Futurity.org » wind energy

How to build a better wind farm

Mike Krapfl-Iowa State — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:23:19 +0000

IOWA STATE (US) — A turbine only ten inches high is helping researchers understand how hills, valleys, and tower placement can affect the productivity of onshore wind farms.

The tower is a perfect 1:320 scale of the 80-meter wind turbines in Iowa, the nation’s second-ranked state for installed wind power capacity. While the wind industry has data about offshore turbine performance over flat water—especially from European studies—there is little data about the effects of uneven ground on wind turbines.

Electrode for durable batteries on the grid

Louis Bergeron-Stanford — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:56:02 +0000

STANFORD (US) — A new type of battery electrode could make large-scale storage for solar and wind power more feasible.

The electrode employs crystalline nanoparticles of a copper compound. In laboratory tests, the electrode survived 40,000 cycles of charging and discharging, after which it could still be charged to more than 80 percent of its original charge capacity.

Wind turbines need more rotor room

Dennis O'Shea-JHU — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:06:08 +0000

JOHNS HOPKINS (US) — Wind farm builders should space their turbines much further apart to generate power more efficiently, wind tunnel tests and computer simulations show.

Large wind farms are being built around the world as a cleaner way to generate electricity, but operators are still searching for the most efficient way to arrange the massive turbines that turn moving air into power.

Climate change remains hot topic in UK

Jessica Kelly-Cardiff — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 15:33:55 +0000

CARDIFF U. (UK)—Despite a decline in concern about climate change, the majority of the British public still believe the climate is changing and are prepared to act, a new survey shows.

As the new government begins to get to grips with the task of meeting its climate change obligations while also renewing the energy supply system for Britain, the survey from Cardiff University offers a snapshot of public opinion.

Wind farm design inspired by school of fish

Deborah Williams-Hedges-Caltech — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:30:15 +0000

CALTECH (US)—In current wind farms, all of the turbines rotate in the same direction. But while studying the vortices left behind by fish swimming in a school, fluid-dynamics expert John Dabiri noticed that some vortices rotated clockwise, while others rotated counter-clockwise.

He and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) are identifying energy-related processes in biological systems that may provide insight into new approaches to—in this case—wind energy.

Hinged pole could keep the lights on

Mike Krapfl-Iowa State — Wed, 12 May 2010 20:42:40 +0000

IOWA STATE (US)—Engineers have designed a new type of transmission pole that is hinged, making it easier to install and repair. It also resists the kind of cascading failures that can lead to widespread power outages.

Current metal poles are built to take whatever weather comes at them, so they’re big and round and sturdy—as much as 12 feet in diameter and 100 feet high. But transmission poles can still fail under the stress of extreme ice and wind. They’re also vulnerable to an infrastructure attack. And when one of them falls, others are pulled down until heavy dead-end structures stop the cascading collapse.

Taking America’s energy temperature

Steve Manas-Rutgers — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:56:45 +0000

A recent energy survey of 2,700 Americans reveals a “white male effect”—almost 66 percent of white male respondents favored increased reliance on nuclear fuel compared to only 35 percent of other males and females. Above, a 1.4 megawatt solar farm generates approximately 11 percent of the electrical demand of Rutgers’ Livingston Campus.

RUTGERS (US)—Of the estimated 1,000 energy-related public opinion polls conducted during the last 20 years, environmental policy expert Michael Greenberg says there are two basic types: polls that include energy questions among a range of societal issues and hypothesis-driven surveys that measure preferences and try to link them to underlying factors.

Greenberg, whose teaching and research interests at Rutgers include environmental planning and economic and environmental trade-offs, recently conducted his own survey. Findings were published in the journal Energy Policy.

Totally clean and green by 2030?

Louis Bergeron-Stanford — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:25:41 +0000

If the world allows carbon- and air pollution-emitting energy sources to play a substantial role in the future energy mix, Mark Jacobson says, global temperatures and health problems will only continue to increase. (Credit: L.A. Cicero)

STANFORD (US)—Most of the technology needed to shift the world from fossil fuel to clean, renewable energy already exists. A new report suggests that implementing that technology requires overcoming obstacles in planning and politics, but doing so could result in a 30 percent decrease in global power demand.

To make clear the extent of those hurdles—and how they could be overcome—Stanford University civil and environmental engineering professor Mark Jacobson and University of California-Davis researcher Mark Delucchi have written an article that is the cover story in the November issue of Scientific American.

A better way to turn out turbine blades

Futurity-Jenny Leonard — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:38:31 +0000

“This project is all about making wind energy a reality,” Matt Frank explains. “How do we make an impact on the U.S. energy profile? To do that, we have to develop manufacturing technologies that can economically make a lot of these components.”

IOWA STATE (US)–Researchers are working to develop new, low-cost manufacturing systems that could improve the productivity of turbine blade factories by as much as 35 percent.

“The current manufacturing methods are very labor intensive,” says John Jackman, associate professor of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering at Iowa State University. “We need to improve throughput—we need to get more blades produced every week in order for it to be economical to continue to produce wind energy components in the United States.”

Wind energy that’s for the birds

Futurity-Jenny Leonard — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:00:15 +0000

“Conducting this research will help the wind industry make informed, science-based decisions about where future wind energy projects can be built and how they can be operated to minimize the impact on migrating wildlife, while still providing much-needed alternative energy,” explains John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

CORNELL (US)—An effort is under way to ensure that birds and bats are not the unintended victims of an expanding wind energy industry.