Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
A Monster Wind Turbine Is Upending An Industry
Twirling above a strip of land at the mouth of Rotterdam’s harbor is a wind turbine so large it is difficult to photograph. The turning diameter of its rotor is longer than two American football fields end to end
G.E.’s Giant Machine, Which
Can Light Up A Small Town,
Is Stoking A Renewable-Energy Arms Race
By Stanley Reed
January 1, 2021
Twirling above a strip of land at the mouth of Rotterdam’s harbor is a wind turbine so large it is difficult to photograph. The turning diameter of its rotor is longer than two American football fields end to end. Later models will be taller than any building on the mainland of Western Europe.
Packed with sensors gathering data on wind speeds, electricity output and stresses on its components, the giant whirling machine in the Netherlands is a test model for a new series of giant offshore wind turbines planned by General Electric. When assembled in arrays, the wind machines have the potential to power cities, supplanting the emissions-spewing coal- or natural gas-fired plants that form the backbones of many electric systems today.
G.E. has yet to install one of these machines in ocean water. As a relative newcomer to the offshore wind business, the company faces questions about how quickly and efficiently it can scale up production to build and install hundreds of the turbines.
But already the giant turbines have turned heads in the industry. A top executive at the world’s leading wind farm developer called it a “bit of a leapfrog over the latest technology.” And an analyst said the machine’s size and advance sales had “shaken the industry.”
A New Generation of Wind Turbines
General Electric’s prototype for a new offshore wind turbine, the Haliade-X, is the largest ever built.
London Eye - Ferris wheel GE Haliade-X 13MW - wind turbine Empire State Building
HEIGHT: 443 feet HEIGHT: 853 feet HEIGHT: 1,050 feet
Source: General Electric
The prototype is the first of a generation of new machines that are about a third more powerful than the largest already in commercial service. As such, it is changing the business calculations of wind equipment makers, developers, and investors.
The turning diameter of the Haliade-X’s rotor is longer than two American football fields.Credit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times
The G.E. machines will have a generating capacity that would have been almost unimaginable a decade ago. A single one will be able to turn out 13 megawatts of power, enough to light up a town of roughly 12,000 homes.
The turbine, which is capable of producing as much thrust as the four engines of a Boeing 747 jet, according to G.E., will be deployed at sea, where developers have learned that they can plant larger and more numerous turbines than on land to capture breezes that are stronger and more reliable.
The race to build bigger turbines has moved faster than many industry figures foresaw. G.E.’s Haliade-X generates almost 30 times more electricity than the first offshore machines installed off Denmark in 1991.
In coming years, customers are likely to demand even bigger machines, industry executives say. On the other hand, they predict that, just as commercial airliners peaked with the Airbus A380, turbines will reach a point where greater size no longer makes economic sense.
“We will also reach a plateau; we just don’t know where it is yet,” said Morten Pilgaard Rasmussen, chief technology officer of the offshore wind unit of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, the leading maker of offshore turbines.
The turbine is so large that it will be able to generate enough power to light up a town of 12,000 homes. Credit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times
Although offshore turbines now account for only about 5 percent of the generating capacity of the overall wind industry, this part of the business has taken on an identity of its own and is expected to grow faster in the coming years than land-based wind.
Offshore technology took hold in Northern Europe in the last three decades and is now spreading to the East Coast of the United States as well as Asia, including Taiwan, China and South Korea. The big-ticket projects costing billions of dollars that are possible at sea are attracting large investors, including oil companies like BP and Royal Dutch Shell, that want to quickly enhance their green energy offerings. Capital investment in offshore wind has more than tripled over the last decade to $26 billion, according to the International Energy Agency, the Paris-based forecasting group.
G.E. began making inroads in wind power in 2002 when it bought Enron’s land-based turbine business — a successful unit in a company brought down in a spectacular accounting scandal — at a bankruptcy auction. It was a marginal force in the offshore industry when its executives decided to try to crack it about four years ago. They saw a growing market with only a couple of serious Western competitors.
Still, G.E.’s bosses figured that to become a leader in the more challenging marine environment, they needed to be audacious. They proceeded to more than double the size of their existing offshore machine, which came to G.E. through its acquisition of the power business of France’s Alstom in 2015. The idea was to gain a lead on key competitors like Siemens Gamesa and Vestas Wind Systems, the Danish-based turbine maker.
A larger turbine produces more electricity and, thus, more revenue than a smaller machine. Size also helps reduce the costs of building and maintaining a wind farm because fewer turbines are required to produce a given amount of power.
These qualities create a powerful incentive for developers to go for the largest machine available to aid their efforts to win the auctions for offshore power supply deals that many countries have adopted. These auctions vary in format, but developers compete to provide power over a number of years for the lowest price.
The prototype is on a piece of land in Rotterdam Harbor, but the Haliade-X is designed as an offshore turbine, to be planted in relatively shallow sea water. Credit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times
“What they are looking for is a turbine that allows them to win these auctions,” said Vincent Schellings, who has headed design and production of the G.E. turbine. “That is where turbine size plays a very important role.”
Among the early customers is Orsted, a Danish company that is the world’s largest developer of offshore wind farms. It has a preliminary agreement to buy about 90 of the Haliade-X machines for a project called Ocean Wind off Atlantic City, N.J.
“I think they surprised everybody when they came out with that machine,” said David Hardy, chief executive of Orsted’s offshore business in North America.
As a huge buyer of turbines, Orsted wants to help “establish this new platform and create some volume for G.E.” so as to promote competition and innovation, Mr. Hardy said.
The G.E. turbine is selling better than its competitors may have expected, analysts say.
On Dec. 1, G.E. reached another preliminary agreement to provide turbines for Vineyard Wind, a large wind farm off Massachusetts, and it has deals to supply 276 turbines to what is likely to be the world’s largest wind farm at Dogger Bank off Britain.
One day turbines will reach a size limit, but “we just don’t know where it is yet,” said Morten Pilgaard Rasmussen of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy. Credit...Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York Times
These deals, with accompanying maintenance contracts, could add up to $13 billion, estimates Shashi Barla, principal wind analyst at Wood Mackenzie, a market research firm.
The waves made by the G.E. machine have pushed Siemens Gamesa to announce a series of competing turbines. Vestas, which until recently had the industry’s biggest machine in its stable, is also expected to unveil a new entry soon.
“We didn’t move as the first one, and that of course we have to address today,” said Henrik Andersen, the chief executive of Vestas.
To pull off its gambit, G.E. had to start “pretty much from scratch,” Mr. Schellings said. The business unit called G.E. Renewable Energy is spending about $400 million on design, hiring engineers and retooling factories at St. Nazaire and Cherbourg in France.
To make a blade of such extraordinary length that doesn’t buckle from its own weight, G.E. called on designers at LM Wind Power, a blade maker in Denmark that the company bought in 2016 for $1.7 billion. Among their innovations: a material combining carbon fiber and glass fiber that is lightweight yet strong and flexible.
Offshore turbines account for only about 5 percent of the generating capacity of the overall wind industry, but that number is expected to grow. Credit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times
G.E. still must work out how to manufacture large numbers of the machines efficiently, initially at the plants in France and, possibly later, in Britain and the United States. With a skimpy offshore track record, G.E. also needs to show that it can reliably install and maintain the big machines at sea, using specialized ships and dealing with rough weather.
“G.E. has to prove a lot to asset owners for them to procure G.E. turbines,” Mr. Barla said.
Bringing out bigger machines has been easier and cheaper for Siemens Gamesa, G.E.’s key rival, which is already building a prototype for a new and more powerful machine at its offshore complex at Brande on Denmark’s Jutland peninsula. The secret: The company’s ever-larger new models have not strayed far from a decade-old template.
“The fundamentals of the machine and how it works remain the same,” said Mr. Rasmussen, the unit’s chief technology officer, leading to a “starting point that was a little better” than G.E.’s.
There seems to be plenty of room for competition. John Lavelle, the chief executive of G.E.’s offshore business, said the outlook for the market “gets bigger each year.”
Stanley Reed has been writing from London for The Times since 2012 on energy, the environment and the Middle East. Prior to that, he was London bureau chief for BusinessWeek magazine. @stanleyreed12 • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 2, 2021, Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Monster Wind Turbine Is Upending an Industry. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Energy Use In Food Production
The U.S. food system uses a massive amount of energy from start to finish. In 2018, the U.S. consumed 101.1 quadrillion Btu (British thermal units) of energy. The food system makes up 10 percent of that total, landing it at about 10.11 quadrillion Btu
By The Choose Energy Team
November 26th, 2019
We use a whole lot of energy to produce our food
The U.S. food system uses a massive amount of energy from start to finish. In 2018, the U.S. consumed 101.1 quadrillion Btu (British thermal units) of energy. The food system makes up 10 percent of that total, landing it at about 10.11 quadrillion Btu.
That number might not mean much at first glance, but put another way, the U.S. consumes as much energy preparing and transporting food as France uses to power the entire country for a year.
Where does that energy come from?
Food systems around the world account for about 30 percent of the world’s total energy consumption. Since most food systems are run primarily on fossil fuels, that means they also account for 20 percent of our global greenhouse gas emissions.
These emissions take place at every step of the food chain. Manure and fertilizer give off nitrous oxide while cattle and other animals produce methane. Machinery requires diesel and gasoline, and the entire process is fueled by coal and natural gas power plants, creating carbon dioxide.
How is that energy used?
The energy in food production can be broken down into four parts: agriculture, transportation, processing, and handling.
Agriculture
Agriculture uses about 21 percent of the total U.S. food production energy. This accounts for everything involved in the growth and cultivation of food crops. 60 percent of this energy is consumed directly in the use of gasoline, diesel, electricity, and natural gas, while the rest is indirect through fertilizer and pesticide production. In total, agriculture consumes roughly 2.1 quadrillion Btu of energy each year, enough to power the entire country of Norway.
Transportation
The transportation of food from farm to table accounts for just under 14 percent of the energy that goes into producing food. Romania could power itself for a year on the 1.4 quadrillion Btu it takes to ship avocadoes from South America (among other tasty imports).
Food Processing
Food processing refers to the transformation of raw ingredients into a food product, in other words, turning raw corn into cereal and the like. This section of the system makes up about 16 percent of the total. This breaks down to about 1.6 quadrillion Btu per year, equivalent to the total energy use of Nigeria.
Food Handling
Food handling is by far the largest sector of energy in producing food, and accounts for nearly half of the energy used in food production – over 49 percent. This piece of the system includes retail, restaurants, packaging, and consumers. The energy used to package milk and keep it refrigerated in the grocery store and at home falls into this category. At 5 quadrillion Btu, the food handling sector’s total energy is more than enough to power a year of life in Taiwan.
Energy-efficient foods
Certain foods require less energy to produce than others, whether because it requires less land and water or because there are fewer industrial processes needed to produce it. The most energy-efficient foods include wheat, beans, fish, eggs, nuts, and other non-resource-intensive products.
The least energy-efficient foods are animal-based products, particularly beef, lamb, and goat. This is because beef requires up to 20 times more resources and emits 20 times more greenhouse gas emission than plant-based protein sources. Poultry and pork use slightly less energy but are still far bigger emitters than plant products.
This doesn’t mean you have to be a vegetarian to cut down energy use. Just reducing the amount of meat and dairy you eat can allow you to have a much lower impact diet. Regardless, both meat-based and vegetarian diets rely heavily on fossil fuels, so neither is sustainable long-term in the current food system.
How to reduce food system energy use
Because so much of the energy used in food production comes from non-renewable resources, it’s important to make the food system more energy efficient. A few key ways to start making a difference at home are:
Buy only as much food as you eat. One of the easiest ways to help conserve energy in food production is to waste less. It’s estimated that 40 percent of food in the U.S. goes uneaten. In 2017, that added up to 38 million tons of food waste. As a comparison, that’s the weight of 38 million polar bears, 5.5 million elephants, or nearly 300,000 blue whales.
Buy food that is locally sourced. Shop at local farmers’ markets instead of buying produce at the grocery store. You’ll be supporting local farmers and saving the energy needed to transport perishable foods from across the world.
Invest in energy-efficient food storage. Get an EnergyStar refrigerator, which use 20%-30% less energy. Also, keep your refrigerator fully stocked. If you don’t have enough food, keep containers of water in there instead. It may sound counterintuitive, but your refrigerator works most efficiently when it’s full.