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The world’s largest wind turbine has been switched on

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Re: The world’s largest wind turbine has been switched on

#171

Post by vGPU »

cinntaile wrote: post #154
vGPU wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Act required companies to obtain the maximum possible insurance coverage against accidents, determined to be $60 million It’s a necessity, and extremely logical and reasonable.

The most recent "disaster" was Fukushima, the actual cost there is far far greater than $60 million.

The point being that they aren’t able to get private insurance higher than that, so the government has to come up with a way to help.

They’re insured the exact same way the banks are.

Re: The world’s largest wind turbine has been switched on

#172

Post by tengwar2 »

mcronce wrote: post #121
antisthenes wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The GE Haliade X, smaller but not by a lot, maxes out at 7 rotations per second I think you meant per minute. Per second would mean that the rotor tips are travelling faster than SR-71.

Although I'm glad it's not reality, the imagery of a massive wind turbine whizzing around at 420 RPM is pretty amusing

> Regular turbine spotters judged that the best sound balance was usually to be heard from within large concrete bunkers some thirty-seven miles away from the wind farm, whilst the engineers themselves operated their turbines by remote control from within a heavily insulated spaceship which stayed in orbit around the planet - or more frequently around a completely different planet.

Re: The world’s largest wind turbine has been switched on

#173

Post by rstuart4133 »

windows2020 wrote: post #12

I wonder what paint job would best prevent birds from being destroyed by this. It looks like sometimes one blade is painted black for this purpose. How do bird deaths from wind turbines compare to other manmade objects?

Painting one blade black reduces bird fatalities by 70%: https://group.vattenfall.com/press-and-media/newsroom/2022/b...

Re: The world’s largest wind turbine has been switched on

#174

Post by drcongo »

thenewwazoo wrote: post #20
bobthepanda wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you transport something like this in pieces, or as a single blade?

The blades are transported in single pieces, on trucks with steered rear carriers, as in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTpZ5V4HrK4

I'm going to be stuck watching videos of these things being delivered all day now.

Re: The world’s largest wind turbine has been switched on

#175

Post by Gwypaas »

landemva wrote: post #170
Gwypaas wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many advanced economies have decoupled energy use from economic growth. https://ourworldindata.org/energy-gdp-decoupling

USA, and some western Europe, exported dirty manufacturing energy use and pollution outside the borders. Any nation rich or strong enough to export pollution of manufacturing will tend to show the numbers you highlight.

I recommend you read the short linked article before making strong statements.

> It would be wrong to assume that rich countries have only achieved this by offshoring manufacturing overseas – which would simply mean that other countries are consuming this energy on their behalf. Consumption-based energy use – which adjusts for the energy used to produce the goods we import and export – has also plateaued or fallen in many countries. We see this clearly in the chart for Sweden.

Re: The world’s largest wind turbine has been switched on

#177

Post by jacquesm »

tengwar2 wrote: post #172
mcronce wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I'm glad it's not reality, the imagery of a massive wind turbine whizzing around at 420 RPM is pretty amusing

> Regular turbine spotters judged that the best sound balance was usually to be heard from within large concrete bunkers some thirty-seven miles away from the wind farm, whilst the engineers themselves operated their turbines by remote control from within a heavily insulated spaceship which stayed in orbit around the planet - or more frequently around a completely different planet.

Hehe, just to let you know your effort wasn't in vain, I got that.

Re: The world’s largest wind turbine has been switched on

#178

Post by jacquesm »

SoftTalker wrote: post #136
themitigating wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think there would be a backup brake kit on these

I thought they would feather the turbine blades so that they didn't generate rotation. Maybe that failed as well?

There is so much power in the wind. If you are a little late with feathering you might end up having too much momentum to be able to use a friction brake without burning it up. So a long period of steady wind followed immediately by an increase to the point where you can no longer stop the machine is quite risky: all that stands between you and certain destruction is either a lucky lull in the wind or your continued ability to feather it and that can get surprisingly hard when you are dealing with high winds. To the point that if you go 'coarse' at high RPM you end up pulling over the tower due to the extremely long arm for that force to take effect.

Never ever underestimate what the wind can do. Wind turbines will always have some latent risk (as do most other activities and constructs). For every design there is a pathological set of circumstances that should never happen. But once in a long while it does. What should surprise you is that so few of these accidents happen that they are news.

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