

Wind Turbines on Power Lines? - mmphosis
http://energyboom.com/wind-turbines-power-lines

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RiderOfGiraffes
There's going to be a problem getting the phase right. You'll want to generate
AC, but it won't be at the right frequency, and even if it is at the right
frequency, it won't be in phase. These aren't impossible to solve, but it will
make the units heavy and complex.

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TrevorJ
This is a really elegant solution. One concern is that the increased wind drag
may cause the incidence of downed power lines in storms. They would have to do
some studies on long-term stability in high winds.

The other thing I wonder about is that becasue high-tension wires form
catenary curves between the towers, would the turbines cause the cable to
begin to swing, and in some conditions possible get close enough to the
adjacent cable to arc and short out?

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electromagnetic
Cables are separated regularly on long stretches of cable. I've seen
separators on all kinds of power cables, so I doubt shorting out would be a
serious problem, however the cables reaching a harmonic might be a problem.
Suspension bridges can be brought down by wind, so when you start attaching
multiple cables into one unified body with high drag, you're going to begin
risking a wind-induced harmonic taking out your power lines.

It's a good idea, I doubt they'll replace power plants, but they're likely to
be far more useful and practical than their windturbine brethren due to the
sheer fact that they may be able to make the construction of power cables
profitable in themselves. Instead of costing for maintenance and the average
7% drain of long distance power cables, using this style of wind turbine could
turn existing power cables into profit or at least give them a break-even
potential.

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philwelch
We're going to need all the wind power we can get, so this definitely helps.
But it also complicates the problem of power transmission, and requires
selling new technology to a power industry that is very conservative and slow
to adopt changes.

Wind farms, for all their innovation, are just parked somewhere and hooked up
through a generation transformer into the distribution system. This would
require re-engineering the distribution system, something that's already more
"smart" and complicated than most people think.

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electromagnetic
The power industry is slow to adopt change for a reason, that being a
conventional power plant may have a lifespan of over 50 years. This is why
there was such a call for nuclear power decades ago, to avert the problems of
using vast amounts of depleting fossil fuels.

There's already concern growing over the wind farms affecting weather and not
just weather, but also causing changes in soil hydration. Potentially mass
adoption of wind turbines risks increasing desertification and damaging crop
production.

Slow adoption can be good and in the case of wind power, it's better to fix
the problems now than cause disasters later. We're causing global warming from
fossil fuel use, but if we do a mass switch to wind turbines before the
problems are solved, we're risking desertification on an unrecognisable scale.
Not to mention risking mass extinction of bird species.

This is why helical wind turbines are attracting so much attention, because
instead of mixing air vertically, they mix it horizontally, which if not
reduces actually eliminates the risk of desertification and the potential
damage to crop yields. It also reduces damage to bird populations due to
helical wind turbines generally having a smaller impression on the land, which
incidentally boosts efficiency for a given area.

It would be nice if all our fossil fuel plants had been changed to a mix of
nuclear and green, but just like Nuclear had a dangerous start, it's wise not
to have Green make a dangerous start and stall the production of Green energy
for 40-50 years like we did Nuclear.

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philwelch
"The power industry is slow to adopt change for a reason, that being a
conventional power plant may have a lifespan of over 50 years."

There's also the slight issue that the system seems to work acceptably well,
and if you change it, you risk jeopardizing that. Conservatism is a rather
rational, effective strategy for systems that require high reliability.

Also, adding more production sites is less of a risk than changing the
transmission system. If a newfangled power plant doesn't work, there are other
sources of power to draw from. Worst-case scenario is a power shortage. If you
fuck with the transmission system, you risk creating new types of faults, in
addition to needing to replace or recalibrate your substation equipment along
the line. And if the transmission system goes down for an appreciable period
of time, you get unplanned, uncontrolled, uncontrollable blackouts. And then
the CEO has to try to explain why exactly he crashed the power grid by
installing some type of hippie-shit wind turbines to the transmission lines.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea or that it can't be done. I'm saying it'll be a
hard sell, the same way digital protective relays were a hard sell when they
were invented in the 80's.

