Sorry, I know this has NOTHING to do with sailing but I figured you guys might have some knowledge, given that some of you are engineers and spread all over the world, and live for MORE wind!

My 4th grade daughter is doing a school science fair project on Alternative Energy; Wind Power. We have been looking on the internet for info. We have found massive wind farms in California and Holland. What we have not found is why only there? I know it has alot to do with average wind strength and local laws but it seems they could be improved, silenced, made more efficient and used everywhere there is even a little bit of wind, so why do we not see more of them? The wind is free, I'm sure the big oil companys are not happy about that.

I live in Florida, the stuff on the internet says we only average 5-8 knts wind so there aren't any wind farms here, or anywhere in the entire South East US, seems they need more like 15-20 to be efficient? But all winter it blows pretty good out of the NW, and along the shore all summer there is a seabreeze of about 10kts every afternoon, is that not enough? Also, they say the environmentalists don't like wind farms because the blades kill birds??! Does that really happen? I find it hard to believe a bird could be that stupid, I mean the blades make noise and are not moving as fast as say, an airplane propeller. How come the birds in Holland don't hit them? Smarter birds?

Also, could I build a small demo unit out of an old auto alternator, belt driven off a bike wheel/turbine fan setup? Anyone know of any plans for such a thing or have a better idea for a school demo project? I was thinking about using one of the small wind generators they sell for boats at the dock...but they cost $500+, way too much for my kid's school project!

If any of you are into wind driven generators or have good web site ideas for more information, I sure would appreciate your help.

PS, my son in 7th grade is doing his on Solar Power....so if you have any info on that, please post. We already have a solar powered car (toy) kit for a demo.

Thanks in advance.

Tim Bohan, Sebring, Florida...the Sunshine State. (and Hurricanes...but not enough wind?? )

Tim, I live on norways western coast, an area ideally suited for wind power.

Wind power is not much used here yet, becouse:

1: They are ugly, and tourists dont come here to see windmills. Tourism is very important for us, and increasingly so.
2: They are very expensive to both build and maintain pr Kwh (compared to other local alternatives).
3: They are noisy. An investigation showed that neighbours of an planned farm here will be subject to 40-45Db when the mills run.
4: Yes, birds are killed by the wings. The tips of the blades moves _very_ fast. Sea eagles killed by wingmills has been documented here, even if they nested below them (not much traffic around the windmills, so they probably felt safe there).
5: They can cause problems with airborne transmissions, like TV/Radio and even GPS I have heard. Not sure about that tough..
6: They 'chop' your wind, if you race close to them (got to keep this relevant to cat sailing)

In addition, we here in Norway have buildt lots of hydroelectric plants so the need is not as large as other places. We are also developing gas (not as in gasoline) fueled powerplants with no CO2 pollution to better take advantage of the natural gas resources in the north sea (wich are just burnt off out at the platforms today!!). This makes wind power as good as uncompetitive, becouse of it's high maintenance and construction costs.

If you accept that there is such a thing as 'visual pollution', I personally think windmills definatly come within that definition.


If you want to do a project, how about tracking down one of those old bicycle dynamos and fix a propeller to it? Should be small and cheap.

Check this out Capewind

Here in the Silicon Valley our science fair is a bizarre , vicarious duel between PhD millionaire moms/dads (ex: an eight year old project on mutation rates of irradiated Drosophila !). Ahh for the days of cardboard volcano's and plastic dinosaur diarama's... Here's some links BUT, i've found that if you make use of the "contact" link on these sites you can often pick up a knowledgable mentor that'll get you exactly what your daughter needs :

www.re-energy.ca/t-i_windbuild-l.shtml
www.windlogics.com/
www.wind-works.org/books/wind_energy_age_topics.html


PK

Thanks Barry, and PKilkenny, some great stuff on those web sites. And Rolf makes some good points against wind power, but any type of electrical generation plant is going to give you visual polluttion. Personally I would prefer to see/hear a wind mill than see a smoke stack, or have a Nuke plant in my back yard, but I can work in some of your info. into the report, as a case against wind power.

I have been to the huge wind farm in California, about 20 years ago, it was very impressive, I wonder how they got around the bird issue though.

Anyone have a good case against Solar power?

Thanks.

blaah - Mondays...

Make that - www.re-energy.ca/t-i_windbuild-1.shtml


pk

Tim, my (and norways) main point is our hydroelectric plants. Lots of high mountains with steep drops down to the sea makes this our major power source. There is a reason we have many aluminium plants here.

Visually, hydroelectric plants aren't to bad. The generators are hidden in large mountain halls and the pipes are also drilled down trought the mountains (mostly). If they have buildt dams, they are obviously a sore to the eye. But most of the plants in western norway are buildt without dams.
Too bad we loose some very nice waterfalls like this..

Mardøla

But compared to nuclear, coal or windpower, I think hydroelectrics have the least impact. (if done sensibly, we have our mistakes here as well, like Mardøla and Alta).

Personally, I hope tidal power will be explored and developed soon. Imagine small windmills placed on the seabottom to develop power from the regular tides. Invisible, efficient and with a very small environmental impact (I hope).

Rolf, yes that Hydro stuff looks nice buy obviously you need the mountains and snow, which won't work for most of the population of the planet, certainly not in Florida anyway. We have lots of hydro plants in the US but most are dams, which are not too good for the fish.

There is a huge hydro-electric dam being built right now in China, supposed to flood a zillion acres of vally, displace thousands, but they don't get to vote on it.

A very beautiful country you have, I hope I get over there some time to see it in person!

Here in Holland we have a lot of windmills and yes they do cause horizon-polution, but you get used to it after a while. The noise they create is very little, I sail within 50m of'em but never hear a squeak (They're in the lake so we use them as gates ).
I dont know about birds getting killed (airkill) but I do know of this german guy on a yacht that tried to stop his wind generator in a storm and got his skull smashed. The power produced is debatable, a lot of farmers have them for financial reasons, since they are heavily subsidised. The latest plan is to built a huge windmill park 10km offshore.
Rolf's idea for a bicycle generator is excellent, although you could probably find an old hand windgenerator at a 2nd hand chandler.

Thanks for the help guys. Great stuff and I'm looking for one of those old bicycle light generators, or to build one of the ones off that other site.