Wind Turbines Presentation   10/30/17

 By Andrew Kohler, Mark Mancilla, Marielle Sewell, Shehzad Serang, Hubert Davis

1. What is a Windmill: Explained how wind is made and the conversion efficiency of the kinetic energy to rotational mechanical energy. Also, pointed out what windmills are used for.

2. How a Wind Turbine Works: Gave a general description of how a wind turbine works and what each part does in the conversion process.

3. History of Wind Power: Provided the early history of windmills

4. The History of Wind Power: Provided the history of development in wind power in the 19th and 20th century.

5. Benefits(Economics & Business): Pointed out the economic and innovative growth from last year for wind power. Which means there is still interests in the wind power industry.

6. Benefits(Environment): Having wind power is beneficial to our our health and planet because it prevents the production of greenhouse and co2 emissions.

7. Looking Ahead: Showed the exponential growth of wind power and future project goals in the world that involves wind power production.

8. Downsides to Wind Turbines: Showed the main issues or arguments that are against the usage of wind turbines.

9. Solutions: Provided and explained some solutions to the counter argument to the downsides.

10. Buoyant Air Turbine: Explained how this new model of wind turbine that would greatly increase the efficiency of the wind turbine and how it works.

11. Mixer-Ejector Wind Turbines: Another wind turbine design that incorporates a shrouded-propulsion system and would greatly increase the output of wind power in the future.

Pros:

The group started off talking about what wind is (“a direct consequence of solar energy”), which might seem too basic for the scope of this course but was a great starting point because it showed they really wanted to make sure the basics were covered so everyone would be on the same page. Additionally they explained how a windmill converts KE to mechanical energy and the science behind why this happens which was a great way to connect the ‘society’ aspect to the ‘physics’ aspect of this class. This segued nicely into what a wind turbine is and how a wind turbine actually works and how the generator coverts energy, which was again explained well enough to make sense to both science and non-science majors. The group explained the dynamics of the shape of the wing and why the air foil shape is important and why the gear box is necessary to move the blades faster than the 18 rpm that is naturally produced and how to generate the power from this. It was interesting to hear bout the history of wind power and how it’s been around since 200 BC and their timeline made even the development of this technology very clear. It was also helpful that they cited worldwide wind capacity has grown by 11% (capacity of the energy that we need that the WT can collect) and that it generates 5% of the world’s electricity demand because it shows the impact that wind power has on the world so it’s not just an obscure statistic. Because they directly compared that this technology is growing 12 times faster than all other energy sources, it made it very clear just the extent of its importance. They furthered this by even citing the number of patents that exist today for this technology vs how many in 2000 which once again showed the extensive growth in this industry and the development going into it. The direct comparison between the wind turbine replacing 90 coal plants emphasized the renewable energy aspect of this technology and they extended the scope of this science to emphasize that this technology might lead to better political situations (maybe less war impacts). The slide about looking ahead connected why wind turbine technology is important now and even more so why it’s going to be important in the future. An interesting statistic was the comparison of number of bird and bat deaths to the BP oil spill bird deaths to show the wind turbines kill even more than that horrible event. All in all, we felt both the science of and the societal aspects of the wind turbine were explained in very specific, and clear detail.

Cons:

Most importantly, the group spoke and went through the slides way too fast, especially in the beginning and the members were way too soft spoken (the AC drowned them out) and even then, several group members read directly off the slides rather than speaking to and interacting with the audience. They also threw a lot of numbers and dates at us in the beginning without giving us enough time to process what they meant or why they’re relevant. Specifically the “Benefits of Economics and Business” slide: the graphics were way too small so even the presenter couldn’t read them. Technically their presentation had sections whited out (which surprised the group as well) and it would’ve been beneficial to see these statistics and calculations that they claimed to have. They explained which countries lead the wind turbine % contribution but not why these countries are the leaders or what we can do to improve our contribution in the US. The downsides to wind turbines slide was text heavy and could’ve been reorganized to be clearer for the audience to look at succinctly. At one point, the group said “prices are high” but didn’t cite a specific number that would include initial cost, installation cables, connections to the grid, turbine foundation, and transportation costs. Additionally, the explanation of the difference between high initial cost and low maintenance cost compared to how much it produces was underwhelming and the group didn’t know how quickly the return on investment was from these which would’ve furthered their points. The solutions to problems experienced by wind turbines that were provided were mostly reasonable but sometimes vague (ex: “invest into designing” quieter blades and “lower resource costs and labor cost” to reduce price) and even then, the “radar” to stop the bird and bat deaths isn’t a feasible solution (why stop an entire turbine for one bird). One group member specifically seemed way less passionate and informed about the subject than the rest of the group and it took the presentation from a really strong note to a lesser level. The inclusion of the future designs was interesting but they could’ve gone further in detail about how these designs address problems that exist today and why people aren’t using the designs rather than the ‘typical’ wind turbine design. Finally, we felt that the group struggled with answering questions about maintenance costs and could have at least offered to get back to the student that asked the question rather than leave it unanswered.

Wind Presentation on 10/30/2017

Pros: · Thoroughly explained the inside working parts of the turbine, especially the computer to tilt blades · Interesting globally history that spans many centuries! · Mentioned the percentage of power produced as compared to other fuels · Compared the United States to other countries and showed the differences · Accounted for society aspect by mentioning a result of “less war” from having more wind power · Cool new technology that catch us up to current events, including buoyant and mixer-ejector AND thoroughly explained processes

Cons: · Did not explain or make relevant why the number of patents in the wind sector matters · Did not account for absolute cost of wind towers from start to finish, only material construction · Did not explain the maintenance costs or typical repairs · History was presented too fast and was hard to keep up, especially when slides are overcrowded with so many words and images · Mentioned but did not elaborate as to why the President Act of 1978 affects the wind industry · No map or visual to tangibly grasp as to the magnitude of the many wind turbine locations and the energy that they produce · Seems contradicting to say that wind turbines are expensive but their energy is cheaper than coal

Wind Energy Critique

Positive ● Very well structured and presented information very well. For example, one of the presenters explained very well how a windmill works and how it must a certain size, be tilted at a certain angle, and how it is able to yaw to maximize the energy output. ● Even though some of the text was whited out, the presenters were able to continue their presentation through their knowledge which makes it evident that they truly researched it and know what they are talking about ● The first presenter to go up really had a good grasp of the technical aspects of windmill technology. We felt he did a good job of describing the technical design of windmills blades and help simplifying it by using the airplane example.

Negative ● Unfortunately, there were technical issues which made it hard to follow even though the presenters still talked about it because it was distracting ● There was too much information on some slides and a lot of time was spent on them when, in my opinion, didn’t have to be covered so in depth. It could have been summarized better and the information being put out would have been the same ● When the presenters proposed their solution to the windmills killing birds and bats we felt they did not really think that much on a solution and instead just proposed the first things that came to mind. One example of this was they proposed the blades being painted in bright colors. First off bats can’t see color at all so this wouldn’t help them and second the reason these animals are being killed is because they hit with the turbine not them flying into a stationary object. There solution may work if they were simply flying into a stationary object not one that is moving. Besides that not fully fixing the solution bright colored blades would be such an eyesore that the company would get complaints left and right just for being ugly. ● Even though this may not be fully the presenters fault they definitely should have tried going through all of their slides on the computer before presenting. If they would have done this they may have avoided the awkward moment where the information was not on the slide and they presenter tried remembering the data from memory

The Windmill presentation gave a very thorough explanation as to how the technology works

It was very helpful how they incorporated the history of windmills. They were first seen in 200BC in China. The first wind turbine that was used to generate e- was by James Blythe circa 1887. Wind turbines use wind, which is a direct result of temperature gradients as nicely said by the group. They also mentioned that 59% of the KE can become ME. This was really crucial information that I and my group members did not know. We also enjoyed the economic part of the presentation, especially how they related it to the world (Wind energy grew by 11% from 2015 to 2016). They also incorporated the LCOE, which gave it an equal scale to compare it to not only other RE but also brown energy plants.

The group also mentioned the cons of how flying animals die from the turbine wings. It was a great comparison how the death rate from the wind turbines were significantly higher than country wide bird and bat deaths (We forgot exactly what it was compared to). The expanded view of the turbine was really helpful because we really didn't know the detailed process of how they work, such as the gearbox that increases the torque aka power output. We have no complaints about the presentation.

Wind Turbines

They had very good visuals that they explained well and it help me better understand the subject. The slides could have had less text, many groups had a lot of text in their presentation so this is not a huge problem. This group did a really good job organizing their presentation between the upsides of having wind turbines and the downsides of wind turbines. Their organization made the presentation easy to follow and I was not lost throughout the presentation. At times they had difficulty answering some questions from the audience. I really liked how they addressed solution to some of the downsides of the wind turbines, I felt that slide was very informative. Overall they did a great job and they just have to work on the slide text and answering questions.       

Wind Power:

Pros: Introduced how wind is generated from the sun. Very interesting.  They described the different types of blades being used in the wind power industry. Presented the agree and disagree portion with a vast amount of knowledge of the subject. They also had a business aspect to wind power which was informative and interesting. The student presenting knew the information, such as when he presented the number of patents there are in the wind power industry. The patents relate to technological advances.

Cons: One of the speakers did not have direct eye contact with the audience, but she did give useful information on the subject, such as knew technologies that are being implemented in the field. Some of the power points on the business portion were not appearing, meaning that they did not double check their presentation.