APR 17

Hi there,
Doing an honest mathematical operation I think that 1 million barrels per year is totally impossible. If we just suppose that each barrel cost $ 50, we will have a turbine that generates $ 50 million dollars per year, and that's totally impossible, because if we suppose that the turbine costs between 10 and 20 millions (for being one of the first ones built of such capacity) we would have a turbine that pays itself within months, and if that was possible the the world would be right now full of turbines. Thanks, I love your webpage.

Regards from Spain

tsunamo

One barrel of crude has a LHV of 6.1 GJ, or 1.7 MWh, so a million barrels is 1,700,000 MWh. A 7.5 MW turbine operates at say 25% of peak over the year, and so produces 16,425 MWh. So yes, there seems to be a factor of 100 missing here.

Huge turbine blades disintegrate. It's a design problem. Making them bigger doesn't help

Hey! Is this project going to replace the use of fossil fuel? I like you ideas and plans and do hope it works. I hope I can do a little complaining here. The cost of gasoline today has gotten out of hand. The oil companies are sure filling their pockets and it is very wrong! I think we need to take a stand and all of us that means everyone stop driving their vehicals for one to two days and if we do this it will hurt the oil companys! Is this real? Probely not but it needs to be done!!! TAKE A STAND AGAINST THE OIL COMPANYS!

I agree the author should show calcs for how he got the 1-million-barrel figure. The result can be highly variable, depending on what your basis is.

First thing to note is that the comparison is meaningless without the assumption of conversion to electric cars, as grid electricity and oil play almost completely separate roles in our society today; mass conversion to EVs will be the primary means by which we will replace oil with grid power.

So one concrete data point we have here is the Tesla roadster, whose batteries hold 53kwh; this will propel the car over 200 miles. Let's say a similar gas-powered high-performance sportscar would get 20 miles/gal. That would mean that the 53kwh will replace 10 gallons of gas.

So if you take Earl Killian's assumption above of 25% utilization (which may be pessimistic, if these North Sea winds are steadier than average), then 16,425 Mwh / 53 Kwh * 10 gal = 3,099,057 gallons of gasoline displaced yearly. I don't know the conversion of gallons of gasoline to barrels of oil, but it looks like the author's figure is fairly accurate.

Likely capacity factor in a good offshore location for such a big turbine would be 40-50 percent.

The oil companies are sure filling their pockets and it is very wrong! I think we need to take a stand and all of us that means everyone stop driving their vehicals for one to two days and if we do this it will hurt the oil companys! Is this real?