LatelyDrowsy Год назад

What about sea birds and sea beds?

@AllSpeed Год назад

Hi Matt, great video as always. I just wanted to share a piece of new technology with you. A company called Sharrow make a new boat propeller that increases efficiency by ~30%, lowering noise at speed by like 50%. They have removed the blade tips entirely with their unique design.

@falconerd343 Год назад

He made a video on that recently.

@thenamelessone7 Год назад

toroidal propellers are only good for high RPM situations. These giant wind turbines spin extremely slowly (relatively speaking). Toroidal shaped propellers would only be prohibitively more expensive and add little to no positive effects.

@FuncleChuck Год назад

Enormous seaborne structures have a Titanic amount of problems to overcome but a balance of “all of the above” to renewable energy is needed as soon as possible.

@Whatsamattau2 Год назад

Thx much for this. Enormous potential. Imagine wind turbines also being used as functional art or by painting them in different colors to mimic a field of flowers. Probably not cost effective but in some areas it might mitigate - to some degree - nimby objections. Christo became famous for a lot more fantastical and impractical art projects. Might be worth a try once to see what the reaction would be, and might even give folks a grin in addition to carbon-free energy.

@maxpro751 Год назад

Not a good idea, because birds will see the color green and once they hit the wind turbines they are dead. Birds see green as a sign of a tree and they usually try and hop onto whatever object.

@pissoffeachother Год назад

@@maxpro751 this seems like you just made it up.

@maxpro751 Год назад

@@pissoffeachother Well I kinda did. Some birds may mistake the rotating blades of wind turbines for trees or other structures and collide with them, this is not due to their perception of the color green. Many bird species are not able to perceive the color green, as their vision is limited to certain wavelengths but what my point I am trying to get across is birds DO sometimes mistake these objects as structures and therefore land on them.

@marvinslomp3564 Год назад

Enercon already does this by adding a green gradient to the base of their towers

@S0ulinth3machin3 Год назад

It’s not just “more wind”. The longer the blades, the longer the lever, and the result is: a given amount of wind at the tip generates more torque at the turbine hub.

@EngineerLewis Год назад

I am close to this industry in the UK and I note the floating semi-submersible foundation supplied by the US company Principle Power, WindFloat, weighs in at a hefty 3000 tonnes of steel for a 10MW wind turbine. A UK company has designed a tension leg floating foundation which is almost 1/3rd of the mass! The UK government says that they are leading the offshore wind but in fact most of the cost of an offshore wind farm is provided by overseas companies which is a big problem for the UK. Yes we have a lot of offshore wind energy but it is provided by imported wind turbines and foundations!!

@dannycrooks8462 Год назад

The big problem offshore wind companies have to overcome is the cost of maintenance of the turbines and the short life of the turbine blades even a small amount of erosion on the blades massively reduces the efficiency of the turbines

@tomw485 Год назад

How do these things stand up to 150mph hurricane winds and waves?

@bailey.nt86 Год назад

How many birds a year do wind turbines k*ll?

@baronvonlobotomus7530 Год назад

About as many as a skyscraper: basically 0

@Leo-gt1bx Год назад

@@baronvonlobotomus7530 Your last name explains it..

@obambagaming1467 Год назад

A lot but cats and skyscrapers kill even more. But a huge problem with those offshore turbines appearently cause whales to beach. This is now a thing apparently

@squ1dd13 Год назад

very interesting video, but please stop overdoing it on the puns. reusing the same joke over and over stops being funny once you’re past the age of 10.

@aceghost1074 Год назад

Id like to see the comparison of early offshore drilling installation/ mantaince cost vs floating turbines. Currently it makes economic sense to continue drilling, so the price, vs emerging technology cost had to have balanced out. And where wind has the cable costs, the oil industry has the cost of increased labor on rigs, sampling costs to find oil, as well as further refinement costs once bringing energy back to land, over all i see it as a better long term economic move. Even outside the whole green energy conversation.

@xoso599 Год назад

Generation means nothing if you can't deliver over 99.999% uptime. On land wind runs an average of 20% of capacity, offshore about 35%. But the gaps between near max generation can be days or weeks. Which means either massively hugely overbuilding generation, moderately overbuilding generation and running very numerous transmission lines, hugely expensive storage on a scale that dwarfs any prior efforts, or just telling people they might need to go days without electrical power. If you want a to move away from baseload coal and peaking natural gas be like Finland and build nuclear power plants.

@DaveMcIroy Год назад

8:45 - Ahm, no. Dirty air means turbulences, not slipstream.

@ideomotion Год назад

Please address environmental impacts. What are potential affects on migratory birds (or other life and or physical phenomina)? It is plausible that wind turbines further out to sea and higher up in altitude would have fewer negative consequences for birds, but we don't think we have the research. Also relationship to GHG emissions (reduction I assume). Does painting one blade black decrease bird mortality? What are engineering consequences of painting one blade black?

@mrhouse3826 Год назад

What is undeniable is the fact that no wind means NO POWER! Get rid of these bird guillotines now!

@joedowning2428 Год назад

Unbeknownst to you, they are literally placed in windy locations...

@Exodon2020 Год назад

Not many birds around on the open ocean. Also, measures as simple as painting one of the rotors black has proven effective in keeping birds away.

@mrhouse3826 Год назад

@@Exodon2020 Well they are NOT in the open ocean, they are either just offshore or littered around our formerly beautiful rolling landscape. BTW these things need 700 gallons of oil and hydraulic fluid each, which needs changing every nine months. Eco friendly my arse!!

@Adrian-qk2fn Год назад

The trouble with installing Offshore Windfarms is that, whereas land people may see them as empty or unused, seafarers would see them as vital parts of the ocean. Many of the shallower areas are also major Fishing Grounds and installing Windfarms may see access to these fishing grounds restricted or even prohibited. There is also the point that areas offshore are also the locations of major Shipping Lanes particulalrly around the entrances to ports. Even if the Windfarms themselves were sited away from the immediate vicinity to them they can still become an obstruction of hazard to Navigation particularly for vessels that may suffer an emergency- and that doesn't take into consideration what would happen if the floating Wind Turbines broke free of their moorings.. Given that the bulk of trade and a major source of food for the planet's ever growing population are located at sea- and many of them are in the same locations that these offshore Windfarms are proposed they should proceed very carefully. Another point that has just occured to me is just how vulnerable these installations are to hostile actions. The recent events in Europe with the blowing up of the Nordstream 2 Pileline together with the growing awareness of Russian Seabed Capabilities show that growing dependence on Offshore Installations is premature- at least until their security can be guarranteed: (Also attacks of this nature would be deniable- something we have seen here in the UK).

@oystla Год назад

The most important economic factor in wanting bigger turbines is that you can install fewer turbines for the same energy output. In an offshore project the cost of just installing turbines are LARGE. So installing fewer is preferred.

@julkiewicz Год назад

One or two puns are fine. Having one or two puns per sentence is really tiring and distracting. It's okay to say things normally.

@SomeKidFromBritain Год назад

Smaller turbines start turning at lower wind speeds. So smaller turbines are useful too.

@waqasahmed939 Год назад

@@rogerstarkey5390 Definitely. That's why even in the UK, those of us who want to decarbonise for either environmental or economic reasons, put in solar panels instead of tiny wind turbines.

@D7nam1k Год назад

A smaller turbine might 'start turning' at a small gust but the actual power and energy generated from those low wind speeds just follows the formula explained in the video. So low wind speed + low swept area = minimal amounts of Watt. Especially compared to the performance of bigger turbines at greater heights. It's just physics, sadly there is no way to cheat the system (by going smaller).

@SomeKidFromBritain Год назад

In reply to all who have replied, I am talking about localised turbines, not major infrastructure projects. I still think a small turbine here and there doesnt hurt.

@SomeKidFromBritain Год назад

@@waqasahmed939 idk where in the UK you are. Where I am in Scotland, many farmers have small wind turbines. I totally agree on solar panels though.

@w8stral Год назад

@@waqasahmed939 Solar in UK... you truly have to be economically mind dumb to install solar there. It would be cheaper to lease land in Western Sahara, or just conquer a portion as no one lives there, and run several monstorous power cables even with the resistance losses a couple thousand km.

@philv3941 Год назад

A french society, currently testing a floating windmill in front of Marseille, just announced they plan a 20MW floating one.

@mdeblan Год назад

Nice timing btw! I’m currently attending Enercon in Copenhagen, so your video is very on brand (and I’ll be sending it to some of my customers). Good job 👍🏼

@marvinslomp3564 Год назад

I've just finished an internship at Enercon as a maintenance engineer, its a great company!

@georgemellen6922 Год назад

I live in Eureka, California, and the floating wind industry is headed this way soon. A production facility is planned in the Eureka harbor, which is well suited due to deep water and absence of bridges that would inhibit tall structures. My understanding is that turbines will be manufactured here for much of the west coast of the US, which is certainly all good news. People who live in Eureka have been through multiple boom/bust cycles related to fishing and timber and so are obviously a bit wary of the impact of this new industry in the area. Having lived for many years in Silicon Valley, I'm excited to have this opportunity to watch this burgeoning industry bring a technological solution to an important need and my hope is that the net impact is to massively lower the co2 output of the energy production as a result of these innovations.

@paulturner5769 Год назад

Back in 2003, a colleague was extolling the virtues of Wind Power. I asked them what they thought the impact on the environment would be of extracting all of that energy from the weather system. They didn't seem to think it would be a problem, much like humans have always assumed our species is too small a component in the wide world for our activities to have significant effects. Activities such as: cutting down trees, burning Coal, damming rivers, etc. I find it amazing that 20 years later people are complaining about the changes in the weather/climate and are building wind farms at an increasing rate, but don't seem to have connected the two! People have stuck their collective heads in the sand and told themselves 'The wind wasn't doing anything, anyway', when of course, it was. When they realise how savagely and comprehensively extracting energy from the weather systems can bite us, I look forward to a HUGE resurgence in nuclear power. 🙂

@fitzy1093 Год назад

Been doing renewables M&A for 8+ years. Well done, sir. Offshore wind is coming in the US, but the first projects won't be until late 2020s. Europe is way ahead of the US with offshore wind at the moment. Expect to see more oil majors get involved in offshore wind since they're experienced with large-scale offshore equipment. The latest "sexy" topic in the industry is green hydrogen (energy storage, and byproducts like ammonia), which similarly is a few years out before we'll see real utility-scale impact. Every major developer and IPP is talking about green hydrogen / developing their strategy

@___.51 Год назад

Concise, no grandiose claims, much better intro than the agrivoltaics video.

@centurione6489 Год назад

Ever heard about "air rivers" that bring moisture (=rain) back to dryland?? So ... are we sure-sure that this aeolic energy capturing is good for us?

@UndercoverFerret404 Год назад

I'd love to see a video on how they handle the high voltage connection to the wind turbine.

@nahimgudfam Год назад

You need an education on Amps, Volts and Watts.

@no-damn-alias Год назад

Another Chinese manufacturer has announced a 18Mw class turbine which is the basis of another bigger modular family sweeping over 63.000m² ! Just wow!

@JohnSmith-pc3gc 6 месяцев назад

If you apply that wind turbine power formula to the world's largest wind turbine at a maximum wind speed of 60 mph, it comes out to about 727 million watts. But the maximum power output of the turbine is rated at 16 million watts which is only 2% of the available wind energy.

@3D_Printing Год назад

Basics: Turbines to drive a pump, pump fluid through a pipe to onshore to drive electric generation; much less expense that paid on copper eagles, easier to construct, repair, etc...

@laura-ann.0726 Год назад

I am wondering, what are the maximum conditions of wind speed and wave height that these floating turbines can withstand, in severe storms? Hurricanes and typhoons can generate wind speeds in excess of 150 mph and waves up to 100 feet. They are so large, that I don't see how they could easily or quickly be disconnected from the power cables and towed out of harm's way if a storm was coming at them.

@joshmusic9766 Год назад

They cannot move the towers whatsoever. During storms they are placed into wind stow (they face the wind, disconnect the main rotor, disengage the brake so they spin freely, and turn the blades so that they catch as little wind as possible) but the real answer is to not build towers in areas that are susceptible to hurricanes. High winds can and do absolutely destroy towers, it’s like throwing money right down the drain (millions upon millions of dollars a piece) so they try their best to avoid that scenario

@laura-ann.0726 Год назад

@@joshmusic9766 - Thanks for your reply; I don't know much about this newest generation of really huge wind turbines. So, if they can't be moved once settled into place, that implies that they can't be towed back to shore for repairs, either - so any damage or replacement of broken parts has to be done in situ. I suppose the accountants for the owners factor in storm losses as "part of the cost of doing business", so that the net profit from the electricity delivered to customers is high enough that the operation overall is profitable despite some losses. A bad storm on land could severely damage or destroy a solar panel farm, too, and there are some in Southern California that cover 4000+ acres and cost $500 million to build. In order to work, the panels have to be completely exposed to the sky, so there's no way practical way to roof them with something that would protect them from a storm.

@joshmusic9766 Год назад

@@laura-ann.0726 you are right, they are all repaired where they stand. When offshore, you can imagine that this is extremely expensive. I also work with solar panels- they can do less to protect from storms but there are a few stow options, wind stow, which puts them about parallel with the direction of wind, there is hail stow, which takes into account the wind but mostly tries to stow them as upright as possible (perpendicular to the ground) so that the hail does not hit them, and table top, which is parsley to the ground which makes it easier to do certain maintenance. And yes you are right, everything is predicted and calculated… if the numbers and productions say it won’t be profitable, it won’t be built. They also look at historical data of wind in the area, they choose areas that have good and consistent wind

@thelion1944 Год назад

I had no idea about much of this info, so thanks Matt!

@marc3793 Год назад

You blow me away with the amount of content you manage to get into one video!

@johndavis2938 Год назад

Its nice to read thru the comments and not see a lot of green energy "hate". Great vid!

@JohnS-er7jh Год назад

it must be expensive to setup these wind turbines (including the cost to capture the energy) and also maintenance costs. I wonder what the expect life of these turbines is and how much energy they will generate of that lifespan.

@joshmusic9766 Год назад

For on land they produce for about 20 years. Honestly after just 10 years they start to fall apart and depending on the brand, some of them are offline more than they are online. Maintenance costs increase as they age

@thiagov6123 Год назад

building bigger also poses challenges for engineering, assembly, installation and maintenance. There is a point of maximum value, where building any larger would decrease profit

@Renovatio2 Год назад

One of my major concerns with offshore wind is security. They are incredibly vulnerable to enemy state actors and require protection. That protection would have to come from submarines, likely nuclear powered to avoid detection. Those not only do not come cheap having them patrol offshore windfarms effectively nullifies their usage elsewhere lest the fields be left unguarded. The other options are the development of underwater drone swarms to protect the fields but in deep water areas their ability to catch and therefore deter an enemy sub attack is dubious.

@stefanr8232 Год назад

The inverse is mire believable. The wind farms add a network of sensors. It makes it harder for hostile parties to pass through unnoticed.

@FuncleChuck Год назад

1:23 refreshing to see industry not using bs marketing terms.

@johnfarmer3506 Год назад

Nice video, but it needs projections for kilowatts/per-hour costs. Also, how will these intermittent power sources work with our current baseload power grid? Do we need on-shore gas turbines to back up these systems, and how will that affect the overall cost?

@jimhealy4890 Год назад

Dear @Russell Fine Arts the price of wind and solar power production and infrastructure is huge and growing. What is the total environmental impact of producing the equipment from the first bolt through to the short life cycle of each plant and through to the decomposition of the plant that has reached the end of its useful life?

@emwhaibee Год назад

How about using torroidal blades for the open sea wind farm turbines? Also the issue about these blades being made of asbestos(??) so it makes difficult for them to be recycled or even maintained has not even been mentioned in the vod.

@Thomas-VA Год назад

I love all this renewable energy technology evolution, it can only get better as we figure out / fix the flaws and make better/more use of it in the right places and combinations (wind, water, geo thermal, solar, and better use of not so precious or limited metals/minerals to accomodate growing demands.

@vipondiu Год назад

I'm always sceptical about the cost/MWh of renewables. A quick calculation tells you that if the cost of on-shore wind would be 30$/Mwh, as claimed, producing the 24*10^9 the world consumes and converting the entire world to run on wind would give a yearly bill of 720 billion dolars. We can assume some variables would have a negative scaling up, like the number of suitable "windy places" but others would counteract with a possitive one, line economies or scale. It doesn't matter, the number is way too low. As per usual, the estimate of $/MWh have had to be assuming flatout winds the entire year and/or massively optimistic lifespans and/or without taking into account installation cost or the usual creative accounting tricks when discussing renewables.

@infinitelyexplosive4131 Год назад

LCOE is calculated including both construction cost and capacity factor already.

@TheAero1221 Год назад

Damn... 18MW rating is insane!

@nahimgudfam Год назад

It's also bullshit. Just some big investment scam like everything China does. No results, just made up metrics.

@for-real-tho Год назад

I don't know....We would need hundreds of these ginormous experimental wind turbines to compete with just a single nuclear plant, that can generate thousands of megawatts 24/7.

@paulb9453 Год назад

Fascinating, Matt, you allude to many weaknesses of onshore wind - wind shadow. Then quote IEA technical potential of 36k TWh of offshore wind and global demand of 26 k TWh. You cannot equate actual demand (not even peak) with theoretical outputs from economically infeasible projects. Would you build on top of the Great Barrier Reef? Costs are not guaranteed to come down. Remember, steel production is under pressure to decarbonise, and steel will not be cheap. Finally, do you mention the hours of operation? We might be lucky enough to get 50-60% maximum (versus 0-40% onshore in the windiest parts of Europe, eg the UK), but not all year round. The UK's entire wind fleet, including offshore, ran almost 99% below rated capacity a couple of weeks ago. Your analysis is great, I love your presentational style, but your content is bordering on biased due to serious omissions, but I appreciate your educational content for the bits you present.