Science Café Cleveland presents
"Wind power: how air or energy for the future?"
AUGUST 13, 2012
FEATURING:
Chair, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø
EVENT INFORMATION:
In this presentation Iwan will talk about offshore wind (including the Great Lakes), its relevance, barriers to implementation and its role now and in the future relative to conventional fuels for electrical power – coal, natural gas and nuclear.
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For the U.S. to reach the Department of Energy's (DOE) goal of 54GW of offshore wind energy by 2030, thousands of new multi-megawatt wind turbines need to be installed along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Great Lakes coasts. ÌýThese plants are expected to site turbines in arrays much larger than the typical offshore sizes today (which range from 40-100 turbines, in Europe) to achieve the cost reductions necessary to make offshore wind cost competitive. ÌýTo achieve U.S. wind generation objectives, multiple critical factors must be addressed, as follows:
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•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýReducing the cost of wind energy compared to current dominant non-renewable sources of U.S. energy production – coal, natural gas and nuclear
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•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýIntegrating wind into electric power systems with efficient and reliable delivery and addition of transmission capacity where needed
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•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýLeveraging a diversity of wind energy sources and geographic distribution reflected in utility-scale land-based wind, offshore wind, and distributed wind
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•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýInspiring scientific and engineering innovation at a system, component, and operational level
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•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýAttracting investment with policy and stability including fair and equivalent subsidization and recognition of total carbon cost
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•ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýEnabling social acceptance of the value and impacts of renewable energy sources
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To motivate and evolve innovations in hardware and the optimization of strategies for offshore deployment, research at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø deals with a range of aspects including structural foundations, materials performance, lifetime and degradation of components, controls, wind measurement and characterization, and computational simulation of wind turbine and wind array (multiple turbines) dynamics. The challenge for simulation is to develop reliable and robust predictive capability that will: (i) analyze offshore array performance in shallow, transitional and deep water depths, (ii) analyze the performance of wind turbines within the array, and (iii) assist in the evolution of innovative prototype hardware, control strategies, and array configurations for optimized deployment.
USEFUL LINKS:
Great Lakes Energy Institute
Department of Energy Report “20% Wind Energy by 2030â€
National Renewable Energy Laboratory Report on Offshore Wind
EVENT DETAILS:
WHERE:Ìý
(Located at 1947 West 25th Street next to the West Side Market, Cleveland, Ohio)
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WHEN:ÌýAugust 13, 2012
Drinks at 6:30 pm, discussion starts around 7:00 pm
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WHO:ÌýSponsored by ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø chapter of Sigma Xi, WCPN
ideastream, and the Market Garden Brewery
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Click here to download a pdf flyer of the event