Try Using Wind To Make Turbines
By Paul Homewood
And another letter from Euan:
Is it time to ban fossil fuels in the construction of wind turbines?
Sir, John Kirk (letters 5 Dec) and Alistair Ballantyne (letters 6 Dec) muse about future use of lubricating oil in wind turbines. This rather misses the elephant in the room. A 1.8megawatt onshore wind turbine weighs about 164 tons. The materials comprise concrete (foundations), steel (tower and nacelle), speciality metals (magnets), copper (generators) and composites (blades).
The raw materials need to be mined using gigantic steel diggers and dumper trucks, the mined materials need to be ground using gigantic steel grinding machines before being refined in a furnace. In the case of steel (trucks, machines and tower) the iron ore is mixed with coal in a blast furnace in order to reduce the ore to metal.
The amount of fossil fuels embedded in wind turbines is vast. In order to declare wind turbines are sustainable and green, let us see all of the aforementioned mining, fabrication and installation being done using only intermittent wind energy. It is possible to use an electric arc furnace to smelt iron ore. And I’m quite sure Elon Musk will be happy to make battery powered dumper trucks. Let us not forget that all the lithium and cobalt in the gigantic battery should also be mined using only wind energy.
Dr Euan Mearns
Aberdeen
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Well done Euan. He is lucky to keep having his letters published.
Somebody should tell the idiots at FLOP28 that phasing out fossil fuels means the end of society. Even the billionaire elites could not survive if there were no fossil fuels.
Its only a global transition now not a specific phase out which i reckon is a good outcome. There was never going to be an about face but what we are starting to see is a recognition that the world is way off being able to do without fossil fuels and reality setting in.
” Its only a global transition now not a specific phase out which i reckon is a good outcome. ”
A good outcome would be where the believers ask themselves “Why are we striving for net zero when there is no proof that humans are responsible for dangerous climate change? “
Ahhhh but remember the Soviet Union and in all the rest of the totalitarian states where the masses live in abject misery and poverty controlled by an elite living in gated communities? They will preserve their own supply because they need it and they are important.
We all waste vast amounts of time and brain power trying to point out the absurd while those pushing this crapola just sit back and smile. This is about them and us.
All the useful idiots supporting this are “hoping” to be recognised for their virtuous actions and elevated to the top table. I am reminded of a YouTube video from the 1980’s where a then famous KGB or Stasi defector is being interviewed. He is quite clear that the first against the wall when revolution encouraged in the West succeeded would be all the useful idiots who’s actions had contributed to the downfall of Western Society because they then would have outlived their usefulness and as a liability, the last thing the totalitarian state needed in its midst.
Well said.
“Try Using Wind To …. ” Precisely. I’ve been saying that for YEARS: PV panels on Gov Bldgs too.
Yesterday we were recovering from some localised overnight heavy rain: Culverts blocked under roads. and what was the road authority using for the water pumps, etc? … a LARGE Generator. Aye ONE drum of diesel or petrol can be shared as required between engines: try sharing Electricity like that from a Box load of 18v Drills , 12v Old car, and a flat EV battery.
How about all modes of transport made with renewable energy only? COP attendance might shrink to a handful of locals.
I saw this morning someone is building a hydrogen-powered 100t dumper truck for mining operations. So that’s alright then.
I wonder how the H2 will become energy: gas or fuel cell? It could make a difference.
Today I am making a flying machine that is powered by a human so we can all fly anywhere we like.
Just because somebody is making something it doesn’t mean that it is a good idea or will be successful.
Somebody beat you to it, even flew across the Channel. Unlike with Blériot nobody has built on his achievement, We’re still waiting for an Alcock and Brown to do manpowered across the Atlantic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacCready_Gossamer_Albatross
The materials used to build the machine seem heavily reliant on Fossil Fuels
I remember the Gossamer Albatross. In those days the West had not succumbed to a collective mental illness and this was an interesting diversion not a future transport method. I recall that they had to wait for a windless day to make the crossing. Guy Martin had a shot at the speed record for a human powered aircraft but came up short. Current record is 27.5mph – so slightly faster than cars in Wales.
Watch this space as regards hydrogen in commercial vehicles and earth moving machines. The big cheese at JCB engineering is investing time and money in proving its viability -or otherwise. Should still be on You Tube.
Brilliant letter! A real parable of our time. What’s more, regardless of how they are made, my descendants will curse their forefathers for littering this once green and pleasant land with the corpses of derelict windmills and redundant pylons (I’m sure their copper cables will have long been stolen). If any current or future government does not make it illegal for any company and its ‘officers’ to walk away from wind turbines they once erected (no matter they may have become insolvent: they should still be held liable) then the words of ‘Jerusalem’ will take on a whole new meaning. It is no good ‘saving the planet’ for our descendants if we will them a hell-hole.
Which is why a carbon tax works. Use the same level of tax on everything, and the true cost of renewables versus gas becomes obvious. And Net Zero is exposed as a farce, as getting to Net Zero entails a vast increase in emissions in the short term as we unnecessarily replace stuff that still works.
When (never) a single wind turbine can produce sufficient electricity over its lifetime to replicate itself and its installation the world will have cracked perpetual motion, which can’t be achieved even by Nuclear Fusion, which we can’t yet master anyway.
Euan – I hate to criticise you but haven’t you got the size of the elephant wrong? A 1.8MW is not the most efficient size and if you want a reasonably sized elephant I think you should use the Lawrence Weston wind turbine (4.2MW) which has a tip height of c. 150m. Here in Enfield the Council has recently announced a 29 storey “skyscraper” and attracting comments of “too tall, unaffordable and monstrous”. I’m guessing that’s around 100m high. We aren’t near the coast and pretty built up so a wind turbine is pretty much a non-starter around here so basically we don’t even have any elephants.
The green agenda, it isn’t designed with you in mind. It is guaranteed to send all the little people to an early grave the earlier the better.
More specifically the indigenous people of Europe….your time is up now move along as we import your replacements.
Anyone with 3 active brain cells can see from get go that the AntiScience Anti CO2 movement last had any contact with empirical data based science when Hansen got involved. The very fact that their “Gweeen” actions are all virtue signalling to pacify the increasingly stupefied population is there for all to see. “We mean well” so shut up! Actions in aid of the cause are virtuous and should not be critiqued regardless if criminal incompetence is clear.
I have seen countless interviews with embarrassingly stupid embracers of climate nonsense with pompous job titles in central and local government, people for whom joined up writing is a challenge, explaining away pouring millions of pounds into projects based on emotion which never had a hope of delivering as “well meaning” and “good intentioned”. After all, climate is equity, did you not know!
Checks and balances which were a critical part of bringing Western society to the pinnacle of human achievement have no place when you are “thaving the pwannet”.
Dr Mearns gives a dramatic example of trying to get by without fossil fuels. But it is true to the micro level: you won’t get your porridge without fossil fuels, either.
London will have to be abandoned.
Is there anything that man has mastered without it being a raw material that requires additional adaptation and energy in order to fulfill our requirements.
All discussion along these lines perforce ends up at this impasse when it hits the thermodynamic (first law) buffer of energy only being able to be converted, not made or destroyed. Energy analysts put a ring around the energy conversion bit of an individual energy delivery system using the ERoEI figure (energy return over energy invested) and hope by ingenuity to achieve a little over unity. It is this aspect which is the killer for renewables which despite their large embedded lifetime energy of construction and maintenance still cannot manage to upgrade a highly disorganised (high entropy) input energy to an output that services users by matching their demand. This points to how, at the society or civilisation level, what we do has less to do with first law and more more to do with the second law where it goes without saying that a lot of external energy has to brought to bear to upgrade the embedded energy of a raw material to render it serviceable, in other words defeating entropy. Good people to follow on these concepts are John Constable of Global Warming Policy Foundation and Vaclav Smil. Apologies if all well-known.
And in another good day for the eco-fascists and their transport ideas, a warehouse with 1000 battery scooters has burnt down in Krefeld, Germany. Continuing the German theme, iconic manufacturer Uvex is closing its factory because it can’t compete with cheaper manufacturers in the Far East. They will sell their products instead. As usual the lack of cheap energy is at the root of the problem.
Quite right gezza 1298. Expensive fuel is the root of the problem: lack of competitiveness in manufacturing and the main cause of inflation after profligate post Covid grants and debauching the currency.
The Greens are even more to blame than the govt. Seems that power generators especially the European producers of gas and oil have no interest in cheaper fuel when there is a captive market for their output.
For sake of appearance new drilling licences are granted but as an article in one of the Sunday papers explained it are unlikely to be ‘developed viz ” Sunak’s North Sea plan purely symbolic, says ex-BP chief”. The same suggests that the UK’s off-shore operators are now just planning to make as much money as they can and then quit.
Of course I fully support all of this. He does not mention the miles and miles of copper to connect these machines up. A complete folly I regret to say and we will soon enough come to regret the whole collective madness. As Charles MacKay said in 1941:” Humans think in herds, go mad in herds and only recover slowly and one at a time”. I like to think that we are in the vanguard of helping the slow recovery
But to touch on details;-
This says that iron ore can be smelted in an electric furnace. I don’t think it can, at least not at any scale. Smelting is the reduction process of removing the oxygen from the iron, it needs a lot of carbon and carbon monoxide to do that (yes I know about hydrogen but where do you get that from in huge volumes?). How does an electric arc do that?
I do wish people would stop calling these things “turbines”: a turbine is a fan in a tube like you can see in the front of the engines on big planes. These things are windmill.
?
They are turbines.
Define a turbine?
Are you an Engineer?
One doesn’t have to be a mathematician to know that 2+2=4.
One doesn’t need to be an engineer to look up ‘turbine’ on the interweb.
I try to help people to be technically and scientifically credible.
Since when did the “interweb” know what it is talking about? They will tell us that the world is about to “boil”.
Try listening to a Chartered Engineer.
Argumentum ab auctoritate.
Hello,
I not appeal to authority – the greens do that telling what “the scientists” say. I provided a clear explanation and gave an example. That is proper rhetoric.
Why else do we call aero engines gas turbines not gas windmills?
“Try listening to a Chartered Engineer.”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/turbine
turbine
noun
tur·bine ˈtər-bən
-ˌbīn
: a rotary engine actuated by the reaction or impulse or both of a current of fluid (such as water, steam, or air) subject to pressure and usually made with a series of curved vanes on a central rotating spindle
. . .
A wind turbine generates electricity by being turned by the wind; the largest now have vanes with a turning diameter of over 400 feet.
MacKay was a century earlier. Imagine what he would have to say today. I don’t think he’d need to change many words in his chapter titled Modern Prophecies.
Yes, you are right, MacKay published in 1841, it was a typo which my dyslexia did not spot. Thank you.
The problem with forecasting is they are impossible to get right, we even have to keep changing history!
” I do wish people would stop calling these things “turbines” ”
I doubt if there is a widely accepted / detailed definition of “turbine” , and the use of the word “windmill” does sometimes upset the believers. However, the word “windmill” is used by many to describe wind-powered machines used to pump water, so – by general use – a “windmill” doesn’t have to involve milling.
The modern steam turbine by Parsons (another gift from the UK to the world) would not have been recognisable to most windmill aficionadi of the time, primarily because of the enclosure of the rotating components.
Why is the login to WordPress intermittently “flakey” ? This post might appear more than once …
From TVPworld dot com
“7,500 wind turbines in Spain to be dismantled within five years.”
“Approximately 36% of energy-generating wind turbines in Spain will need to be decommissioned within the next five years as they become obsolete, predicts the Wind Energy Association (AEE). This translates to around 7,500 wind turbines and 20,000 blades turning into scrap that will have to be dismantled, transported, and processed, posing a significant logistical challenge.
According to the industry association, every third wind turbine currently operating in Spain was installed before 2005, while the lifespan of wind turbines generating electricity is estimated at 20-25 years.”
……..
“The European Commission plans to double the budget to EUR 1.4 billion for the so-called clean technologies and expedite permit-related bureaucracy to ensure that by 2030, 45% of energy comes from renewable sources.
Despite the growth, the wind industry in Europe, including Spain, is facing billion-euro losses, mainly due to competition from China, which has better access to resources and offers lower prices, according to the newspaper elEconomista.”
“And a Great Profit shall come.”
But not to naughty plebs.
Meanwhile, in the real world, China has got its new HTGR nuclear reactor running. Back at the start of nuclear power when the UK was an advanced nation not intent on using a technology that first appeared sometime around the 300-500 AD, our first reactors were the Advanced Gas Cooled ones. Had we kept a nuclear industry maybe we would have come up with the High Temperature Gas Reactor.
We used to lead the world in Engineering and Science (same thing in my book). Then the Oxford (not Cambridge) “brilliant minds” with their PPEs and other theoretical economics and politics utterly dominated the corridors of power. The consequence being that we exported all our production to anyone who would buy it and so we began the slide into bankruptcy.
Now we are in the chaos of thousands dying in NHS and Mental Health wards whilst we watch our most senior people completely out of their depth blaming everyone for Covid but themselves. Utterly pathetic.
Without them we would have nuclear power to sell abroad, a motor industry, an aircraft industry, giant fabric and clothing factories, major railway exports, ship building and iron and steel production all with a prosperous “north”.
But they patiently patronise me and say that as an Engineer I will never understand, it is too complicated for me, after all I went to a regional University.
It is not quite that simple. Many industries were ruined by the unions that required 10 men to do the job of one. The motor industry – not that the unions were that keen on industry – was one, so was shipbuilding. There was also a post war complacency that drove a lack of innovation and progress. That afflicted both the motor and motorcycle industries. Honda shocked the world with the launch of the 4-cylinder CB750 but the BSA/Triumph triple could have been released before that and not rushed out in response. Norton even had an overhead cam twin prototype that can be seen at the National Museum. Stymied by the bean counters who were happy to just keep selling what they already had.
All of that is true – I know, I was there amongst it and watched my career die.
BUT, the government leaders were supposed to be leading and running the country but the left encouraged the Unions and the Right encouraged the City. Neither understood what the consequences would be nor even cared.
Those whose hands were on the levers of power failed totally.
We should not forget the bullying we got from the USA to keep dismantling our industry, but that is another story. But do not imagine that Reagan was helping Mrs Thatcher – he was fooling her.
gezza, you leave out the fact that government gave the unions unequal bargaining power.
My case exactly Gamecock “the government gave the Unions the power” as you say. They didn’t know what they were doing.
” BSA/Triumph triple could have been released before that ”
The Triumph Trident could have probably been released as early as 1966, three years before Honda released their CB750. But BSA/Triumph was a headless chicken at that stage and “the management” wanted a BSA triple to be based on the Trident, the BSA triple being the Rocket 3, the creation of which delayed the release of the Trident by approx three years.
Add the dismal failure of the 1971 650 twin to the above and that was probably the end 😦
A true story:
Boss: “Why are you late – again? That’s the third time this week”.
Me”: “Me motorbike broke down”.
Boss: “Bill comes to work on a motorbike and his doesn’t break down”.
Me: “But his is a Honda!”
And before anybody attacks me for prejudice against old British motorbikes, I still have three – a 1950 Douglas Mk. V, a 1957 BSA 499cc Gold Star Clubman and a 1959 498cc Ariel Red Hunter!
So he doesn’t know how to take care of his bike! He would probably have the same problem if he bought a Honda.
Oh, I most certainly knew – still do actually – how to take care of my bikes, including how to weld aluminium, machine BSA crankcases in a vintage Landis Lund lathe to sleeve the lousy timing side main bearings, true crankshafts and build racing engines for grass, scramblers and road racing.
Unfortunately, in order to be really successful with running old British bikes all year round, it was necessary to be able to do all of those things, the biggest problem and cause of unreliability was Joseph Lucas, the Prince of Darkness.
Here is my BSA A10 circa 1972, fitted with 12V car dynamo, for the first time in my motorcycling career I could see where I was going at night!:
And my current Douglas Mk V:
And my Goldie:
Good stuff. Well done.
I totally agree about Lucas, they absolutely knew nothing about quality and reliability. For a few years I ran a Lucas division making special applications versions of their basic stuff for all sorts of things like lorry tail lifts, wheel chairs, boats and that sort of thing. We bought all the basic bits from Birmingham and had to completely strip them, rework them and make some special parts. I endlessly moaned in the group Board reviews about the rubbish I got but they laughed and said it had taken decades to work out what exactly the market needed and were not going to change now!
I could talk for hours about the motor cycle factories in Birmingham. They were a complete shambles of old machines, lashed up assembly lines, mountains of stock on the shop floor, stores disorganised, dirty and badly lit. They had not changed since before the war. I couldn’t believe them.
Etc.
Cat, when I was in the RAF a lifetime ago a good friend had a Goldie. He explained to me a rather esoteric fault that would cause the bike to slow dramaticslly, as if he’d hit the brakes. Turned out he wore baggy RAF overalls and the leg of one would get sucked into the enormous carb trumpet!!🤣
” Then the Oxford (not Cambridge) “brilliant minds” with their PPEs and other theoretical economics and politics utterly dominated the corridors of power. ”
At the risk of upsetting any Oxbridge graduates posting on here: there is an argument to be made that a useless degree at Oxbridge should be sufficient to bar someone from a position of responsibility in the public sector e.g. Matt Hancock = MPhil Economics at Cambridge to go with his PPE BA Oxford.
The A10+rider photo is timeless!
I occasionally ride classic Brit bikes, there is a “sensory” link to the past when following another classic Brit bike through timeless British countryside. Particularly when the leading bike is burning Castrol R.
Very sad indeed. The Dragon HTGR at Winfrith started construction 1960, and ran virtually problem free from 1965 to 1976. Other nations attempts at HTGR were all problematical but British expertise sorted it first time. Whatever happened to Harold Wilson’s “White heat of technology” speech?
” our first reactors were the Advanced Gas Cooled ones. ” Magnox preceded AGR, but both types were gas cooled.
There is an arguement that gas cooled designs would have avoided the issues at Three Mile Island, Cherbonyl and Fukushima.
The painful design, procurement and construction saga of Dungeness B (2 x AGR design) probably undermined any future for civilian nuclear reactors designed, manufactured and constructed in the UK. Although the pain hopefully diminishes as the decades pass, (Sizewell B was essentially a US design)
Dungeness B! That brings back memories. I once did an automated reactor gas analysis and results display system for it, probably 30 years ago. The perimeter road from the outer gate to the offices car park was great for trying out rally driving (in an Austin Metro – amazing how well it handled).
Astonishingly, Great Britain was the first nation to build a grid scale nuclear power plant – Calder Hall.
It was decided by the UK Government to proceed with the civil nuclear power programme in 1952, and construction at Calder Hall began the following year.
Construction began in 1953 and was carried out by Taylor Woodrow using 1950s engineering and construction techniques, was completed in 1956 and was officially opened on 17 October 1956 by Queen Elizabeth II.
Originally designed for a life of 20 years from respectively 1956-1959, the plant was after 40 years until July 1996 granted an operation licence for a further ten years.
The station was closed on 31 March 2003, the first reactor having been in use for nearly 47 years.
Says it all…
“It is possible to use an electric arc furnace to smelt iron ore.” Please correct me if I am wrong but aren’t these used only to re-use scrap metal and produce very poor grade steel, surely not up to the requirements of a hostile environment and a 15-20 year minimum life.
You’re right
EAFs can only melt scrap and iron, they cannot convert iron ore into iron, which is what the blast furnace does
You are exactly right. But few arts people have the slightest idea what is the difference between iron and steel.
Or between cement and concrete.
Or between carbon and carbon dioxide
Or between Stork and butter
Or between mandacious twaddle and The Science™
Another very good letter from Dr Mearns. Just one point though: yes you can RECYCLE existing scrap steel using an electric arc furnace, but to make new steel from iron ore you have to use a blast furnace. The carbon in the coking coal is essential both to reduce the iron ore and as a component of the steel.
Politicians who tell us that they are making Britain’s steel making “green” by forcing the change to EAFs are either ignorant or lieing to us.
No – both
I never cease to be amazed at the interests of “engineers” – they’re like real people after all ( some sarc ) So you never get much done in France Noise, bird deaths: Windfarm ordered to close for first time in France more super stories for remoaners at https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news
and if you’re wanting to do something this now in N Scotland ( Currently a ZERO C. there’s NO WIND ! Gridwatch Big demand 43Gig and wind is only under 10Gig. Magic ? The Heron knows the answer as always
When you refine the ore you have to guarantee continuous supply of electricity. If the supply is interrupted for any length of time you furnace becomes just scrap metal. Same goes for Aluminum.
The whole concept of ârenewablesâ is a nonsense anyway. Intermittent, no way or storing the electricity, costly to erect and difficult and expensive to recycle at the end of their life-around twenty years plus ugly pylons and cabling: why would you?
The government should have pressed ahead years ago with RR smrs-now they are farting about getting quotes from companies abroad-why not use our own UK expertise?
Man-made climate change/global warming is nonsense anyway. Computer projections designed to say what their proponents want them to say.
Cordially
Ian Harris
EXACTLY so.