I recently read an interesting article on the aesthetics of wind turbines. I’m going to come out and plead ignorance — I had no idea people could actually get worked up into a huff about the beauty/non-beauty of a wind turbine (which seems to be going on in Cape Cod, Mass.). When I lived on the top floor of a 13-floor high-rise at Bathurst and St. Clair, I woke up one morning and walked out on to my balcony to see an altered skyline — the wind turbine at the CNE had been erected while I was away on a three-day vacation. I was in awe — I found the turbine hypnotizing, graceful, elegant. It was the best thing I could imagine being added to our landscape. When I drove through the deserts in California in the winter of 2000 I came across a few wind farms that had anywhere from 20 to 75 turbines. Me and my travel-mate would stop at clearings and watch these things spin at different RPMs. That day is one of the few “religious” experiences of my life.
All of this is to say I think Toronto’s skyline needs about 1,000 more of these. Instead of investing $700 million on the power plant down in the Portlands, we could spend it on solar and wind energy. And I’m not talking out of my ass here — the U.S. Department of Energy, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, and General Electric recently released a report called “A Framework for Offshore Wind Energy Development in the United States” [download PDF 908k] that suggests that there is as much wind power potential (900,000 megawatts) off America’s coasts as the current capacity of all power plants in the United States combined.
And the next generation of turbines could act (and look) a little more like trees (photo above, a project by a Dutch-based architecture firm).
I’m interested what Spacing Wire readers think about turbines in urban settings.
photo from Bright magazine
21 comments
I think wind turbines in an urban setting is a fabulous idea. I believe there was a proposal to erect several on the Leslie street spit. If I remember correctly, the reason the plan fell through was because it was thought to be too dangerous to birds that could fly into them. I think it’s common sense that birds would generally fly away from massive moving white objects.
wind turbines rock! they look great, there are really no downsides that i can think of…
The birds vs. wind turbines issue seems to come up often. All the birds are OK arguments come from wind power companies and all the wind turbines kill arguments come from people who find windmills ugly.
If you want to see a beautiful sight, head up just north of Shelburne, Ontario. There’s 45 huge wind turbines up there and it looks spectacular. Each one is the size of the turbine at the Pickering nuke plant. The entire installation generates about 67.5 MW. Up in Tiverton, near Tobermory, there’s 5 more of the behemoths.
Hmm… maybe turbines on the spit would have reduced the cormorant problem…
Wasn’t there an objection by Shiner to a turbine on a condo development near Sheppard?
Because of the increasing density of downtown blocking local winds I suspect the spit and the lakeside of the Islands would be the best place for stand-alone turbines (as opposed to ones mounted on the buildings, the higher windspeeds at greater heights making the proposition viable) – there is a windfarm planned on an island near Kingston I think.
For me I’d like to see solar panels not on houses (not much area) but on the huge industrial buildings in Toronto, many of which have windowless concrete walls. It would be nice to see the Skydome/Ted’s Shed covered in solar cells too.
The other place I have wondered about putting solar is along/above the local railway lines and highways, since you’re not going to be shading any greenery – in fact by reducing insolation the need to weedspray the lines would be reduced. I got the idea while in a coach going south along the highway from Cancun Airport – lots of asphalt and baking temperatures. Sounds like the 401 at this time of year!
I’d also like to know if putting in a system like Enwave’s Deep Lake Cooling would work in Mississauga now that it is developing a city core – otherwise they will pile on the electricity requirement as quickly as downtown buildings are reducing it.
At the end of the day though, the fact that almost all of Toronto’s electricity is now generated outside the 416 means a generator in the Portlands is prudent to guard against failures in the transmission system – that mightn’t seem important until you compare it to the paralysis that hit the GO system on Friday.
oh – one more thing – if the one time I’ve been up the CN Tower is any guide, if you could somehow harness the wind up there without compromising the structure, there’s a LOT of wind up there.
Matt, we should talk. Not merely was I one of the directors of the Toronto WindShare project, but I’ve designed wind projects across the province.
Siting urban wind turbines is difficult. Not merely do you often have weaker winds dowtown, but land/property tax is much higher, For many of us, the WindShare/Toronto Hydro turbine is there to make a point; if it could have been closer to Queen’s Park, we’d have put it there.
The aesthetics of wind turbines are complex. The “three blades on a stick” standard design is the result of decades of research, operation and refinement. Other designs, such as vertical axis, have drawbacks that make them less viable.
As we’re not yet used to wind energy within the landscape in Ontario, we’ve got some discussion ahead of us. How does wind energy affect one’s sense of place? (Many of the issues have been nicely covered in “Wind Power in View: Energy Landscapes in a Crowded World”, Pasqualetti, Gipe et al, Academic Press, 2002.)
Siting turbines on top of buildings seldom works out as well as expected. There tends to be an updraft from the bluff sides of buildings, and roof-mounted turbines often don’t experience ideal free-air operation. Insurance can also be a problem, too, even if the actual risk of blade or ice throw is small.
The wind-tree idea was tried before, in the shape of the Lagerwey Quadro-Mill: http://www.ifb.uni-stuttgart.de/~doerner/ewindcuriosities1.html (scroll down a bit) – interestingly, Lagerwey also made the turbine that’s at ExPlace.
Offshore wind is still pretty expensive, and Ontario power prices would have to go up a bit to make it viable. Our main problem in the province is transmission; one of the reasons we need power generation in downtown Toronto is that there isn’t enough transmission into the city to allow siting elsewhere.
The Spit might be a nice place for wind turbines, but we’d need buy-in from the birders and boaters first. Birds do tend to fly into almost any structure, unfortunately, so one has to be careful with siting. No-one wants another Altamont.
James: the turbines at Shelburne are slightly smaller than the one at Pickering. The Shelburne turbines are the same size as the 66 units at Port Burwell, a project I worked on. There are also 22 of the Pickering-sized wind turbines just north of Goderich. I rather like those …
Mark: the wind loading from a wind turbine is pretty big. I don’t think the pod on top of the CN tower could take those loadings.
Do you think I could get away with calling myself a sustainable kinetic sculptor? 😉
I am all for more wind turbines in urban settings and the bird argument is weak. They are surely smart enough to avoid enormous, white, rotating objects! When I was in Holland a few years ago, I was mesmerized by the first turbines I saw. If they’re designed in creative patterns like the photo above, it will only add to our visual landscape, not detract from it. Add to that the environmental benefits, and why is it that anyone would continue to support nuclear or coal-fired energy?
I’m going to have Bird-Altamont visions all day. Hmmmm — the Hells Angles clubhouse is on Eastern, not far from the Spit — we could hire them to ride their bikes out the spit, and shoo the birds away from the turbines.
Buildings may block the wind in much of downtown, but in some places they seem to magnify it. I swear there’d be enough wind power swirling around the intersection of Yonge & Bloor to power the whole neighbourhood, if it’s ever possible to build a wind turbine for that environment.
In my Environmental Studies course last term, we had an expert come in and give us a talk on wind power. According to him, the bird problem is largely solved these days (it was mainly a problem with the faster-moving first generation turbines), and is essentially a non-issue with modern turbine designs.
Ditto, Matt. Some parts of downtown have some crazy wind tunnels going on. A nice moving turbine would improve all the static buildings.
Matt L.: the winds at Yonge & Bloor aren’t steady enough to run a turbine well. What you’re feeling is the sudden turbulence arising from building effects, and it’s too localised to power anything much.
quasi: slower turbines might help, but there’s a lot more study done on siting these days. No-one would site turbines in a major raptor migration route now. The blades tips still go at the same speed they used to, it’s just the rotors are bigger.
Here is another nice new wind tower design:
http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=429
They are really lovely. Like large art installations. I’ve loved windmills since I was a child.
But … the idea that wind is a power source with no downside is just silly.
If you take your energy from the wind, you are taking energy out of the wind. This alters the wind’s course and will alter weather patterns. That may not sound like a big idea but if we alter weather courses, we may see affects close or very far off in places that are used to certain weather patterns – like the farmland we are so desperately trying to save.
There is some strong evidence to suggest that windpower has a huge impact on climate and weather.
Wind is a hugely inefficient source that is often out of commission. We’ll still need backup power anyway. Wind is great to mill grain, but not so great to power other things. I’m not against it, I just think it’s not so great as reported by many in the media.
Also there is some evidence to suggest that the overall lifetime engergy generated by a turbine is about equal to the energy used to make one. That makes it absolutely useless in terms of energy conservation.
There is no easy solution. You can’t get something for nothing. All energy is finite. We’re just moving it around.
Instead we should focus on more realistic comsumption reduction goals. Better design of our homes, workplaces and public spaces.
I’m lucky to live in city with a large number of carbon sinkholes and in a many beautiful urban parks.
As much as I love them, unfortunately, not everyone finds wind turbines attractive. I recall hearing a story about a farmer in the Port Perry area that put up a small wind turbine for his farm. Neighbours hated the site and sound of it and complained to the township. Ultimately the township made him take it down. This incident has held up my only family from considering putting up their own wind turbine on their farm.
That said, I was driving out in Durham region on the weekend and saw two farms with their own wind turbines and they were both such a beautiful thing to see. Although, this is nothing like the “religious” moment Matthew described above that I also felt when I first came across the wind farms in California last October. It was an incredible sight that I will never forget.
Little Tulip > I too agree with the theory of relativity, but you are making a very poor argument. Turbines cannot alter wind patterns that can have any real effect. Certainly, there could be a tiny tiny tiny disturbance, but nothing that would be negative to an ecosystem. The buildings we make are much murch much worse than anything a turbine could do. Look at downtown where the wind patterns are all over the map.
We should definitely reduce our footprint and conserve more, but if you believe in the type of life we live right now (convenience, comfort, safety, etc) then we still need to produce large amounts of energy to live this way. If you want to sink around a sinkhole to keep warm then that’s fine, too, but don’t discount the realities of our soceity and culture.
Re: Mark Dowling’s observation:
>At the end of the day though, the fact that almost >all of Toronto’s electricity is now generated >outside the 416 means a generator in the Portlands >is prudent to guard against failures in the transmission system – that mightn’t seem important >until you compare it to the paralysis that hit the >GO system on Friday.
I’m guessing from Mark’s positive solar/wind comments that he’s favouring an alternative energy generator in the Portlands.
I worry that this comment (no power being generated inside the GTA) will legitimize some of the power plant proposals currently underway for the east end. I think this air shed and the nearby population density there support very careful consideration about what type of “generator” goes in there. Putting another smokestack in this area means that the places that people “live” will be more polluted while the places they “work” get the power (and clean air).
Not a smart idea.
I love windmills in every setting. The other day while coming home from visiting my parents in the north, I drove by the wind farm outside of Shelburne. I had to stop because I found it so breathtaking.
And seriously no one could argue that windmills are gorgous compared to the giant hydro towers.
Can anyone tell me why they’re ALWAYS painted white? I mean, wouldn’t those uptight ‘go-green-but-not-in-my-backyard’ types would have a few less complaints if they were painted the color of the sky, such as a deep, flat, blue-grey, or perhaps a dark green for forested areas, sand color for the desert…?
Birds can easily avoid them no matter what color they’re painted, and the bats are blind anyway. Planes are flying at 500+ feet and any color including white is near equally invisible at night.
Do they always have to be painted DEATH-VALLEY WHITE?
I like windmills too, though I’ve yet to see a single one in real life.
I love the design in the picture above, btw.
Steve: what colour is the sky all the time? Blue? Grey? Black? What if a turbine is in the shadow of a cloud, or backlit – what’s the right colour then?
Transport Canada requires wind turbines to be aviation white for visibility. Some countries require blades to have red stripes (yuk!).
One manufacturer optionally paints the bases of the towers green. This works pretty well.