Comments on: Turbine go boom

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:49:50 +0000

@Rob

What’s your baseline for the 40% number? Total lifetime energy recouped versus energy going into production of the turbine?

If it’s energy out versus the wind’s kinetic energy in, I’d say 40% is pretty good. Though when you’re not paying for the energy on the way in, even 2% would be good: no one’s affected by the wind slowing down a little bit, so every bit of energy we get out might as well be free.

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:22:32 +0000

Too bad wind is only about 40% efficent as a power source..

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:57:53 +0000

@Rob: It is kind of close, but it doesn’t look like any really large pieces of debris went that far… for scale, the diameter of the plane in which the blades rotate is 140 feet. It doesn’t look like the debris was thrown more than about 2-3 times that distance.

Wind is still by far one of the safest and most environmentally-responsible power sources out there, regardless of this little accident anyway.

Regardless, we have to admit, it was crazy-cool to watch. :-)

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 10:15:57 +0000

I just realized that when I type on my laptop, some of the words get cut out, because of my hand rubbing on the pointer pad, so let me correct my previous post:

Wow, I was going to write a post about this video, it makes you think about LIVING near a turbine. The regulated SEPARATION DISTANCE for a wind turbine that size is around 2000 feet, but that still seems to be kind of close.

Okay, I feel better now!

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:09:59 +0000

Wow, I was going to write a post about this video, it makes you think about near a turbine. The regulated size for a wind turbine that size is around 2000 feet, but that still seems to be kind of close.