Comment by terribleperson
3 days ago
If one made it six years, it seems like it should eventually be possible to build turbines that reliably make it that long.
3 days ago
If one made it six years, it seems like it should eventually be possible to build turbines that reliably make it that long.
GPs link doesn't even show what was claimed ("The other 3 have needed costly maintenance").
From that link:
"The first of these turbines is scheduled for redeployment in May 2022, with the final turbine to be deployed in March 2023, complete with a retrofitted wet mate connection system, which more than halves the costs of future turbine recoveries and deployments."
"The company’s AR150 turbine was re-deployed last month, after being out of the water for upgrade and maintenance work."
The single long-running turbine can be compared to the upgraded turbines to measure the effect of the upgrades, and it provides the headlines this thread is about. The upgrades themselves are also clearly valuable R&D work.
This needs to be a reply to the original comment.
> GPs link doesn't even show what was claimed ("The other 3 have needed costly maintenance").
> complete with a retrofitted wet mate connection system, which more than halves the costs of future turbine recoveries and deployments."
Why do they need recoveries if not for maintenance? Why did they need to cut the cost of maintenance if no costly maintenance were needed?
> after being out of the water for upgrade and maintenance work."
How is this not literally validating GPs comment?
Anyone can say "the new ones won't need maintenance and the only reason we took them out was to improve them", but they could've worked on better ones and deployed them without removing existing ones. Removing existing ones mean they broke. So until the new ones last as long, GPs analysis is the correct one.
> Why do they need recoveries if not for maintenance?
Upgrades. Was already answered.
> Why did they need to cut the cost of maintenance if no costly maintenance were needed?
To improve the ROI. If maintenance is needed, it will be cheaper going forward. How often the average turbine will require maintenance is harder to determine based on the information available. We know it might be somewhere between a few years and ~6 years.
> How is this not literally validating GPs comment?
It does not say anything about maintenance being required or costly.
> Anyone can say "the new ones won't need maintenance and the only reason we took them out was to improve them", but they could've worked on better ones and deployed them without removing existing ones.
That requires more investment (the things ain't cheap), and it does not show whether successful maintenance is possible or how expensive/cumbersome that maintenance would be, which are very important pieces of information for determining ROI.
3 replies →
Yes, 1 success out of 4 test flights — good news, it's possible!
So exact same results as the falcon 1. Seems like they did okay with the Falcon 9.
That's like saying if I roll 4 dice and one of them lands on a six then it should be possible to make one that only rolls sixes.
Yes exactly, see 'Loaded Dice'.
If you made 4 loaded dice and continuously rolled them for 6 years and 1 of them consistently rolled a 6 everytime then yes, it is entirely possible.
Very nicely handled! I am really puzzled why people here are so against this. There's potentially really good news for a plentiful and predictable source of renewable energy with some fairly cool tech and a bunch of HNers are angry? I don't get it.
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or, in other words, 'engineering'
Absolutely but instead of balanced cubes they're experimental turbines.