Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.
Comment preview: My time to shine! I'm an electrical engineer who has worked on wind turbines in the past. In wind turbine dynamics, there is a coefficient that you will be interested in called the [Betz limit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betz_limit). The Betz limit is th ....
Comment preview: "They re hoping to have their first product, a 9-foot, 100-watt turbine that will be used in developing countries, ready before the end of the year. The Mini, it s 41-foot counterpart, will be ready in a year." "Based on field testing, the Mini ultimately ....
Comment preview: The maintenance cost is not something that can be determined at this stage. Unlike a wind turbine this thing moves it's center of mass outside it's footprint in order to work. This is likely to create forces on the foundation that could break it up over ti ....
Comment preview: Well... to be fair wind farms do take energy out of the wind, and areas directly behind a wind farm do have lower wind speeds. It's why you can't just stack a million turbines in a row and expect them to run at 100% efficiency. I'd be interested to see how ....
Comment preview: Boiled water turbines have a very slow ramp rate. That is, the rate at which more electricity can be generated is slow. This is because to increase the supply of hot steam, heat energy must be transfered to a very large thermal mass. This makes coal or nuc ....
Comment preview: http://www.nieuws.nl/algemeen/20131030/Brand-windmolen-Verlies-collegas-hartverscheurend This happened on 29 of October in the Netherlands (in Ooltgensplaat to be more precise). A crew of four was conducting routine maintenance to the 67 meter high turbine ....
Comment preview: lmgtfy [this place says this](http://www.ewea.org/wind-energy-basics/wind-energy-faq/) >What are a turbine s lifetime emissions? >Wind turbines produce no greenhouse gas emissions during their operation. It takes a turbine just three to six months to ....
Comment preview: To elaborate on Hoominaga's reply, the generators are allowed to spin at a fixed ratio to main rotor speed. The variable-frequency AC that is produced by the unregulated* speed of the generators is rectified to DC, then transformed by an inverter to three ....
Comment preview: Good evening gentlefolk! I am a Reddit lurker but for once I am compelled to interject. There is a lot of negative criticism of wind turbines in the comments here that simply does not hold water. Since I am a grad student getting a PhD in wind farm integra ....
Comment preview: * **Why are the blades so big?** Larger swept area means more wind power absorbed. Would you rather take the energy out of a 30 sq ft cross-section, or a 3000 sq ft cross-section? With regard to the speed of the turn, what's really important is *power*. Yo ....
Comment preview: Sure, a typical plant may be 500-2000 MW, but the largest is just under 8000 MW. If the plant had 4 cooling towers, you can expect it to be on the higher end of the scale. Some plants with 4 cooling towers: [5200 MW](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattenom_N ....
Comment preview: Hello, There is a major flaw in your calculation, and, separately, the manufacturer is a lying shitbag. Your flaw is in the "V^3" equation. You are using the average wind power, 7 m/s. Wind speed is modeled as a statistical distribution of wind speeds: the ....
Comment preview: A wind turbine caught fire Tuesday afternoon in Ooltgensplaat on Goeree-Overflakkee, costing the lives of two mechanics.Four mechanics were at work in the wind turbine on the Mariadijk, about 80 meters above ground, Tuesday afternoon. By a cause, yet unkno ....
Comment preview: A wind turbine caught fire Tuesday afternoon in Ooltgensplaat on Goeree-Overflakkee, costing the lives of two mechanics.Four mechanics were at work in the wind turbine on the Mariadijk, about 80 meters above ground, Tuesday afternoon. By a cause, yet unkno ....
Comment preview: Okay. This isn't going to be a popular post, because I would like to point out that most of the things people say about this incident is wrong. First of all time and place of the incident. This incident happened on 22nd February 2008, at about 15:20. The ....
Comment preview: My experience with this post and the linked article: Reddit post title: "Wind farms handed 5 million to switch off turbines as thousands of homes left without power" uh, what? Better read the original title... "Wind farms handed 5 million to switch off t ....
Comment preview: this article makes slightly more sense of the situation... >"The company tested its turbine both with and without the Invelox cowling. When it compared the values over time, that works out to energy production improvements anywhere from 81-660%. The ave ....
Comment preview: (reposted because bot) Here you go, 17 reviews of the evidence, all of which conclude there is no strong evidence of negative health effects. Courtesy of Professor Simon Chapman at the University of Sydney Medical School. 2012: Massachusetts Department of ....
Comment preview: I've actually helped do environmental studies on the effect of wind power before and its not at 0 cost to the environment as a lot of people would have you believe. The thing is, they are converting the energy from the wind in the atmosphere to electricity ....
Comment preview: I'm by no means an expert, but from what I've read, more blades does not necessarily mean more torque imparted by wind. In fact, more blades can negatively effect the efficiency of the turbine. As each blade sweeps through the air, it leaves behind a turbu ....
Comment preview: I worked for several years as a mechanical engineer at a renewable engineering energy consultancy. We evaluated quite a few potential "shrouded" or "ducted" wind turbine designs including FloDesign's (as mentioned elsewhere in here). The thing you really n ....
Comment preview: "So to improve the efficiency of this electric car we should put a wind turbine on top to help charge the battery with the air flowing past the car." -Senior aero engineer about to be turned loose on the industry. Guess I should explain this as for non eng ....
Comment preview: I don't think you have quite understood how wind turbines work. I think it's best for both of us to keep it simple, you see wind is created by temperature differences at different heights. For example the air high up will likely be colder than the air clos ....
Comment preview: Are you sure this is the primary reason? I thought it had more to do with the fact that the amount of power you can generate is proportional to the sweep area and as the blade diameter increases you get a even larger increase in the sweep area. It is a lot ....
Comment preview: This happened on 29 of October in the Netherlands (in Ooltgensplaat to be more precise). A crew of four was conducting routine maintenance to the 67 meter high turbine. They were in a gondola next to the turbine when a fire broke out. The fire quickly engu ....
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