Fukushima Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Starts Generating Power 181
mdsolar writes in with news about a new wind-energy project off the coast of Fukushima. "A project to harness the power of the wind about 20 kilometers (12 miles) off the coast of Fukushima, site of the March 2011 nuclear disaster, began generating power on an operational basis today. The project, funded by the government and led by Marubeni Corp. (8002), is a symbol of Japan's ambition to commercialize the unproven technology of floating offshore wind power and its plan to turn quake-ravaged Fukushima into a clean energy hub. 'Fukushima is making a stride toward the future step by step,' Yuhei Sato, governor of Fukushima, said today at a ceremony in Fukushima marking the project's initiation. 'Floating offshore wind is a symbol of such a future.'"
Not unproven (Score:3)
Offshore wind is hardly unproven. Wind turbines in general are well established and becoming a mature technology. The off shore part is also fairly well developed around the world and really just needs more cost reduction. There is no chance of it not working or anything like that, and it already economically viable.
Japan has vast offshore wind resources, with constant power available all year round.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Really? FLOATING wind turbines are a proven technology? Well then, I suppose that given that this is the first floating deep water wind turbine that your assurances are all we need to know that all the major bugs have been worked out.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, floating wind plants are a proven thechnology. There plenty of reference plants, e.g. in Norway. And if not: what exatly would you need proof for? What is the damn difference versus a fixed installation? Sigh ...
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, if they can have floating wind turbines, then it would be possible to have a floating processing plant to collect all that trash that was washed out to sea by the tsunami. Imagine having a whole fleet floating around that area the size of Texas, and just running sift pans through the ocean.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Really? FLOATING wind turbines are a proven technology?
YES. Ocean engineer here. It seems that wind turbines are not your concern, but the structure upon which it sits? Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has a decent summary of some of the offshore structures that are used (traditionally for oil platforms, but they can be used for anything). TLPs [wikipedia.org] are a typical approach for something like this.
Re: (Score:2)
Wind turbines are proven and barges are proven, so put a wind turbine on a barge and you're done.
Re: (Score:2)
The word you missed was "floating"
It was hidden in the title and the summary.
Re:Not unproven (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not unproven (Score:5, Interesting)
I was in Hawaii about 17 years ago and during my time there I took a tour around the island of Oahu. There was one location with many large wind turbines that were derelict. The tour guide told us about how the maintenance on those turbines far outstripped the value of the energy they reaped. I am sure technology has advanced since then but salt is still very corrosive and maintenance costs are still high. I'd say it's not proven until they've been up and running at least a decade or so.
Re:Not unproven (Score:4, Informative)
I'd say it's not proven until they've been up and running at least a decade or so.
Today is your lucky day. From wikipedia:
The Middelgrunden offshore wind farm---with 20 turbines the world's largest offshore farm at the time it was built in 2000
which is more than a decade ago.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess this is why there are no new wind farms in Hawaii.... Oh wait! [inhabitat.com]
It looks like [wikipedia.org] there were two small installations (totalling about 11MW) that were shut down, but there are over 200MW currently in production and more on the way.
Remember that the early, small turbines that had very high blade speeds were extremely problematic.
Re: (Score:2)
That could be it. It was 17 years ago.
Re: (Score:2)
It would be interesting to see a good comparison of the lifetime costs of sea vs land based wind generation.
Re: (Score:2)
Offshore wind would be very suitable for the Mid-Atlantic Bight [wikipedia.org]. BTW, that's a term I'd never heard before, despite living by it my entire life. It's roughly Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras. Apparently it has strong consistent offshore winds that are ideal. Watch out Midwest, you may not be the country's wind power capital for long.
And if you have to put it in SOME back yard... (Score:2)
Fukushima has an advantage as a site: Since it's depopulated due to the radiation hazard, there's nobody to complain about how "those ugly windmills are ruining my view".
Re: (Score:2)
Wind turbines produces little steady electrical current, and even if you go with peak energy production from these things and couple with solar there is a cost to the environment. A large wind farm that produces any sort of useful amount of electricity for private or industrial consumption takes the wind out of the environment as a system in the same way that damming a river takes the water out. You have a "dead zone" where there is little wind and above you have a much higher flow of wind, which can only l
Let the theories begin. (Score:5, Funny)
So... Japan set up a giant radioactive fan offshore and the Philippines gets hit by an incredibly powerful hurricane...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Let the theories begin. (Score:4, Funny)
Godzilla had to dry his hair
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmmm (Score:2)
Um... (Score:2)
Japan may not have a lot of power options, but it seems like this might not be the best choice...
Re:Um... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
*facepalm* of course it is anchored to the sea floor, or how do you think it is keeping its position when it is operating? Hint: when it operates wind is blowing at it :)
Or (Score:2)
Symbolic and symbolic only (Score:3)
Oh, that's nice. Add another *five hundred* turbines and you'll come close to matching what was lost when the nuke plant shut down. On a windy day.
The public tends to vastly underestimate the energy output of wind turbines. I'm not arguing that wind is pointless -- far from it! But two wind turbines is just an empty symbolic gesture. Two thousand wind turbines ... now you're talking.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean vastly overestimate.
Re: (Score:2)
Your numbers are more than double the actual number of turbines required. That nicely demonstrates how quickly wind turbines are improving.
Anyway, so what if we need a lot of them? There is plenty of space and the total cost is still lower than nuclear, including all maintenance etc. It's not like anyone will be fishing there any more. I don't see a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
True, but these are prototypes. So of course you don't put 2000 of them up at once, it's not like it's in Denmark where there are currently about 500 offshore non-floating wind turbines.
Re: (Score:2)
Wind turbines only generate about 20% of their rated power on average, so you're going to need ten thousand instead of two thousand of them. Also, they can go for days on end generating zero power, so you'll also need to build a 4.7-GW nuclear-power plant to back them up.
So..offshore power it is (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
To be picayune, F-16's are not carrier based planes. Try F/A-18's, and in the not so distant past, the vastly superior F-14's.
Re: (Score:2)
That's true but. but at least, unlike F-35's, F-16's can actually fly.
Extraordinarily expensive solution (Score:3)
Considering they've set aside $222 million to build and operate these three turbines for 5 years, a full replacement for the nuclear plant's generating capacity would cost $167.5 billion. Realistically I expect that price would come down if they did roll it out on that scale. But even land-based wind turbines are about $1.8 million per MW of capacity. So the 12000 MW of turbines you'd need to replace the Fukushima nuclear plant would have a baseline cost of $22 billion before you added the floating platforms and adapted them to survive in a saltwater environment and lay down power cables to bring the electricity back to shore.
Re:Extraordinarily expensive solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
So how well would the floating platforms withstand a tsunami?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Very well. A few miles off the coast, a tsunami wave is so low that you'd be lucky to recognize it. They're only destructive when they hit the coast. OTOH, typhoons are another matter.
Re: (Score:2)
Withstand a tsunami? Easily. Not so sure about a typhoon, though...
Re: (Score:2)
12 miles off-shore a tsunami is barely a ripple on the waters surface. It only becomes a wave when it hits the shore.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This cost analysis does not consider the number of times they would need to be replaced during the 40-60 year operating life of a nuclear plant, or the cost of spinning reserve required to back up the wind generators.
That's a bit one-sided. The nuclear power plant is going to need repairs and upgrades too, and it also needs backup. The latter should be self-evident given the current situation.
Currently wind turbines are sold with 20-25 years guarantees, but nobody really knows how long they're going to last.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm relatively certain that at least two of Fukushima's nuclear reactors need something more akin to "wholesale replacement" than a new "steam generator".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That article you wrote has a bunch of flaws and misconceptions. It is pretty obviously non-objective, just look at the a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No-one is suggesting that these turbines will be a full replacement for the nuclear plant. Just because one wind farm does not replace the thing it happens to be built next to doesn't mean it isn't worth having. The whole point of renewables is to distribute energy production, and in a country that was heavily reliant on one type of highly centralized generation that is now completely fucked the Japanese know why that is important.
The $222m figure is for R&D, not the normal build/operation cost. On-shor
Re: (Score:2)
Offshore wind has about a 0.3-0.4 capacity factor.
In Denmark it's about 0.45-0.55. You can't really compare the costs of 3 prototype units with a full-scale rollout.
As for the total price, the nuclear plant you're comparing it to would probably be pretty expensive to build today too. In the UK, they're tossing 25 billion USD in Hinkley Point C at 3200 MW nameplate as far as I can tell.
One 2MW turbine is a demo (Score:2)
This sounds like a Vesta WindFloat 2MW turbine. Is this really a Mitsubishi product?
Re: (Score:2)
From the photos [marubeni.com], the platform doesn't look like a WindFloat.
Mitsubishi and Vestas recently announced a joint venture in offshore turbines, though.
Re:Nuclear disaster and... (Score:5, Informative)
Tsunami's tend to only be bad where they hit coasts or shallow water. In the open ocean and deep water they move very fast but wave height is usually never more than a meter.
Re:Nuclear disaster and... (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed several people survived the Indian Ocean tsunami while in a small fishermen boat just a few miles off shore from areas that were completely devastated. They described a minor brow passing under them, without even realizing that it was a major tsunami.
Same holds for the massive Sanriku Tsunami in 1896: "Fishermen twenty miles out to sea didn't notice the wave pass under their boats because it only had a height at the time of about fifteen inches,"
Re:Nuclear disaster and... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdhfV-8dbCE [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking the same thing, bad weather is not uncommon in the area but wasn't mentioned in the article.
Re: (Score:2)
Or, since it's Japan, automatically add links to pregnant tentacle futanari furry porn hentai stuff websites?
Sorry if I missed any fetiches.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry if I missed any fetiches.
Nope, you got them all, including mine - grammar and spelling.
Re: (Score:2)
Grammasochist?
Re: (Score:2)
Some people are turned on by the strangest things. But, since the only harm is to the English language, which is already about as pure as a cribhouse whore, it's not my place to criticize.
Re: (Score:2)
Well many people with ocean views are not fans of offshore turbines.
I personally think they look kinda cool.
Re:Impressed (Score:4, Informative)
At 20 km offshore, the first 30 meters (100ft) of the turbine would be below the horizon for viewers at ground level.
Re: (Score:3)
This article [asahi.com] tells us that the tip this turbine rises 106 meters above sea level, so most of it would be visible... but the base itself would still probably be below the horizon I should think. Note that the article includes a photo and a YouTube video [youtube.com].
While wind turbines are clearly not natural, they are clearly a heck of a lot easier on the eyes than the nearby industrial complex that includes the ill-fated reactor.
Note that this is only the first turbine:
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. will install two more turbines, among the largest in the world with a diameter of 167 meters each, within two years. The three turbines, when completed, are expected to cover the power demand of more than 10,000 households
10,000 households is not that much, so I think the
Re: (Score:2)
Cool, good thing there are no residents in Fukushima to complain, then. ~
No and Yes (Score:2)
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:5, Informative)
You're wrong. Fukushima is still leaking fissile material into the sea: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/world/asia/with-a-plants-tainted-water-still-flowing-no-end-to-environmental-fears.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the repairs will take a considerable amount of time. If you knew anything about radiation effects on humans you would know of the Linear no-threshold model - it predicts that exposing a huge portion of world population to small amounts of radiation is guarateed to have some health effects. It's estimated 300 tons of toxic water enter the ocean each day from Fukusima. Only an idiot would say that you can dump that into the environment without any consequences.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually we know that it has no consequences, because we observe people, today, living in envirnments far more radioactive than those around Fukushima in amounts of millions. Take Mexico City for example. It's background radiation is far greater because it's situated so high. Yet there are no visible spikes in things normally associated with radiation, such as cancer.
Let me repeat that: we KNOW that small increases in radiation exposure has no effect on health because we have millions upon millions living i
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:4, Informative)
The radiation is a few hundret times higher than background radiation, or why exactly is there 20km forbidden zone and a 40km evac zone? ... food grown in that area is not safe for children and young adults, people try to avoid it.
In a 200km zone young couples get urged by authorities not to get children
Re: (Score:3)
So, you had no reason of fear to live there? Go ahead, prices for houses are on an all time low.
Re: (Score:2)
Leaking less than background radiation - u wot m8? So Fukushima is actually an isotope cleanser?
Man, you need to get these guys to hire you for PR.
Re: (Score:2)
Did you read what he said? No wait, did you read what YOU just said?
Leaking radiation is obviously not a part of background radiation. Therefore there is absolutely no conflict with that statement - leaking radiation can be less than background radiation.
Re: (Score:3)
18 children have thyroid cancer [youtube.com] and there are 25 more suspected cases. NHK is the Japanese national broadcaster, like the British BBC, BTW.
Tell that to the people who had to move out (Score:2)
Your post reveals more about your state of mind than anything on the ground in Japan.
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:4, Insightful)
You may not be aware but you make several flawed assumptions with out of date information and it seems like you are trivialising an extremely dangerous accident. First of all the article postulates whether or not the cladding of the fuel rods have been split which by understanding the base characteristics of the reactor would reveal that they are simply because that is a consequence of the production of hydrogen in the reactor that caused the explosion in the first place.
It also makes no mention of the spent fuel pools, that the loss of the back up power was because of an act of negligence on the part of the operator and, foolishly, declares that the accident is under control a mere four days after the accident.
It seems ironic that you berate people for Chemistry knowledge because if you understood the true nature of the accident you would realise that the danger comes from the radionuclides as a radiation emitter as opposed to radiation and, that due to the chemical nature of radio isotopes, they bio-accumulate instead of dilute.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, and the water has been raised 0.000001 degrees.
Re: (Score:2)
His point stands. Tsunami was the single biggest disaster to hit Japan in a long time. We're looking at millions displaced, over 30.000 dead, hundreds of thousands wounded, massive economic and infrastructure damage.
Fukushima gets a lot of publicity because "nuclear is scary" for average people, but the amount of fear in comparison to actual threat is incredibly inflated. And on the other hand, amount of fear for natural disasters, that are several orders of magnitude more dangerous is "meh, not so scary, d
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:4, Informative)
True and do the math as well.
New Wind farm 2 mega watts with 7 more coming soon. And someday it maybe on gigawatt.... Someday.
The Fukushima Nuclear Plant when working. 4,696 MWs Installed and over 7000 MW planned...
So the windfarm is making less than 1/500th the power of the nuclear plant.
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:4, Informative)
True and do the math as well. New Wind farm 2 mega watts with 7 more coming soon. And someday it maybe on gigawatt.... Someday. The Fukushima Nuclear Plant when working. 4,696 MWs Installed and over 7000 MW planned... So the windfarm is making less than 1/500th the power of the nuclear plant.
Don't forget that the reactors were able to provide that power reliably and predictably, something which wind power could never dream of doing.
As a friend of mine once said "Environmentalists might bat early, but physics bats last".
Did you even read the title? (Score:3, Interesting)
And also miss the entire name of the place and the news about it: The nuclear power plant has gone unexpectedly offline.
Unless you're trying to claim that they PLANNED for the power station to go critical, your statement:
"Don't forget that the reactors were able to provide that power reliably and predictably"
Is completely asinine.
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe not. If the wind farm is in deep water and floating it might have been just fine. The landing for the undersea power cables would be IMHO the most likely failure point.
Re:Meanwhile... (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you aware that all Japanese reactors have had close to 0% output over the last few years?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What was the output of the first demonstration nuclear power plant? Probably not that much.
Remember, this project is to evaluate the prospects first, generate power second. I am sure there are going to be many problems until they get the kinks work out. Only after offshore floating power plants have proven to work (which is a big maybe) will they crank up the assembly line and start churning these puppies out.
Re: (Score:2)
The generated energy from wind power increases with wind turbine blade size. The turbine blades are as large as the wings of a 747 already.
Re: (Score:3)
Not quite sure where you are going with this. It is not the physicals that I am concerned about, it’s the engineering.
I have some knowledge of the installation of wind turbines in the Midwest. There were a lot of issues. The engineers factored in the top wind speed but did not factor in that it was gusty. Lots of burnt out generators, stripped gears, and cracked blades. It took a few years to work out the kinks.
I know little about this particular install but I am willing to bet that getting the elect
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And what was the output of the first wind turbine? Wind turbines are not new at all.
The largest wind turbine is the http://www.vestas.com/en/media/news/news-display.aspx?action=3&NewsID=3163 [vestas.com] at 8MWs. So you would need 587 of these to match the nuclear power plant. Scaling them up much bigger is really not going to be practical as the blades are already 80 meters long. The idea of churning these puppies out is extremely optimistic Let's say they can make and install one of these monsters a month. To mat
Re: (Score:2)
There's no point comparing them to thermal power since they are a "flexible" peak load power source that is really competing with quite expensive per wa
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think there is serious debate that nuclear is a very important source of power, one that can not be
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure the first thing they did was throw the manual over their shoulder...
Re: (Score:2)
See above comments. FTFA: "to commercialize the unproven technology of floating offshore wind power" Keyword: floating.
Don't blame your reading skills on Fox.
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.the-converter.co/ [the-converter.co]
Re: (Score:2)
That could be done, sure. You would need to allow free rotation of the base of both the air and water blades relative to some shared flotation base. This way, the vaned blades could turn into currents without interrupting each other.
It would be best if it were fixed to a tower, to offer the most resistance to currents. Otherwise the wind and water currents might fight against keeping a tether taut.
Even better than vaned blades, you could use a vertical-axis helical turbine for the wind, and you could use th
Re: (Score:2)
I wish we would hurry up and crack cheap hot-fusion powerplants.
They're 20 years in the future.
Re: (Score:3)
Cheap, safe, abundant, and limitless electricity
It's probably not going to be cheap, not in our lifetime, and it produces radioactive material comparable to a fission plant [wikipedia.org] (although of course with some differences) so I'm not sure how it qualifies as safe either.
The truth is that we already have access to close to limitless energy in renewable sources. And the tech for harvesting it is falling in price year by year.