Record attempt thwarted by climate change
This year’s land speed record attempt with the Greenbird is officially a washout. I held off travelling at the start of the short weather window because the lake was actually wet not dry and I’ve been waiting, bag packed, ever since for the call - but it didn’t come, or not the one I hoped for. Richard mailed me yesterday with the news - there’s been even more rain and still no wind. There’s no chance the lake can dry in time now, so we have to pack up and try again next year. There is a possible venue in the US we’re looking into for March though…
We’re pretty disappointed not to have even been able to get the Greenbird out of the starting blocks. And it’s an irony not lost on us while that while Greenbird is intended to show how the world might be getting around when fossil fuels run out - the changes that fossil fuels are causing to our climate right now appears to be the very thing that has stopped us.
In the next twenty years, I firmly believe that wind power will be our main energy source and wind-powered cars will no longer be the stuff of dreams. We’re dedicated to making this a reality, and at the end of this year hope to have our second generation wind powered car on the road here in the UK, an everyday kind of wind powered car. We need to change the world, nothing less will do and for that (amongst other things) we need a transport solution for world post oil. Wind power has the potential to provide this.”
I’ll be blogging about the wind-powered car at www.zerocarbonista.com so join me there.
Hi, I sure hope that when you speak of ‘wind powered cars’ you are referring to electric cars with batteries that have been charged with power produced from wind turbines. I think your experience shows that ‘wind powered cars’ (cars powered by sails) would be the most impractical and unreliable means ever devised for personal transportation!
Nick.
Comment by Nick — September 4, 2008 @ 7:57 pm
Thanks Nick, you’re quite right on the one hand, we do mean electric cars charged by the wind. But I disagree with your other point - in my view the ‘most impractical and unreliable means of transport ever devised” would be oil driven cars in a world without oil.
Cheers.
Comment by Dale — September 5, 2008 @ 10:20 am
Fascinating to see global warming being blamed for rain on my lake.
the weather pattern Richard has encountered this year is in reality what would be considered normal . the last 5 years ,where tere has been little rain and only small showers ,giving a great lake surface,are actually the odd years in this location. better luck next year Richard.
p.s. us locals cant stand , and never use the term ‘outback’ . its something that city people would use, where is it?.
Cheers Paul,Lake Lefroy
Comment by Paul — September 6, 2008 @ 1:03 pm
Loving the trials and tribulations of Greenbird - good luck with the US venue!
It seems to me though that motorised transport as a whole is a joke for day-to-day transport. Keep the high grade wind-generated electricity for tethered electrical devices, use human power for transport. Most UK journeys are less than 5 miles - easily achievable by pedal power. No great technical innovation required, no great financial investment required, no dependency even on enough wind for the journey. Longer distances are no real problem either with the right cycle design - two weeks ago I cycled 142km each way to view the Ecotricity intstallations at Mablethorpe to see where my home electric is generated.
Rob
Comment by Rob — September 7, 2008 @ 3:38 pm
Dear Rob, How splendid that you cycled 71km to see a wind turbine. I hope when you were there you noticed the delightful countryside and marvellous wildlife. I also hope that as you were there you spared a thought for the poor people whose daily life has been blighted by the turbines thumping and clunking away night and day so that your green conscience can be massaged.
Comment by alan dunsmore — September 8, 2008 @ 11:54 am
Oh Alan…
Don’t try and pretend to be a NIMBY - you obviously DON’T have a turbine in your back-yard - especially not an Enercon unit. I was down at Reading Greenpark the other week, and I was amazed at how quiet it was - granted it isn’t far from the M4, but I couldn’t hear a swish, a thump, or clunk from it.
Why not jump in your 4×4 and pop over to a modern wind farm and educate yourself..?
Comment by nommo — September 8, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
nommo, when you were there was it turning?
Comment by alan dunsmore — September 8, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
It was turning while I was there - I was expecting to hear *something* - but I couldn’t make out anything coming from the blades.
Comment by nommo — September 8, 2008 @ 3:45 pm
Well keep practicing the maths Alan, it was 285km round trip over 2 days…
But the reason for the visit was that I keep hearing this story of noise… So with a 15mph wind I sat downwind of the Mablethorpe site and listened. The only sound I could hear was a low woosh which seemed to be timed with the lowest blade passing the tower… Certainly not an intrusive noise and that was at a distance of about 200yards from the base of the tower. The noise of the wind itself was just as intrusive and, obviously, if it wasn’t windy the turbines wouldn’t be spinning…
I’d certainly be happy to have one that distance from my home
Rob
Comment by Rob — September 8, 2008 @ 9:24 pm
Dear Rob, please accept my mathematical apologies.
If you want a turbine that close to you ask Dale at ecotricity, he’s always after new sites and yours sounds ideal. I’m sure he could probably fit six or seven 125m tall turbines near you, don’t worry about the cumulative sound effect though because the planning guidance rules on noise don’t take this into account so it can’t be real then can it? Unfortunately the turbines 200 yards away won’t actually supply you with electricity because it will be pumped in to the national grid and sold to the highest bidder, probably 140 odd kilometres away. Good luck with it!!
Anyway this isn’t a forum for wind turbines this is really about the windjets world record attempts. I just think that being sponsored by a wind energy firm is an unfortunate situation and akin to having your local butcher sponsored by tesco.
So bad luck to Richard and the team with the attempt and hopefully the windjet will have better luck (and weather) next time.
Comment by alan dunsmore — September 9, 2008 @ 10:13 am
@ Paul Hmm, so the last five years have been messed up and this is the normal year.
In a funny way that’s still climate change messing things up for us, after all for five years it set up the perfect conditions for the run, tempted us over there,and then goes and reverts to normal for a year.
No offence intended with the ‘Outback’ word - too many Crocodile Dundee movies maybe….. “Call that a knife…..”
Cheers.
Comment by Dale — September 9, 2008 @ 10:22 am
@ Alan - Alan, there are a couple of large factual errors in your post here, so I thought I’d better say something.
You say that planning guidance rules don’t take cumulative noise (from more than one windmill) into account - that’s absolute nonsense. The process for assessment of likely noise from windmills is very sophisticated, well tried and tested and it specifically and absolutely allows for cumulative effect.
Secondly you say the electricity from windmills goes into the national grid - again you are completely wrong. It’s does not, it goes into the local grid - except in the case of very (very) large windfarms. All of our windmills connect to the local grid and the electricity we make gets used by local people. Which probably means that your house is run on wind power (like it or not), assuming you live anywhere near as close as you sound like you do. The highest bidder thing is nonsense too.
It’s fine to not be a fan of windmills (no pun intended), some people aren’t - but I wonder how many of them feel as they do (and as you do) because they hear and believe such false and inflammatory ‘facts’
Cheers.
Comment by Dale — September 9, 2008 @ 10:50 am
Exactly the reason I visited Mablethorpe Dale!
The sound of the whole Mablethorpe ensemble on a 15mph wind day was significantly less than the noise from the wind in the trees beind my own home under similar conditions.
As I said, the only sound I could hear was a gentle whoosh which was scarcely louder than the wind itself.
Yes Alan, I’d be more than happy to offer Dale a site for a turbine - unfortunatly my current ‘garden’ is less in area than one turbine tower
As soon as I get the chance to move up I’ll post Dale the invite!
Rob
Comment by Rob — September 9, 2008 @ 5:51 pm
It is frankly ridiculous to blame a few days rain on climate change. Has it never rained there before! It is impossible to attribute any particular weather event to global warming, at attempting to do so undermines the public understanding of science. Climate change is a significant long-term change in the expected weather.
Comment by richard telford — September 12, 2008 @ 7:29 am
Intersting that you blame global warming (convenient hey?) but chose to not to respond to Paul from Lake Lefroy’s claim that what you actually experienced might be considered “normal” weather. You wouldn’t happen to have a personal agenda would you?
Comment by Jaosn — September 12, 2008 @ 10:20 am
@ Richard, that may be your definition of climate change but I think it’s wrong. Climate change is extreme and unusual weather, happening right now and increasing over the long term. It’s about the unusual becoming the norm. Cheers.
@ Jason, I think you’re jumping to conclusions here. I did reply to Paul’s post. Maybe you missed it. Cheers.
Comment by Dale — September 12, 2008 @ 11:49 am
However neat an irony it may seem, the fact is that there is no evidence at all that the climate change that fills untold volumes of media space these days has anything to do with burning fossil fuels. Forget all the hype about carbon dioxide - next time you hear CO2 implicated in climate change, ask for the supporting evidence, and don’t accept blather about modelling. Modelling may provide sexy looking graphs, but it doesn’t prove anything, and it’s only as good as the scientific understanding it’s based on, which is very poor in the case of the climate.
The bottom line is that there is still no direct evidence to link CO2 concentration to warming. Furthermore there are very good scientific reasons to suppose that there is no such link.
Comment by Ed Addis — September 12, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
I was quite looking forward to some interesting comments on this attempt at a land speed record.
But all I got was complaints about global warming and windmills.
No wonder the English got tagged with Whinging Pomms.
Good luck with your future attempts and if it rains on your rocket again, try a rain powered craft.
Comment by Dave Andrews — September 12, 2008 @ 1:26 pm
@ Ed
Something strange seems to be happening. This site has become a magnet for climate change deniers…….. An endangered species these days (or so I thought). Interesting what you say Ed but come on, the existence of climate change is not based on modelling, it’s based on empirical data, we’re seeing the changes. You one of these sun spot guys?
Comment by Dale — September 12, 2008 @ 2:14 pm
Hey Dave, I’ve the same feeling, why all this ‘fuss’ about climate change? Seems like we mentioned the C word….
Can’t pin the whinging only on the Poms though, there’s been some whinging Ozzies on the site too to be fair. Cheers.
Comment by Dale — September 12, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
“In the next twenty years, I firmly believe that wind power will be our main energy source”
No offence Dale, but I would regard that as a catastrophe, and I do hope that you are wrong. It would mean, by definition, that other sources had failed, leaving a collapsed economy with people enduring UK winters at subsistence level in the dark and cold.
Seriously, there’s no prospect whatever of wind providing half our energy needs in that time; getting to 15% on anything approaching a reliable basis will be a sufficient challenge. Short of some magical storage solution, wind power will remain largely irrelevant because it’s so unpredictable. Even then, you have to deal with the on-shore problem of gruesome architecture, or the off-shore difficulties of distribution and transmission loss.
Your vision of electric cars is more like it, though. Demand for personal transport will only increase, after all. It’s just that the electricity has to be produced by more viable means. I appreciate you have a different viewpoint; your wealth having benn created through what amounts to taxes on conventional energy suppliers makes that inevitable, and good luck to you while it lasts.
If you fix the storage problem, I’ll revise my opinion. It might not be so much fun as land speed records, but your place in history would be assured.
Comment by Frank Lee — September 12, 2008 @ 3:33 pm
Why is there all the grief and nimbyism about land-based windmills? I was told (by a corn grinding mill owner) that in the UK in 1900 there were 100,000 of them in the UK. Whilst his figure feels an order of magnitude higher than I’d expect certainly most villages used to have access to a local mill of some kind. I’m sure the Nimbys would be far more upset with the prospect of a nuclear plant being built in their locality.
Comment by Rob — September 12, 2008 @ 7:35 pm
Found a proper reference - here you go:
“It comes as a surprise to many that at the turn of the last century (1900) there were over 10,000 windmills in the British Isles used for pumping water, drainage or grinding corn.”
The potential of wind energy as a farm diversification, Peter D Edwards
Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England
Volume 164 2003
ISSN - 0080 - 4134
Comment by Rob — September 12, 2008 @ 7:51 pm
Thanks Frank, no offence taken.
I don’t share your views on the collapsed economy thing though, and subsistence levels of winter living because of wind power - I actually think this vision of the future will occur if we don’t build enough renewables and fast enough, because the fuel source we rely on now is unreliable and becoming only more so.
The 15% threshold you talk of for getting wind onto the grid reliably has already been surpassed in parts of the world - without as yet any magic storage technologies.
I’ve been discussing the issue of how the gird can cope with big inputs of renewable energy on my blogsite, if you’re interested there’s a short post here that offers an interesting perspective on how the future grid will look and cope. I’m very confident we have the ability, and will have it increasingly, to crack this problem of supplying energy on demand with intermittent power sources and energy storage - the trick is to judge the future not by the present, but by what’s coming.
Gruesome architecture? that’s a pretty minority view, valid don’t get me wrong, but not widely held.
Energy storage is coming so stand by to revise that opinion, and one day you might even be driving a wind powered car (keep a copy of this and check back in a decade or so….).
Ultimately renewables are the only sustainable energy source we have on this planet, failure to run our lives from them is not actually an option. Well it might be for our generation, even the next - but not the one that follows.
Cheers.
Comment by Dale — September 15, 2008 @ 9:20 am
Thanks for this Rob. I’d heard that 10,000 statistic too. It’s perhaps interesting to compare that to the 2,000 or so modern windmills that we currently have, gives it an interesting perspective.
I’m told that when the first of these old windmills were installed in the Fens of East Anglia, the Dutch engineers doing the work were literally strung up by angry locals. And we thought we had NIMBY problems! And, I’m also told, that some of the Dutch masters (the painters) refused to include windmills in their landscape paintings in protest. Fast forward a few generations and you probably can’t find an image of Holland that doesn’t have a windmill in it, and windmills all over East Anglia have become historical treasures. My point being that what was alien and thoroughly unacceptable when it was first introduced has become something we not only accept, but value highly. And to me modern windmills are just ‘future heritage’ - today’s slightly radical departure from the norm, tomorrow’s treasured heritage. Evidence of the steps this generation took to address climate change.
Cheers.
Comment by Dale — September 15, 2008 @ 9:24 am
No offence chaps but you can’t seriously compare a grain windmill (about the same height as a typical local church spire) and the 125m wall modern things. It simply not a true comparison.
As for cumulative sound - I disagree with you there Dale, I can’t find anywhere in ETSU 97 where it is mentioned. And, as you saw, ETSU 97 is indeed tried and tested but there are quite a few experts who think that it’s blunt, outdated and basically incorrect.
You also mentioned the ‘local grid’. I’ve tried endlessly to speak to EDF about this but without success, how does it work and how large is each grid? If you search the internet for anything to do with ‘local grid’ there is nothing, perhaps you could explain it a little more?
thanks
Comment by alan dunsmore — September 16, 2008 @ 1:20 pm
Hi Alan, one of the points I was trying to make was that there wasn’t anything to compare the old style windmills to in their day - they broke the boundaries of the norm, and then reset them of course. Modern windmills are just the same in that respect - they represent something on a scale hitherto un-experienced or perhaps unimaginable. At the start things like this (that break the boundaries of the norm) are opposed by some and soon enough they’re beloved heritage - Future Heritage in fact. That was my comparison, not one based metres.
On noise, when you say cumulative sound do you mean from more than one windmill in a group, or more than one group in an area? ETSU 97 does reference the latter in terms that when assessing background noise for the purposes of setting noise limits from a new group of turbines, the contribution of existing turbines is not counted in the background - therefore making sure that cumulatively groups of windmills don’t go beyond the noise limits for single groups set in ETSU 97. When it comes to cumulative noise within a group then there are well established ways to predict noise on a cumulative basis.
The grid in the UK (can’t speak for the rest of the world but it’s not dissimilar I think) comes in two types. The National Grid, owned and operated by the National Grid Company (funnily enough…:) and this operates at higher voltages, typically 132 kV and above. Then you have the local grid, of which there are really 12. They each cover a geographical area of the country and they handle lower voltages, 132kV and below, down to domestic levels. The local and national grids meet at places known as Grid Supply Points (or GSPs in our industry jargon) and this is where the transition from national to local takes place.
The large metal pylons you see around the place are part of the national grid and the wooden power poles (and smaller pylons in some cases) are the local grid. Big conventional generators will typically be connected to the national grid and smaller renewables generators typically to the local grid. All but the very largest of electricity customers are connected to the local grid. The local grids are owned and operated by the Distribution Network Operators (or DNOs in our jargon), there’s no longer 12 of these following consolidation post-privatisation. Hope that helps.
Cheers.
Comment by Dale — September 18, 2008 @ 3:19 pm
Wow - this is amazing - i cant wait until i can change the last big none green item that i use in everyday life - the diesel van - i lovely clean green wind van would do very nicely thank you. Can i add my name to the waiting list to purchase one…
Comment by Innovents — October 3, 2008 @ 10:53 am
>> There is a possible venue in the US we’re looking into for March though…
I (and the BLM) have a concern, if you will be returning to Ivanpah in 2009. The last time you were there the WINDJET dug large chucks out of the Playa and left long tracks of crumbling chucks of the Playa. I was wondering what improvements have been made to the current version that will prevent this from happening again?
Second, by the design this is one way only. I’ll assume that getting back requires being towed. The BLM is cracking down on vehicles on the Playa. You will need to account for this if you are to use Ivanpah again.
Think about using the Blackrock Desert, in Northern Nevada (Site of Burning Man) instead. The land speed record was set there. So there is plenty of room for runs from any wind direction, No vehicle restrictions, and very remote.
Comment by Ivanpah Rocks — October 16, 2008 @ 6:41 pm
Ivanpah Dry lake is indeed one potential location, of many, if we end up testing in North America. However, you were obviously not there to see Windjet in action as your ‘observations’ are simply false. Windjet did not tear up the Playa or dig out ‘chunks’ of the Playa. The craft certainly leaves tracks, but so does any land sailor and the lake is officially reserved for wind powered sports. Any tracks left by landsailors are repaired each winter by the annual rains and are invisible next season, so there is no lasting damage and the vehicle leaves no traces of it’s presence.
It is indeed asymmetric, but this simply means it is faster on one tack, than the other, but can easily sail in any direction under its own power, so we do not require a tow vehicle to be on the same surface as the Greenbird.
Of the hundreds of land sailors that have seen both Windjet and Greenbird in action, I am sure any one of them will confirm these observations.
After all, lets not forget that the Iron Duck set the record on Ivanpah back in 1999, and that yacht was over twice the weight of Greenbird, with much narrower tyres, so any damage to the surface would have been much more significant than Greenbird. However, despite some tracks, Nalsa ran a regatta the following week after the record, on the same area that the Iron duck used without a problem and there is certainly no lasting damage to the Playa.
I share your sentiment of wanting to keep Ivanpah pristine and free of motorised vehicles, but can assure you that our efforts to break the speed record do not damage the Playa in any way. There are certainly a few individuals who seem against the principle of a British team challenging an American held record on American soil and hence have been obstructive, so maybe you have heard some rumours from this camp?
If we do end up using some of the dry lakes in North America I would invite you to come along in person to see the vehicle running and allay any fears you may have.
Comment by Richard — October 21, 2008 @ 10:16 am
Sorry, but i was at Ivanpah when WindJet was there, as i was when the Bob’s were there during the Iron Duck’s runs. The description does NOT gybe with reality. Yes there are tracks, but as Richard points out, Iron Duck was twice as heavy, had very thin tires(almost twice as thin) and neither vehicle damaged the lake surface.
As a long time lake user, and friend of the lake, none of us would like to see any damage done to the lake.
If any sign of serious damage even began to be seen, i’m sure that Richard would curtail his activity.
Many people don’t realize that the only time there is NO motor vehicles on the lake is when the wind sailors are out there. This lake is lightly patrolled and has (illegal) motor vehicle traffic on it all the time. While this does not excuse any rough behavior on wind sailors use, it shows the lake is very hardy and can take more use than it gets. In addition, El Mirage has constant motor vehicle use and is still a very viable sailing surface.
We welcome Greenbird and Richard to the U.S. and hope that he is successful in obtaining the necessary permits to run there.
NABX is proud to be associated with the Greenbird effort and will assist Richard in any way possible.
dean jordan
event organizer
North American Buggy eXpo
Leave no Trace!
Comment by dean jordan — October 21, 2008 @ 1:59 pm
I have been sailing at Ivanpah since 1979. The only changes at the lake since then are, loss of sailing on the southern part due to Moly Corp. and their ponds and the flatening and filling of the dirt around the gasoline pipline (by the BLM and NALSA), not any lasting damage due to Landsailing/Kite buggy/Iron Duck/Windjet/Greenbird. The most damage that I see is from people going out onto the surface with 4 wheel drive vehicles as doing doughnuts in the mud and this is usually close to the entrance road because they get stuck before they can make it out onto the surface. I was also there for the Iron Duck (for 7 years in a row) and Windjet/Greenbird attempts (in the US and Australia)and have not seen the lasting damage to the surface that other people have said to have seen. Any vehicle can leave a track in the dirt. I have seen full sized semi trucks with cargo box trailers on the surface and not leave a depression. I have also seen blokarts leave a visible depression, it all depends on the surface at the time. For instance nothing could be attempted on the Black Rock right now because it’s too soft to sail or even drive. If the lake surface is so soft that the Green Bird leaves a track that is big enough to leave permanent damage, then it will not be sufficient to set a record, and the attempt will have to be done somewere else. The design of Greenbird is different than that of Iron Duck and I don’t believe that it will have as much pressure on the loaded tire due to the “proa”(for the lack of a better word)extending to weather. The land sailors are the only people who use the lake and don’t want it damaged in any way, and we go through great lenghts to keep Ivanpah the way it is/was, Richard is a land sailor. We drive a vehicle on the surface to set the marks and starting area, we only do this when the conditions are correct and with proper driving practices, i.e. no sharp turs or quick acceleration/braking. the NABX group has used the playa after us for years and we havn’t had a complaint from them about a damaged surface for either vehicles or landsailers/dirtboats.
I will continue to offer my support to Richard/Greenbird or any one else who would like to use Ivanpah for wind powered sport.
Dennis Bassano
President;
North American Land Sailing Association
Comment by Dennis the Prez — October 21, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
Well, Richard I was indeed there when you ran the Windjet. The day that I remember was high winds and you were having trouble keeping the tires glued to the surface so you cranked the downforce all the way up to keep the tires from sliding. This caused the Windjet to not have enough downforce to prevent the tires from sliding but the increase in downforce detrimentally, but temporary, effected the Playa and for others that followed. I personally observed you making runs, right in front of camp, and witnessed the considerable tracks that were left by the Windjet. The Windjet did tear up the playa surface and left chucks in its wake.
Don’t deny that this happened it was witnessed by several people but wasn’t brought up knowing that it was a waste of time and effort.
Now is this lasting damage, NO! But it is detrimental for those who wish to use the playa afterwards. Loose chucks of playa can be picked up by buggy tires and thrown back quite a ways. This has happen to me several times and thats without the Windjet tearing up the playa.
Concerning the IRONDUCK. Yes the Duck was heavyer. It was all about weight. The duck didn’t slide when powered up and traveling over 100MPH! I was there the year they set the speed record. They did it on the other side of the lakebed and did not affect with the event in anyway. I went over there the next day, there was tire depressions but no torn up playa.
Lastly, I find the tone of the responses very defensive and rude. To claim that I must not of been there was childish and smacks of someone that is guilty and just been caught. Attack the messager not the message. Try answering the questions! Like what improvement have been made to prevent the Greenbird from damaging the playa? Is the weight of the side rigger enough to prevent tipping? Even in high and gusty winds? I pointed out what I witnessed not what others told me. I questioned what happened to the lakebed that day and am now attacked for it. Accused of alliances that aren’t there and attempting to thwart your effort to set a new speed record. This was typical of the your attitude on the lakebed to me and others. It was all about you and the Windjet and be damned others.
Comment by Ivanpah Rocks — October 22, 2008 @ 10:23 pm