Wind Farm Excursion

Yesterday, my class took a field trip to several wind-energy related sites. First we visited an old-style windmill that uses the wind to produce rotating motion in grinding tools (to grind grain).



Then we visited an EnerCon (www.enercon.de) manufacturing plant, where they manufacture 330kW - 4.5MW wind generators for the European market. It was such a surprise to learn that EnerCon uses very similar alternator technology as Abundant Renewable Energy, my former workplace (www.AbundantRE.com) -- gearless, direct-drive, variable speed generators. I went into the factory expecting to see a new technology, and it looked almost identical to the equipment I'm already familiar with (albeit on a mammoth scale)! The football-field length blades -- fitted with individual heating systems -- were a sight to see too.

Then we drove to a wind farm and climbed the spiral staircase of a 2MW turbine's tower to the observation deck (at the 65-meter / 213' hub height) to see a good view of the rest of the wind farm and to check out the turbine's guts -- very cool.

2-MW EnerCon wind turbine


View from the top of wind turbine's lookout deck (that's part of its blade swinging past)


Another view of wind farm from the lookout deck

For lunch, we stopped at a fish-n-chips joint on the North Sea, which was the only disappointing part of the trip. I'd planned to dip a toe into the North Sea (just to say I'd done it)... but the coast (at least where we were) was just muddy (not sandy) for a good 200 yards before the actual water-line began. I'm sure if we'd waited, the tide would've brought the sea closer, but alas, we had to load the bus and head south. En route back to Oldenburg, we stopped at a little harbor village (photo below) and a wind turbine testing/research facility, where they do comparisons between the big turbines from various manufacturers.


North Sea harbor in a nearby town


One-bladed turbine at wind turbine testing facility (theoretically, a one-bladed turbine seemed like a good idea to the designers... but in practice, it rarely rotated)

Take a look around town...

My current hometown -- Oldenburg -- is a really pleasant little place. It's a town of 160,000 inhabitants (about twice the size of Evanston, my last college town), so it's not a huge metropolis, but it's large enough to have decent services, restaurants, stores, etc. There are bike lanes (which are constantly in use) on every street, and there are forested areas and creeks and ponds all over the place. I mostly use my bike to get around town, but we (students) also have free access to all public transport (buses & trains) throughout Oldenburg and the surrounding region (e.g. we can ride the train to Hamburg for free).

Here are some pics of Oldenburg that I took while biking into the city center yesterday:

House from the neighborhood near my dorm

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Next door to previous pic

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Bakery near my dorm with sign written in "Platdeutsch" (the local dialect)

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Artistic doctor's office facade

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Another medical center

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Downtown square (one of several)

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Grand old building (now used as a telecom company's office)

St. Lamberti church

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It says "Mexican Restaurant"... and it's dressed up like a Mexican restaurant... but unfortunately, their food is only a very distant approximation of Mexican food

Fiddler's Green Irish pub, where we sometimes gather on Friday nights for a pint and some live music

Can you spot the insidious American influence in the distance? (if not, see below)

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Kinda spoils the European charm, doesn't it?

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The "burg" [castle] that gives Oldenburg its name

End of the Intro

I had my intro lab exam earlier today... and it went................................ OK. (I think I may have even passed). It didn't seem nearly as hard as I expected.

Until now, we've been in the "intro lab" preliminary session, but tomorrow, our normal classes of the "winter semester" will begin. Upcoming lecture topics during the next 14 weeks include: micro-hydro electric systems, wind energy, RE physics, solar radiation, photovoltaics, biogas production, energy storage, hydrogen systems / fuel cells, energy meteorology, RE economics, solar thermal energy, and electric power systems. Sounds exciting!

Badzwischenahn

On Monday -- after a group study session for our big "Intro Lab" exam -- a group of six classmates and I took a 9-mile walk around a lake called Zwischenahner Meer in a small neighboring town called Badzwischenahn ["Bad" = bath, "zwischen" = between, "ahn" = ancestor]. Here are some pics from our journey:


R-L: Alan, Bedro, François, Andreas, Mairéad, Craig


Map of Zwischenahner Meer


Mairéad finds a stick made for walkin'


Big furry cow


François is king of the... stump


Colorful lakefront condos


Sittin' on the dock of the... Meer


Nice view

Where in the world am I?

I currently study at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg in northwest Germany. Here's a map with Oldenburg highlighted (+ marks the spot):

My second semester will take place in Athens, Greece. You may already know where Athens is, but here's a Greek map:

I've always had the impression that Europe is a pretty small place... and that you can get from any European country to all the other European countries within a day or two (by car or train)... but it ain't necessarily so. Per Google Maps, it's around a four day trip (car or train) to get from Oldenburg to Athens. When my parents arrive in early February to help me move south, we're still trying to decide our route and mode of transportation (car, train, plane). The most direct car/train route takes us through Austria, Hungary, Serbia, and Macedonia before arriving in Greece. That sounds fun to me, but my folks and I don't speak any Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian, or Macedonian... which might make for quite an adventure. Another possible route could take us along the border of Austria and Lichtenstein -- both German-speaking countries -- into Italy, where we can take a ferry boat from one of several Italian port towns to Greece. Or we could hang out in Germany for a few days and hop on a plane for Athens. I'm not yet sure how much time I'll have between my semesters. The official start date in Athens is February 11... but rumor has it that things don't really get started at the university until around Feb 25. Hmmmm...

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Grocery Store Blues

I just got back from my local grocery, where I bought out the whole place (you know how they say you shouldn't shop for food when you're hungry?). I bought salad and pasta ingredients galore. Here in Deutschland, they don't bag your groceries for you. In fact, you have to pay 10 cents extra for each plastic or paper bag you take, so most folks bring their own reusable cloth bag. And there's not much room at the end of the check-out counter for bagging your groceries. I think you're supposed to bag them at the same time that you're paying, but I haven't caught on to this complicated maneuver yet.

Back to the story: So I've paid and am frantically stuffing things into my reusable cloth bag (because there's a long line of hurried people coming through the check-out after me), and a guy walks up and starts asking the check-out woman where his bottle of wine is (I don't understand him well enough to know what exactly he's looking for, but I can tell he's looking for something). I reach into my bag, find a bottle of wine that I didn't buy, and hand it to him. Of course, I hadn't intended to steal it, but I was in such a rush that I just grabbed everything at the end of the checkout register and stuffed it into my bag as quickly as I could. You shoulda seen the "thief!" accusatory look on his face (and the equally shocked/surprised look on the face of the check-out woman, with whom I've struck up a friendship). And there was 0% chance of explaining this complicated situation to either of them (with my limited German and their likely non-existent English). So all I could do was smile, excuse myself, and walk away. "Entschuldigung... danke... tschüss.." [Excuse me... thanks... bye].

I need a holiday...

As a result of the cold, rainy weather, combined with a difficult change in schedule (ie. lack of sleep), I seem to be getting sick again -- the achy, feverish kind. I don't have a fever (yet), but I have that really run-down, exhausted feeling I get when my body's working hard to get rid of a bug.

Classes started -- full-force -- on Monday. And it's not easy getting back into the swing of regular classes, studying, homework, and early mornings. From our schedule, it looks like we hardly have a break in the schedule (8am - 5pm, M-F) from now until Dec. 22 (start of Christmas break). We had a 4-1/2 hour physics and electronics lab this morning that kicked my rear... followed by a lecture on energy sources (batteries) and power supplies in the afternoon, which went too fast for me to keep up. I really need to spend some significant time review the electrical concepts, writing out my lab report, preparing for our next lab, etc... but I'm dead tired and just need to sleep.

So -- thank heaven! -- Germany's reunification holiday celebration is tomorrow -- HURRAY! I'm gonna sleep in and spend most of the day trying to catch up and get ahead of the 8-ball for Thursday's lab session.

Bikes

This morning I went outside to get my bike and ride to campus for my first day of classes... and my new bike (4 days old) had been stolen. Well, that sure didn't take long! The thief had poked something small and sharp into the place on the lock where the male end attaches to the female end and forced the two ends apart. There went €100 (bike), plus €30 (lock and headlamp) down the drain. Plus, I then had to take the bus this morning, which meant I was 30 minutes late for the first class.

I bought another bike today that cost only €55. The second bike is used and a quite a bit uglier than the first (which was bright, shiny blue with red trim). Hopefully the ugly-factor will help keep this one from walking away so quickly, since obviously I can't trust bike locks any farther than I can throw them.