Zug Island: Wind power mecca?

This just in from Crain's...

"Keith Cooley, the CEO of NextEnergy, has put together a consortium of industry heavyweights and lined up about $56 million in matching-fund commitments as it awaits word on a $45 million U.S. Department of Energy grant to build an engineering facility on Zug Island that would develop and test drivetrains for what could easily be the world's largest wind turbine."

...

"Cooley is ready to hit the ground running. He said funds should start flowing in January or February, and the project could be up and running in 12-18 months.

He said worldwide demand for 20 megawatt turbines could be in the tens of thousands over the coming decades: “That's enough to keep this area busy for decades.” The DOE grant is for five years.

Cooley said he hopes the testing facility would spark development of an industrial park on the island. He said it would make sense for wind-turbine suppliers to manufacture prototypes in adjacent buildings"

...

"NextEnergy, the Detroit-based nonprofit that aims to accelerate the state's role in clean and alternate energies, hired Albert Kahn Associates Inc., Detroit, to draw up plans for a 50,000-square-foot testing facility, which would house two dynamometers, each capable of generating 10 megawatts of power.

In theory, Cooley said, they could be coupled to test wind-turbine drivetrains capable of producing 20 megawatts of power, though 15 megawatts may be a more realistic target.

“China is working on a 10 megawatt turbine. No one else is doing anything approaching 20 megawatts,” he said. "
Full Article here

Skipper's Rule acknowledged, this is an exciting announcement.

Having worked in the smoke and dust of Zug Island I find this transition from old pollution plagued industry to new natural energy research imaginative and where we want to be going. It has to potential to leverage our region's great mechanical legacy into a new and front edge technology.

Maybe they should keep Kovacs open for a while longer...

Skipper's Rule, rules.

Seems to me that larger wind-turbines is exactly what is not needed. Larger turbines mean you need more wind to push them; however, such windy places are rare and usually very beautiful. Think mountain tops and craggy shore lines.

Moreover, such distant places will require building large transmission lines over virgin ground further marring the landscape. Some people take pause when beautiful places are defiled by what some people consider eyesores. Refer to the Kennedy Clan's staunch objection to wind-turbines off their beachfront.

I would think that smaller is better. Turbines that can be moved a faerie wing. Turbines that could be placed on rooftops or in backyards. Turbines that would not require massive metal skeletons to carry the power away.

Big turbines are another top-down method of problem solving; when it is bottom-up that will empower individuals to control their own energy use.

I still think Fighting Island would be the best place for a local windfarm. It's windy, it's close, no one can live there due to a 150 years of toxic dumping and except for it being in Canada seems the perfect locale.

But what the hell to I know.

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Originally Posted by gnome

Skipper's Rule, rules.

Seems to me that larger wind-turbines is exactly what is not needed. Larger turbines mean you need more wind to push them; however, such windy places are rare and usually very beautiful. Think mountain tops and craggy shore lines.

Moreover, such distant places will require building large transmission lines over virgin ground further marring the landscape. Some people take pause when beautiful places are defiled by what some people consider eyesores. Refer to the Kennedy Clan's staunch objection to wind-turbines off their beachfront.

I would think that smaller is better. Turbines that can be moved a faerie wing. Turbines that could be placed on rooftops or in backyards. Turbines that would not require massive metal skeletons to carry the power away.

Big turbines are another top-down method of problem solving; when it is bottom-up that will empower individuals to control their own energy use.

I still think Fighting Island would be the best place for a local windfarm. It's windy, it's close, no one can live there due to a 150 years of toxic dumping and except for it being in Canada seems the perfect locale.

But what the hell to I know.

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I have to agree that research and development of small wind turbines would be extremely beneficial. It's a situation that's similar to the growing trend to raise food on a local basis. Unfortunately, since I live in the midwest, if I want a pineapple or an avocado, I have to rely on a different system to acquire the food I want. So, although I'm in favor of the local method of growing food, I'm also glad that there are other systems in place.

I think it would be great if Detroit could develop into a home for wind and sun technology. I think the big investment bucks will be attracted to the development of large turbines, at least in the near future. I am baffled as to why we don't see the development and usage of small, even tiny wind turbines and solar panels. I think the industry would grow much faster if the average person could see this technology in action. Small is good. Local is good.

I really do hope that Detroit can acquire this facility.

I think wind power generation is in it's technical infancy and the more research, the better. I'd love to have a turbine system, but for now they're expensive, underpowered, not well thought out and you need too much consistant wind to get any benefit. I'm in an area that is below the minimum recomendations even though I'm in a wide open area on a hill.

Rooftop units would be fantastic and the grid could be fed and backfed from thousands of sources.

Some of you should look into the vertical turbine systems that run in the $4,000 range. There are some commercial buildings using them and I think they're made in western Michigan.

There are three wind turbines in the Alaska. [[AK, because of it many isolated, off-the-grid small communities could use many more if they work. Those communities currently use diesel generators, mostly.)

The existing turbines, in use for about three months, are on a mountaintop above the City of Kodiac, which during the peak of the commercial fishing season, has almost 6000 residents.

I was recently up there for 14 days. The turbines were in view, in the absence of fog, for miles. I noted that they were operational about half the time, even though they are located in what folks considered a very high wind area. So far, the generators have not proven to be economically feasible. Perhaps they will be at different times of the year, but I was there when the ocean had 20-30 foot waves a lot and the blades were barely turning at those times.

As the tax credits and other tax-driven government handouts become more available, you're going to see these things sprouting all over the place when they should be built only in areas of proven, high, consistant winds.

Please continue to purchase 3WC's oil for your energy needs. Oil is your friend, and far superior to anything else you will ever come up with. He saw some turbines somewhere that didn't appear to work anyway, so please, just continue using his oil and quit with the pie in the sky nonsense.

I was in Cambria County, Pa., a few weeks ago. Saw about 80-odd turbines across a high ridge. If they can do it there, we can do it here, I figure.

What nobody's saying, however, is that this is not a cure-all. In the very near future, we're going to have to pare down our energy use to a fraction of what it is now.

I think 3WC is in the natural gas business, so, JL your swipe while clever might be a bit misleading.

Here is an interesting site that compiles a few of the smaller turbine resources.
http://www.greenstrides.com/2008/12/...wind-turbines/

I like the double helix looking thing from Germany.

I have to agree with gnome. In this case I don't think bigger is better. And while it's probably inevitable that the utilities will be the big players in this it just seems that there needs to be some fresh faces in the game.

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Originally Posted by ordinary

I have to agree with gnome. In this case I don't think bigger is better. And while it's probably inevitable that the utilities will be the big players in this it just seems that there needs to be some fresh faces in the game.

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Sorry you have it entirely backwards, Larger turbines need less wind to operate. Just as a sailboat goes faster with bigger sails so does a windmill with larger blades. Larger turbines are more efficient and need less windspeed to operate. So the less wind you have in an area, the larger you need to make the blades.

Gnome,

If you can recall the blackout of a few years back, both sides of the river were 'hit' that is because we are on the same grid and I am pretty sure that there are power lines that cross the river in the general vicinity of Fighting Island. Therefore, it is probably not as far feteched as you think. The most complicated part of it would be the politics, but there already is some sort of agreement that ties the grid together.

There are aslo lines that cross the St Clair River further to the North.

I don't know a bunch about Fighting Island other than it's owned by BASF and it carries some sort of special status within the Ontario Parks system. For at least 20 years the BASF folks have been slowly trying to reclaim the soil. They've treated as kind of a laboratory in how to repair damaged soil. Right now there is a small environmental education campus where they boat over Canadian school children to learn about bird migrations and soil reclamation.

Slideshow from the freep:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/g...arams=Itemnr=1

A historical look at FI, BASF and their efforts to fix the sins of the past.
http://riccawu.mnsi.net/story9.html

In short, the island is a recovering Eden where a handful of folks have been working since the '80s in what is essentially a laboratory for best-practices on natural soil and wildlife reclamation. If they'd extend their research into windpower, they could install different turbines and do apples-to-apples research on which turbine actually works best.

If you google small wind turbines, you'll find thousands of different resources. A confusing and dizzying array of options. Each one will promise you it will raise the dead and restore your virginity; for me, such promises makes me want to stay on the sidelines.

But in regards to the original post, I think any jobs are good and green jobs are even better.

Well, JohnLodge [[who'd want to be named after that thing, or the original FOMOCO guy after whom it was named?), you're pretty good in the snide comment department aren't you? Anyway, no harm, no foul.

Acxtually, Gnome, I am primarily in the oil business, about 150,000 bbls last year, but I also produced about 1.5 million gallons of propane from the natural gas we produce; we strip the liquids from the gas and sell them, and burn the remaining dry gas, methane, to produce electricity, reducing our electric bill about $8,000 a month.

I like your suggestion, JL, that folks continue to buy my oil. we little producers need all the help we can get. [[Actually, I have an output contract with the biggest pipeline company around.)

As someone in the energy business, I am obviously interested in all aspects of the business, from the biggest boondoggle a poltician could create, ethanol, to other alternative energy sources. If Washington politicians had an ounce of common sense between them, they would throw massive support to nuclear; those French folks aren't as dumb as some would take them for.

Actually, I think wind generation is a viable source of alternative energy, provided that it's done with some common sense. Several of the West TX projects are financially viable and certainly the 100s of wind generators in the mountains above Palm Springs have generated electricity profitably for years. Zug Island? Go back to some threads on the former site and see what the experts have to say about wind energy prospects in MI. NOT GOOD in all but a couple of areas.

But, hell, give some developers enough tax dollars and they'll build a hundred of them. And, there are a lot of real estate developers who, if they could borrow the money and collect building fees, would build an 80 story office building over there.

"I was in Cambria County, Pa., a few weeks ago. Saw about 80-odd turbines across a high ridge. If they can do it there, we can do it here, I figure."

Wind power is a great thing, where it works, like Cambria Co. But it doesn't work everywhere and the worst thing we can do is push it in locations where it's not going to pan out. The thumb and the west coast of the state have a lot of potential, proven in the case of the thumb. So why push Zug Island or any other SE Michigan location that isn't going to work?

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Originally Posted by Novine

"I was in Cambria County, Pa., a few weeks ago. Saw about 80-odd turbines across a high ridge. If they can do it there, we can do it here, I figure."

Wind power is a great thing, where it works, like Cambria Co. But it doesn't work everywhere and the worst thing we can do is push it in locations where it's not going to pan out. The thumb and the west coast of the state have a lot of potential, proven in the case of the thumb. So why push Zug Island or any other SE Michigan location that isn't going to work?

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Well, as I understand it, they're not planning on putting wind turbines on Zug Island. It's an industrial facility to develop and test them, right?

Ndavies,
I didn't realize that. I guess I was thinking that a bunch of smaller ones serving local areas would be more efficient than having one large one and having to distribute the juice to locations that were farther away.

Attachment 3660

John Lodge was also on City Council and became mayor when the sitting mayor took a dirt nap. He also was the great uncle of Charles Lindbergh, but then again anyone who knows their propane would know that.

Just saying...

Gnome, had no idea the FI was infested with the ring-billed rat-bird! Thanks for posting those pics. Knew about the Lodge, but that was all I could see from the Diamond Jack downriver tour.

Now I am wondering how do we kill of the rat-bird and leave the rest of em? Is there a natural predator?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Novine

"I was in Cambria County, Pa., a few weeks ago. Saw about 80-odd turbines across a high ridge. If they can do it there, we can do it here, I figure."

Wind power is a great thing, where it works, like Cambria Co. But it doesn't work everywhere and the worst thing we can do is push it in locations where it's not going to pan out. The thumb and the west coast of the state have a lot of potential, proven in the case of the thumb. So why push Zug Island or any other SE Michigan location that isn't going to work?

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I don't think they're talking about Zug Island as a wind farm. Just as a test facility, primarily for the drive trains. It sounds like they're reasonably dangerous if they fly apart during testing, so they're looking for a place near, or in a large manufacturing city that has some wide open areas. It would be kind of tough to find an area [[usually remote) where you would have ideal wind and existing manufacturing capabilities. I think.

My reference to the original John Lodge was a little snide and for that I apologize. And, hell, I didn't know he was on City Council; oh for the good old days.

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Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

What nobody's saying, however, is that this is not a cure-all. In the very near future, we're going to have to pare down our energy use to a fraction of what it is now.

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You are correct on this. This past weekend I got a tour of this Net Zero Energy house on the Northside of Chicago. It was unbelievable how very little energy the home used because of LED fixtures, high efficiency appliances, natural lighting, passive heating and cooling etc. It's going to take a long way for the majority of the population to the reach that point. Not to mention alot of the technology in that house was really expensive [[at least for now it is)

and btw, propane's negative impacts on the environment are fairly minimal compared to other fuels, so technically it can be categorized with the "green" energy alternatives.

A Little Levity? John Lodge is the guitarist/vocalist/songwriter for the Moody Blues.