Friday, December 4, 2009

Last Post AKA Evaluation

Hello our cyber space friends

This is our very last post for our sustainability project. Isn't it sad? sob, sob
So for this post we are doing some thing to an evanuation of what we have done and accomplished this week.
At the beggining of the week (Monday) we chose what we wnted to study. Our group chose to study a part of wind energy. So on Tuesday we narrowed down what we wanted to study to just one main question: How could we make wind turbines more acceptable? We then later changed our main question to: How could we make wind farms more suitable for small communities? We thought this would be better siuted because our task for this week is, and I quote: "Develop a proposal or working model that could contribute to sustainable living and be applicable to a small community of about 20 families." This was on a little peice of green paper we were given, titled: Task.
Also on Tuesday we developed our sub-questions.
On Wednesday we did so much research and posting, you guys are so lucky!!
Thursday, yesterday, was slower than ususal because we didn't really have much more to do.
And then get to today, our evaluation. Whopee!

Our Evaluation:
We are very happy with what we have accomplished this week. The best part of this week was posting on
the blog to you lovely people. The worst part of this week would have to be all the research we had to do (we must of spent 13 hours on the computer, we are guessing).

 Thank you to everyone who has read our blog.
Luv the project wind factor team AKA Becky, Kenzie and Sungeun

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Smaller sized turbine photos

Our teacher was talking to us about what was on our blog and noticed that we only had pictures of larger wind turbines. So for our teacher I have decided to put these on. (The last one is more of a mid-sized turbine. And if you remember what our blog is all about, they would be the sort of turbines we would  use to power our little community)

  
 


Luv Kenzie

Turbine drawings

So as something to do in the last couple of days, we came up with an idea of what we would do if we could redesign a wind turbine and this is whatwe came up with.




 

Don't you just love them!!!
Luv Kenzie

How much is it for one turbine?

We talked to our teacher and he asked us how much it was to buy and set up one wind turbine?
So on this wonderful post today, for you wonderful people, I'm going to answer his question.
I googled his question and this is what I got:
To buy and set up one of the larger turbines, it can cost some where between $30,000 and $70,000! But it all depends how big the turbine is and where it is being put up, because some locations would cost more than others.
To buy and set up a smaller sized turbine, it would cost between $2,000 and $5,000. But, again, it depends how big they are and where they are actually being set up.
These prices include: the turbine, foundations, wages for people who help amke and put them up and any other equiptment that may need to be used eg, helicopter or crane.
So that answers our teachers question
Luv Kenzie

Wind Flow Intrview

Becky and I found a Company called Wind Flow, and it's offices are in Christchurch (which is in the South Island of New Zealand) their phone number is 3658960.
So we called them up and asked them a few questions

Kenzie: How long has Wind Flow been up and running?
Wind Flow: Since 2000

Kenzie: Do you have any wind farms up and running at the moment? If so, where?
Wind Flow:  Yes, we have one up near Palmaston North (that is in the North Island of New Zealand)

Kenzie: Do you have any other project working? If yes, what?
Wind Flow: We have another wind farm we are trying to get started called Long Gully up by Wellington (which is in the North Island of New Zealand. Wellington is known as the 'Windy City' in New Zealand, so I think that would be a very good idea.)

Kenzie: How much electricity does one of your two-bladed turbines produce? How many houses can one turbine supply electricity to?
Wind FLow: One of our turbines can produce on average 500KW (Kilowatts) which is enough to supply elecricity to around 200 houses.


Okay that was the wonderful interview
Til next time (won't be many more of those, we only have one more day of this project, sob, sob)
Luv Kenzie

Funny Pics

I found these on some website i can't remember the name of (sorry if it's your website)
And i found them so LOL!!!!!!
Check 'em out





Do you get them? It took me ages to figure it out but when you do, they are actually really clever

Luv Kenzie

THE BIG QUESTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So far we have answered all our smaller -sub-questions- and now we are here today to give our answer to our main question, which is:

How could we make wind farms more siutable for small communities?

Large wind farms are great for commercial companies who make and sell the electricity produced. They use the very large turbines that can produce up to 15millionMW (megawatts) of electricity a year! WOW!
And very small turbines that produce up to only 700KW (kilowatts) a year, are perfect for supplying electricity to just one household.
Then there are also mid-sized turbines that can produce between 100KW and 1MW a year. We think these sized turbines would be perfect to create a small wind farm of about 10-20 turbines to supply electricity to a small community of around 25 homes. These mid-sized turbines can supply electricity to about 3-5 households so we think they would be perfect!!!
So to answer the question above, in one sentence: Wind farms would be suitable for small communities if mid-sized turbines were used to create a small wind farm of about 10-20 turbines.

Luv Project Wind Factor

Mid size wind tubines

Hi (again)

Today I am going to talk to you about mid size wind turbines (I sound like a teacher).
 Mid size wind turbines  (between small and large sized wind turbines for those who don't know) produce between 100kW and 1 MW of electricity, Which means they can sypply electricity to about 3-5 NZ households. KW= kilowatts  MW= megawatts.

This finishes your lesson for today.                                     Thanks Becky

Wind farms at sea

Hello!
I'm here to talk to you today about Wind Farms at sea (I sound like I'm about to give a 20minute speech)
But seriously, I think wind farms out at sea are a really good idea, they are away from everyone, so no one can complain about the noise problem. Also, the turbines are set up where not many ships or other boats would go so there is no chance of the turbines being knocked over, but even if ships did go near them, no one on those ships would be stupid enough to go near the turbines.

These are a couple of pics I found...






Okay Like 'em, Love 'em, Hate 'em?

Any way, on to the facts.

The turbine is mounted on a tower underwater, and the tower is sunk into the seabed (or the foundtions as they are called)

The electricity that is made is transferred by buried or covered cables to a sub station on land and then connected to pilons to transfer the electricity to other places eg. homes, buisnesses etc.
This is a pic showing what I was trying to say



Ok well thats it for the facts BORING (but interesting)

Please leave some comments
Luv Kenzie

Windflow NZ

Hey guys!

It's Becky (again) I have found a New Zealand wind farm company called 'Windflow' it is located in Riccarton Christchurch down Mandeville St. They are a company like Vestas that own wind farms and design wind turbines. Their wind farms are located in:

* Gebbies Pass whichh was installed in 2003
* Te Rere Hau. Five turbines have already been installed, this was in 2006 and the rest of the farm is to be completed in 2010.
* Long gully. This wind farm is near wellington.

This company is engineering a new type of wind turbine. it is a two bladed, 500 KW machine that is called windflow 500. This machine is a next generation wind turbine that has been designed to be able to put up with strong wind conditions.
There are lots of good advantages with this wind turbine which are:

* It has two gears which makes it move faster through strong wind conditions
* A pitch teeter coupling which is part of a gearbox and it can adapt to windspeed and it can be used more
* Synchronous power generation  
* The cost is efficient
* It is easy to transport, install, and connect

This is pretty cool to see wind turbines being manufactured in NZ and Auzzie.
If you want to check out this website it is http://www.windflow.co.nz/


                                     Please leave a comment on what you think Luv Becky


                                                                                                                           

Movie Time!

Whats up peps

This is our last full day of doing our project and I am trying to fill in as much time as possible. I have found this awesome 4 minute movie on http://www.vestas.com/ it is an awesome company that owns wind farms and wind turbines around the world. If you would like to see this movie click on the link below and I hope you enjoy. This movie has interesting information about Vestas and he music in the movie is really cool.

                                                                    Thanks becky



  http://ms.arkena.com/launch/k=12070523242300f9fa27f58f264c702415f9a804f38a5b1177&e=false

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

End of Day three

Okay this is the end of day three at school.
There may be an update or two tonight just depending on how I feel or if Becky decides to do a post. I've got trampolining and I also have to finish this stupid speech forenglish which is dur like monday next week so I'm really not looking forward to that!
Since I have to include some sort of fact in here: wind turbines can be taller than 20 storey buildings! WOW!!!
Ta Ta
Luv Kenzie

How could we make wind turbines smaller?

Konichiwa Minasan.

That was Japanese for Hello Everybody!!!!!!!!!!!! oh yeah, I know Japanese, in your face!!!!!!
I am actually learning Japanese in school, but I only started this year so I don't know much.
Sorry I'm getting side traked.
I am going to be answering another one of our sub-questions for you lovely people out in cyber space.

Question Two

How could we make wind turbines smaller? Can we make them smaller?

The ammount of electricity turbines produce, or make, all depends on how big the turbine is, so at the moment, yes is does matter how bie the turbines are. The bigger the blades of the turbine, the more electricity can be produced. And if the blades have to be bigger then the tower has to be to support the blades. We won't want the turbine falling over bacause the tower wasn't strong enough or the blades get stuck  in the ground because the blades are to long and reach the ground. That wouldn't be very good. The bigger the turbines are on a wind farm, the less you will need to produce the same ammount of electricity, but if you have the same ammount of large turbines as you did little ones you will make alot more electricity. YAY!!! So the bigger the turbine the better they are.
But unfortunatly the bigger the turbine, the bigger the cost. That is why only large companies have large turbines because the can make and sell the electricity comercially. But if you want just one turbine to power just your own home, a small turbine should do the trick. They are about 9 metres tall and have blades that span between 2 and 8 metres. These usually generate a little bit more electricity than needed for an average household so that can either be put in a generator to be stored and saved for when there is no wind or it can be sold to electricity companies to then used to power other homes.
So at the moment the size of the turbines can't be changed but like I said when I was answering the other question, scientests are probably trying to come up with a solution as we read (I wuold have said speak but that wouldn't have been right).

 Until next time
Luv kenzie

How could we make wind turbines quieter?

Suppies! :-)
Today I am going to be answering a couple of our sub-questions we have to answer for our project.

Question One

How can we make wind turbines quieter? Can we make wind turbines quieter?

Wind turbines are actually quite quiet now, people only think they are loud because the first wind turbines were actually very noisy and very destracting. Scientest have now come up with very quite turbines but no one wants to listen and find out because they are so set that the turbines are still the same as when they were first produced. The ammount of noise they make is less than a car engine. Since they already quite quiet I'm not sure if scientest will come up with something even quiter again. But you nver now what will happen. Scientest are probably in thier little labs right now, with there two sizes to big lab coats and face obstructing 'safety glasses' concucting blue prints and scale models (scientest probably wouldn't do that, but hey, it's my post and my blog, I can do what ever I want!!!) of what silent (may not be correct spelling, sue me! I don't care!) wind turbines may be like. You never know. But it's not as if they are destracting at the moment. Wind Farms all around the world are at least 300m away from any houses and other farms are out at sea where no one goes. SO WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?!?!?!?! MOst of the noise the turbines make is actually from the wind passing through the blades of the turbines (there wasn't a better way to discribe it). Only a very tiny ammount of noise is made by the motor and generator of the turbine.

So that is the first of our sub-questions we have to answer for our sustainability project. Which is actually what this whole blog is actually about.
TTFN (that is short for Ta Ta For Now for all you deprived of Winnie the Pooh, I used to LOVE Winnie the Pooh when I was like 10 years younger, but okay...)
Luv Kenzie

NZ Wind Farms

Hi guys what's up,

We have nearly finished our blog and Kenzie has told me that I need to do another post and I found something really interesting. So here goes nothing. New Zealand has nine operating wind farms (WOW) which is quite alot. if all these wind farms are combined they have an installed capacity of 492.8 MEGAWATTS!!!, this means that they sypply about 3% of New Zealands electricity, which is equvilent to the amount of electricity produced in 160,000 rural New Zealand households. Now NZ developers are still searching for sites to set up further wind farms.

Now that is a lot to take in but it is pretty amazing (don't you think?).
Please leave some comments about your opinion on this whole assignment PLEASE, we have only had one comment through this whole project (which we feel ashamed about :( ).

Here is a picture of New Zealand pointing out where all the wind farms are in New Zealand!


                                                                     Thanks Becky

How much electricity do very large and very small turbines produce?

I am sort of expanding on what Becky said earlier in one of her posts.
The largest turbine, being made and used comercially has a blade span of more than one length of a football feild (thats around about 110m) and is taller than a 20 storey building, without the blades! These turbines can produce enogh energy for more than 1,400 homes!!!! That is alot of electricity! Why aren't more of these being made and put up, we could have so much of our electricity made by wind energy and save the earth by going green!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The smallest of the wind turbines a ones that are put up in homes. These have rotors between 8 and 25 feet in diameter (that is 2-8 metres everybody!) and are at least 30 feet tall (That is 9 metres). These can produce enough electricity to power a home or small business! I know you are thinking we should all get one of these an dwe should all run on wind made electricity and save our Earth from pollution!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY if you were cause I was!
Until next time, which will probably be after morning break,
Luv kenzie

Videos

Hey my friends in outerspace
This is the first of many posts for today.
Below us are the links to two videos I found.
They may be a little bit boring but I found them quite interesting (but of course I'm stuck in a class room, and it's raining cats and dogs outside, so at the moment I could find almost any thing interesting!)
Any way, cozy up to your computer with a blanket and a hot chocolate (that sounds soooooooo nice right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and watch our wonderful videos.
Luv Kenzie

http://www.thefutureschannel.com/dockets/science_technology/wind_farming/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091104-turbine-video-vin.html

Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!

I AM SOOOOOO SORRY EVERY ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I said I would post last night but I got caught up and couldn't! I'm so sorry (again)
Please forgive me.
Instead today we will update as much as we can!!!
I have some great questions I want you guys to read the answers to, so those will be coming to you through out the day.
Sorry, Sorry Sorry (again)
Luv Kenzie

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

End of Day Two (at school)

Hey peps in internet land
It is now around about 3pm and we finish school in 20mins YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
so I thought I would take this time to reflet on what we have done and learnt today.

1. I have learnt (I sound like I'm on Rove) that Europe produces 72% of wind power produced around the world

2. Becky learnt how to put photos and other photos onto this blog

3. I also learnt that I can't be bothered writing these stupid facts anymore!

Till later on tonight (I'm going to add some videos from youtube)
Luv  Kenzie

Electricity produced by different sized wind turbines

Hi everyone its Becky again,

Now everyone must be asking, how much electricity is produed from a single wind turbine?
Well, a 10-KW (kilowatt) wind turbine can generate about 10,000KWh (kilo watts an hour) annually at a site with wind speeds averaging at 12 miles per hour, about enough electricty to power a typical household. Whereas a 5-KW turbine can produce more than 15 million KWh in a year, enough electricity to power more than 1,400 households.

Now that is a lot of electricity don't you think?

This is proberly my last post for today, 31 minutes till school finishes YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please leave a comment and your point of view.
                                 
                                                               Luv Becky

The Cost of Wind Turbines!

Ok, well this is the part that nobody wants to hear. THE COST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Wind turbines are quite expensive to have, but they are definately worth it. Wind energys cost is $60 to $120 per megawatt hour (MWh). The cost of wind energy is affected by quite specific things- such as wind speeds, captial and construction costs, as well as the cost of connecting the wind farm to the transmission line( I hope you understood all that giberish. ) Please don't get the wrong idea about wind turbines they are not bad. Feel free to leave a comment

                                                                    Luv Becky

Cartoons

Hey Kenzie here again
Just back from lunch refreshed and ready to work!
Looked on this website I found (http://www.windtoons.com/) and these came up. See what you think.
(if you want to enlarge them just click on the cartoon.)











Thanks for reading
Luv Kenzie

Wind Farm Survey!!!

Whats Up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me and my buddies have done a surveyme wind farm questions to see what other people have to say. We got some really interesting results. Kenzie asked 20 people in our class and this is what she foud out.

Question 1.

Do you like the idea of having wind fars in New Zealand?
Yes = 19        
No = 1

Question 2.

Do you think wind energy is a sustainable source for our country?
Yes = 20  
No = 0

Question 3.

If you were to change one thing about the wind turbines what would it be?
Size = 1
Sound = 13
Design = 1
Nothing = 5

This was quite surprising.
If you have any opinions on this survey please leave a comment!  

Napier Wind Farm

Howdy ya'll in cyberspace!
We come from a small country down in the pasific called New Zealand. We are well known for our out-of-this-world Netball and Rugby skills. We are world chaps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Any way, apart from our mad sporting skills, there are a few wind farms here.
The main one is in the North Island, jus outside of Napier.
For all thoses who don't kow where that is, here is a map.


That clear everything up??? Good.
The Wind Farm out at Napier is 34 kilometres northwest of Napier Airport.
That wind farm along with a couple of others supply 3% of New Zealand's electricity. That's about enogh electricity to power about 160,00 homes!!!





These are just a couple of photos of wind farms in New Zealand.
Thanks for reading
Luv kenzie

More stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well here I am again 20 minutes to go untill breake, CAN'T WAIT!!!!. Before on my post I talked about modernizing wind turbines, what do we do about the sound?. The bigger the wind turbines are the noiseier the sound is, the smalller they are they barely make any sound at all, but just like Kenzie said we don't want them at our heights, especially at my height (152cm, Shhhhhhhhhhhh don't tell anybody). Please I need some help with coming up with ideas! leave a comment with your point of view

Thanks Becky. :) 

Quick facts

Whilst I was in the library (BORED OUT OF MY MIND!!!!) I found a couple of books and copied down a few quick facts. I am here to share them with you today. You may find them really boring and ask why would you even do that?? but hey, I needed something to do (DON'T JUDGE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

-Around 72% of wind power is produced in Europe.

-The wind power industry plans to produce 12% of the world's electricity by 2020

-Wind power can be used in remote regions where other types of energy are not avalible. (That really out there. I was in the car on my way down south with my family and we saw a pay phone on the side of the road with a small wind turbine on top!!!)

-Most wind farms are built at least 300 metres from homes. At this distance the noise is less than that of a car engine. (so there is no reason for you to be going off at everyone and saying they are to noisy. All these things have  already been thought of!)

-A typical 1.8MW turbine will produce enough electricityin a year to meet the power needs of 1,000 homes.

I know they were really boring but thank-you for reading it filled in like 30 minutes of time. Now I only have 20 mins till morning tea YAY!!!!!

Luv Kenzie

Definitions we found (because we were bored)

Sungeun and kenzie here
These are some definitions we found.

wind-air in natural motion, esp, a current of this

energy- 1. capacity for activity intensity of action
            2. power displayed or exerted
            3. force or vigour of expression
            4. physics capacity of matter or radiation to do work

electricity- 1. form of energy resulting from the existence of charged particles either statically as an
                   accumulation of charge or dynamically as a current
                   2. branch of physics dealing with electricity
                   3. supply of electricity
            
sustainability- 1. support
                        2. keep someone alive
                        3. keep something happening
                        4. undergo; suffer

turbine- a machine or motor driven by a flow of water, steam, or gas

renewable- able to be renewed

acceptable- worth accepting; pleasing


Those are some definitions we found in a dictionary in the school library (any thing to fill in time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Becky's opinions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

People, people, people, I have an idea! ( thats a first for me). You know how SOME people don't like how wind turbines look, well what if we create some type of turbine that has colour, a funky style, I think they just need a bit of modernizing. People might some day look out and see on the top of a hill a retro, sustainable piece of art work.

What do you think about this? PLEASE leave a comment

Thanks Becky 

Day Two

Hey everyone
today is day two on our week of our sustainability project.
Today we're just going to keep researching about why people don't like wind turbines. Seously people what is the problem. Please look back to my post from yesterday to see what my problem with the world!!!!
Watch this space throughout the day for more pics videos and opinions!!!
Luv Kenzie