Keep warm and save money with renewable energy!

Looks like a good idea happening on Vinalhaven by using the excess electricity for heating houses and saving money.  See http://workingwaterfront.com/articles/Excess-wind-energy-keeps-islanders-warm-during-pilot-project/13790/ for a summary.

Finally, the first in-water wind turbines were approved. The Department of the Interior approved the plan for Cape Wind, the wind farm in Nantucket Sound, to move forward. See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/science/earth/29wind.html?ref=science.

Matinicus Wind Maps

I finally found the wind map for Matinicus (and a little bit of Criehaven). The second image is the map legend. Double click on the images to make them larger.

Notice how the better wind is on the west side. The cross-hatched areas are the existing cable areas, as defined on the navigational charts, and are not anything new. Each of the dots is a proposed location for a wind turbine (Island Institute's proposed, not mine.) They are sited in the shallow water, which is marked by the blue dotted lines. I told Philip that such an intense wind turbine development (29) was highly unlikely to be accepted by the fishermen. Let me know your opinions.  Notice the two circles around No Man's Land, which would be setbacks for the bird sanctuary.

I am quite sure this wind farm will never be built. The plan was to have it connected to the mainland, as it would produce much more power than the islands could possibly consume.




In other news, I had an interesting conversation with Bill Staby of Resolute Marine Energy, Inc. (www.resolute-marine-energy.com). I met him last year at an energy conference, and he is developing energy-from-waves equipment. He claims that there is plenty of energy even in Maine waves, although not quite as much as the West coast. Putting wave energy collectors in the offshore floating turbine farms that have been proposed for offshore Maine has several advantages. Wave energy is not strongly correlated with wind energy. After a strong wind dies down, the waves continue for quite a while longer. There can be large waves with no wind - remember the huge waves after Hurricane Bill last summer. Wave energy is said to be much more predictable and reliable than wind energy.

The wave collectors would push the energy through the same underwater infrastructure as the wind turbines, so more effective use of the capital cost is possible.

The firm is working on two versions. One is a floating ball with three cables to the bottom. As the ball goes up and down with the waves, the cables reel in and out to capture the energy. In the event of a big  storm, the ball might be pulled underwater, close to the bottom, to avoid damage. This version would be for deep water.

A shallow water unit would be completely underwater, with at least ten feet of water above it at low tide. As waves go by, paddles capture the energy.

Bill hopes to have two small prototypes temporarily working in Penobscot Bay in the summer of 2011.

Comments and questions are always welcome.

Noise and remediation

This is an interesting article on noise issues regarding wind farms. One conclusion is that by raising the cut-in speed, i.e., the wind speed when the turbines start spinning, the perceived noise is greatly reduced. The amount of power produced at low wind speeds is so small that is often not significant financially.

Some of the comments discuss various decibel (noise) readings, and what is acceptable. I guess I have to find a dB meter and start measuring. Anybody have one?

Turbine noise

Electric lobsters

I just spent time at the Lobster Institute's Town Hall meeting in Portland. Very informative and useful, it was good to hear from a wide variety of industry participants, not just the fisherman. Probably the most important conclusion is the importance of effective marketing to overcome the over supply of lobster (hence the low prices). Several people recommended a five cent per pound levy. The Wild Blueberry Association presented their marketing results, which are outstanding. I proposed that the industry lobby Augusta to establish a levy, and work cooperatively with Canada, who is considering the same approach. The Promotion Council should not be a government bureaucracy, but independent and controlled by those in the industry. It should be a lot easier to get Augusta to do this than trying to convince grid-locked Washington, populated by inland state politicians, to accomplish anything

A concern with in-water wind turbines is whether the underwater cabling would have an adverse impact on the lobster fishery. Bob Bayer, from the Lobster Institute and Univ. of Maine, kindly sent me some resources. From my reading of the document, it appears these issues on Criehaven and Matinicus will be minimal. There is some bottom disruption as the cables are buried, but that appears to be similar to after a bad storm. We are not going to have dense cabling or underwater substations, which appear to be more problematic. More research should be done.

Summary document
Bibliography

So much for the on island "good news". I'm enjoying the fireplace while the rain blasts my windows on island. Now for some really "bad news", GM, aka Government Motors, has just announced a 556 hp station wagon! Blech. GM goes bust because of follies like the Hummer, and now this, with our tax dollars?

Wind Noise

I am, of course, quite concerned about noise issues related to wind turbines. As everyone who knows me knows, I am quite intolerant of noise.

A wind power acquaintance from Buffalo, Dave Bradley, sent me the following links "proving" that wind turbine noise is not a problem, so I thought I would pass them along. Dave very kindly showed me some possible sites for NH3 production at abandoned industrial locations. His idea is to generate NH3 from inexpensive electricity from Niagara Falls, then use the excess heat from production to keep greenhouses warm (and fertilized). The green house proposal would generate a lot of local jobs and produce food locally all winter. His blog is at http://www.wagengineering.blogspot.com/. I stopped in Buffalo on my way to Detroit to work on NH3 engines.

This whitepaper is a quite good explanation of the technology and science behind measuring noise from wind turbines. Interestingly the most bothersome noise tends to be when the wind is quiet, i.e., below 10 mph. However, wind turbines do not begin making noise until there is enough wind to start spinning, typically about 6 - 8 mph. There is very little background noise at low wind speeds, so the noise of the turbine is more apparent. At higher wind speeds, the ambient wind increases and masks the sound. By 30 mph, this report says that perceptible turbine noise disappears, even close by. Seems like a reasonable approach to minimize noise would be not let the turbines spin until the wind is over 10 mph. Not much power is produced at low wind speeds, anyway.

This noise report is an engineering study of a proposed wind farm in upstate NY. A brief review on Google does not show any widespread opposition. The report, like most engineering reports, measures wind speed in meters per second. One meter per second equals 2.24 miles per hour, so 3 m/s is 6.7 mph. This is rather dry reading, and it does not convince me of anything except that the developers spent some money on a report. I have no idea if this wind farm studied is/will be noisy. Let me know your thoughts.

Speed Rules

Business Week has a good article about hypernet benefits.

As the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland says, "it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

Welcome to the 21st century...

Communicate, communicate, communicate!

Responding to The New York Times March 13 article on high speed Internet.

The Internet lexicon laments the “digital divide” as if America were divided into ignorant hillbillies without Internet and the new, cool Internet hipsters. Recent discussions of the FCC "100 squared" initiative, i.e., 100 million people will get 100 megabit connectivity, emphasize the differences.

Reality is, of course, different than how the media presents it. American Internet usage should be divided into three categories, not two. Yes, there are some Internet hillbillies. They might have a ten year old computer, or they might have their secretary print out their emails. They enjoy hand written letters, or might occasionally receive an email or access some specific item over the Internet. They may be our parents or grandparents, or they might be kids in Amish homes. They may belong to a fundamentalist sect. There are two important points: first, there are not a lot of these people, and second, no government or private initiative is going to change them. I see this as similar to the home schooling movement -- immaterial to the discussion about our failing education systems. The "100 Squared" initiative should not be trying to change them.

At the other end of the spectrum are the crusaders, the hipsters. The complainers who think 100 megabits will still be too slow, behind the Netherlands, Korea, Japan, etc. The ones begging for Google's gigabit service for their city. They support "100 Squared" because it is at least moving in the right direction.

In the middle is the dangerous plurality, those that think they understand the Internet potential. They regularly do email. They have a Facebook page, and have seen videos on YouTube. They Skype with their friends, and do some on-line banking. As the Church Lady from Saturday Night Live said, "Isn't that special?"
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The 1930s saw a huge expansion of the roads in the US as cars became mainstream. The WPA built bridges and the US highway system. Who would ever of thought we needed more? We could drive to California on US-66; it was finally paved in 1938. Eisenhower knew we needed something better - he had experienced the autobahns of Germany. Because of him, the world's finest highway system was built. We broke free of provincial local and state highway commissions and linked up our country. We need to do the same with our telecom infrastructure.

What would we do with the hyper-internet? Customer service calls could be full video, so the representative can show you the details on the product, demonstrate it, pull up the data sheet, put your account info on your screen, etc. It allows the account representative to be distant from the central office, perhaps working out of their island home. Head-mounted tiny wireless videocams are readily available now (skiers use them to record their runs). Engineers and repair people could be showing the details of repairing equipment, crawling under the truck or up the wind tower. A consumer could be walked through a repair of a tractor, or at least identify which parts need replacement. A gardener or farmer could walk through the plants showing the problems to an expert to find out what ails them: do the plants need more water, fertilizer, or what type of pesticide. Education can utilize fully immersive video so there is much more interaction. Top quality education can be distributed, and not limited by what the local school board and union does.

Movies and entertainment are obvious, but the less obvious is participating with live conferences and events. Compare jerky small screen video with large HD TV. Very few present consumers can support live HD video over Internet.

Tele-medicine is beginning. Today's slow speed Internet supports looking at medical records, but the huge files created by CAT scans and high resolution x-rays are not easily handled. Remote surgery has been tested by the military, and can be a way of getting sophisticated health care to rural areas at lower cost.
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So why are those in the middle the dangerous plurality? They want to block the future and keep America behind, yet think they are acting responsibly. Is the government the solution? Rarely. Our challenge will be overcoming the provincialism and petty self interests, such as the lawsuits that tried to prevent the Interstate highway system from circumventing the traffic jams (and businesses) of the little down towns. Today's obstructionists are ATT and Verizon, intent on protecting their oligopoly of pricing and (lack of) performance with the aid of (pick one: corrupt | stupid | incompetent) government officials.

My argument is that our islands are in greatest need of the "hypernet" since we have so many other distance and isolation issues to overcome.