Old (California Wind) Turbines Get a Second Wind Through Remanufacturing

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/old-turbines-get-a-second-wind-through-remanufacturing/

January 26, 2009, 8:45 am

Old Turbines Get a Second Wind Through Remanufacturing

By Libby Tucker

Wind energy technology has advanced so much in recent decades that a handful of larger, more efficient turbines can now do the same job as hundreds of smaller turbines, allowing utilities to squeeze more electricity out of the same area of land.

That means that many owners of wind farms built during the California wind rush of the 1980s are starting to upgrade their equipment — and in the process, they are expected to send thousands of worn-out, old machines to the scrap heap over the next five to 10 years.

But a growing number of new companies are snapping up the old turbines on the cheap, overhauling the systems and reselling them to farmers or other community wind developers at bargain prices.

http://www.halus.com/">Halus Power Systems in Hayward, Calif., http://www.energyms.com/products_services/remanufacturing.php">Energy Maintenance Service in Howard, S. Dak., http://aeronauticawind.com/aw/index.htm">Aeronautica Windpower in Plymouth, Mass. and http://nexiondg.com/">Nexion DG in Portland, Ore. all offer remanufactured wind turbines salvaged from wind farms in California.

…

[phantom power]

1. "Old" is so gauche. Pre-owned! Gently used!

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. If they were more "gently used" they wouldn't need to be rebuilt!

On the other hand, I'm a great fan of using rebuilt parts.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (and all that.)

[XemaSab]

3. New2U

n/t

[NNadir]

4. Does this mean that when one crashes into a field, people rush out to rebuild it?

What if the blade has gone through someone's head, or if as happened in Nurnberger in 2002, one has to call a surgeon to remove the legs of the guy hanging from the blades?

As they build more and more wind plants, their external costs - including their high failure rates - are obviated.

Generally these costs are obviated when a system of energy gets to just one of the five hundred exajoules of energy.

If wind power triples it will be just about there.

Wind is going to be the next biofuels.

[kristopher]

5. Poor little feller.....

He just ain't all there...

Remember when you wrote that 30 page treatise based entirely on the misrepresentation that removal from service was solely attributable to turbine failure? The ramp up to larger newer technology was clearly described in your data but you omitted that obvious facet of the data to make the totally unsupported claim that all turbines removed were removed because of structural or mechanical failure.

We are left to believe that either
1) your lack the ability to understand the rather simple data set you were using or
2) you are deliberately misrepresenting data you did understand.

Which was it?

And why should we pay attention when you predict that "Wind is going to be the next biofuels."

[jpak]

6. Ummm....Chernobyl?

:D