VIEW: 19-01: Alternative Wind Generation

VIEW FROM HERE
By Bob McDowell (Born Neil Carson) Number 19-01
ALTERNATIVE WIND GENERATION Week of 201/01/07
The headline of a story in the December 9 issue of our daily news(?)
paper immediately caught my eye so it had to be read. The headline read:
"Sails make a comeback as shipping tries to go green" and carried the
byline of Kelvin Chan of Associated Press. As all too often happens the
headline was somewhat misleading in that the subject is anything but 'sails'
in the canvas sense.
After two paragraphs making issue about 'greenhouse gasses'
affecting 'climate change' the second includes the statement that EU
aircraft company Airbus is backing a tech company "pitching futuristic sails
to help cargo ships harness the free and endless supply of wind power".
The writer simply cannot resist the 'politically correct' idea of CO2
emissions from fuel burning of a "particularly dirty form of fossil fuels".
It turns out that Norsepower, a Finland based manufacturing
company has a true turban wind power source and is beginning tests
of the idea on the tanker Maersk Pelican for tests and that A. P.
Moller-Maersk, the "world's biggest container shipping company has
pledged to cut carbon emissions to zero by 2050". Actually, it would
appear that carbon emissions by oil powered steam ships are in the
form of carbon particle smoke rather than CO2, which is invisible,
odorless, and NOT a "greenhouse gas" as has been claimed by the
PC anti fuel crowd.
This has meant to me a confirmation of several past claims that
the massive 'windmill' power generators are NOT turbans as claimed
by those pushing them for massive government tax breaks and grants
to build more of these 'bird killers'. Multiple reports received be me
have stated that at any one time approximately half of those are
inoperatable due to mechanical break-downs, or wind speed
restrictions. Beginning several decades ago there have been reports
of 'true turbans' being used for power generation. The ones seen in
the reports were able to self regulate themselves so as to maintain a
constant rotation speed, mandated for AC (alternating current)
generation, the most used here.
The story does not go at all into the processes by which the
wind energy is transported to the ships propulsion propellers, so the
reader is left with suppositions about how this works. It would seem
to me that these shipboard turban-generators would feed to electric
motors driving the propellers, and supplying the electric power for
whole ship, with a large battery back-up source. Of course, the
turbans could still operate in port, if there was any wind, while at
sea under way the ship speed would be sufficient to keep them
operating in calm wind conditions.
In the accompanying the story, two turbans are shown which
appear to be three to five feet in diameter and 20 to 40 feet tall.
Compare that size to the 'windmill' generators in the fields taking up
large spaces of land. It would be very refreshing to read about or
see in video one or more stories about private industry going that
route for land use generation. The turbans are enlarged versions of
the ventilation turbans on roofs to use wind power to suck the air
out of attics or businesses. Those usually are fixed sizes and so the
rotation speed depends on the wind speed.
In any event this story came as a breath of fresh air that
someone in the World is beginning to try something else, without a
government funding and for their own financial benefit. As an aside,
electric power provides reversible motors rather than needing
transmissions, as with diesel or gas turban engines. It would seem
that reversible electric engines could be controlled instantly from
the bridge.
END
Composed December 21, 2018
Robert W. McDowell, Jr. © 2018 841 Lynwood Lane
918-451-1051 Broken Arrow OK 74011-8608
Email: abdmcfpi@localnet.com