http://cleantechnica.com/2009/09/21/oil-company-begins-wind-test-of-off-shore-floating-platform/ Clean Tech News & Views: Solar Energy News. Wind Energy News. EV News. & More. Mon, 29 Dec 2014 15:23:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.1 http://cleantechnica.com/2009/09/21/oil-company-begins-wind-test-of-off-shore-floating-platform/#comment-7170 Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:07:09 +0000 http://cleantechnica.com/?p=3454#comment-7170 Deepwater wind has enormous potential as there’s more powerful and consistent winds closer to load centers without as many impacts to people, birds and bats. DOE and MMS should be spending big bucks to develop appropriate tech and prepare environmental impact studies on marine life. A major problem to overcome is the grinding of bearings and gears caused by the swaying accelerations of the turbine in waves and the entire tech should be reconfigured to produce more inexpensive and stable platforms with a lower center of gravity. One possible method of accomplishing this goal is to switch to Vertical Axis Wind Turbines that have a lower center of gravity, do not exacerbate the swaying accelerations and can be spaced closely together for mutual stabilization without the severe wind shadow effects experienced by HAWTs. There are 2 MW VAWTs available and it has been suggested that the Aerogenerator may be scaled to 10 MW but these designs are a long way from being durable enough for marine deployment that demands almost infallible designs due to the high cost of marine maintenance. All ecogeeks should demand DOE development of suitable marine wind farm designs and poke MMS to institute a proper methodology for assessing marine impacts of those farms.

]]> http://cleantechnica.com/2009/09/21/oil-company-begins-wind-test-of-off-shore-floating-platform/#comment-24376 Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:07:00 +0000 http://cleantechnica.com/?p=3454#comment-24376 Deepwater wind has enormous potential as there’s more powerful and consistent winds closer to load centers without as many impacts to people, birds and bats. DOE and MMS should be spending big bucks to develop appropriate tech and prepare environmental impact studies on marine life. A major problem to overcome is the grinding of bearings and gears caused by the swaying accelerations of the turbine in waves and the entire tech should be reconfigured to produce more inexpensive and stable platforms with a lower center of gravity. One possible method of accomplishing this goal is to switch to Vertical Axis Wind Turbines that have a lower center of gravity, do not exacerbate the swaying accelerations and can be spaced closely together for mutual stabilization without the severe wind shadow effects experienced by HAWTs. There are 2 MW VAWTs available and it has been suggested that the Aerogenerator may be scaled to 10 MW but these designs are a long way from being durable enough for marine deployment that demands almost infallible designs due to the high cost of marine maintenance. All ecogeeks should demand DOE development of suitable marine wind farm designs and poke MMS to institute a proper methodology for assessing marine impacts of those farms.

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