4 ms·

Elegant Wind Turbine Blades Made of Wood Can Outperform Composites

43 points by thelastgallon 3y ago

bifrost 3y ago
Pretty sure Nuclear outperforms wind Turbines as well. Less habitat loss aka lower footprint. Higher MW per acre.
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  Vastly more expensive. Leaves 95% of the fuel unburned & extremely dangerous for thousands of years.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Expensive yes; unburned is a choice (and less important given the energy density); the long term danger is both true and misleading because while it's a long time the actual volume of material is tiny. For me, the problem with nuclear is the safety profile: although the mean deaths per TWh is really really low, the observed upper bound on damage that can happen when it does go wrong is sufficient to bankrupt a superpower. Low mean/high variance is exactly the kind of scenario where I expect people to cut corners because they think it will never affect them.
    - chess_buster 3y ago
      Technically we don't know the mean deaths per TWh, only the mean death per produced TWh so far, giving that the waste is such a long term problem.
  - neverrroot 3y ago
    Not when you factor in everything that has to go into making something like wind power work. The problem is that it’s very unreliable, its output is wildly variable, from nothing to a lot. Then there’s the efficiency that diminishes over time, and a much shorter life span. Compared to stable output and 40-50 years of power generation. And much lower environment impact overall (especially compared to the power generation over its lifetime)
  - natmaka 3y ago
    ... exposes to major accidents, creates a dependency towards uranium, may induce nuclear weapons proliferation, sometimes daunting decommission process (check the ongoing U.-K. programme)...
bruce511 3y ago
I feel like the wind-turbine industry is ripe with possible innovation opportunities. It has now grown to the scale where serious r&d can expect meaningful returns. Especially in the area of residential-scale turbines. We've seen, with the roll-out of rooftop solar that people with good solar conditions are prepared to generate supplemental electricity. There's an untapped market for those in poor solar, but good wind, areas, or with a desire for both. I'm not saying it's a silver bullet, but so far the economics of wind at residential level are behind solar.
- lll-o-lll 3y ago
  Yeah, nah. Engineering says no, unfortunately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRREJZdRA8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRREJZdRA8g
- occz 3y ago
  I thought residential wind was basically a non-starter due to wind availability at low heights + power scaling exponentially with blade length?
  - swores 3y ago
    Might there be a size at which it would make sense for multiple houses to group together and pay for a turbine that's big enough to supply all their electricity, rather than one per house like solar panels? (If enough of the local residents feel YIMBY about it, that is.)
    - jl6 3y ago
      There is certainly a market for smaller turbines in remote locations where it’s harder to maintain grid access, or any other scenario where pure $/W is not the only factor.
      - natmaka 3y ago
        In locations where wind regimes correlation to nearby other ones are among the lowest.
t0mas88 3y ago
This page is unreadable... 80% ads intermixed with a little bit of content.
- lionkor 3y ago
  Adblocker! You can try ublock origin, its the best of the bunch. If youre on iOS, Brave is a good(ish) option as it even blocks youtube ads. Enjoy.
  - scotty79 3y ago
    DuckDuckGo has browsers for android and windows that block ads by default.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  Huh. It was fine for me. Firefox on Android. I do have both ublock origin and privacy badger installed, and I guess they did their jobs. I went looking in the addons settings while the page was up, and the privacy badger icon had a 13, and the ublock origin had a 24.
  - raisedbyninjas 3y ago
    dns.adguard.com on Android works across browsers and other apps.
- two_handfuls 3y ago
  Agreed. I think we should shun pages that are completely unreadable without adblocker.
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
The wood in this case is itself a "composite" though it may well be better in some ways than carbon fibre based composites, it feels a bit like promoting a natural cleaning product because it doesn't have "chemicals".
jakedata 3y ago
I think the sorbitol based "pecan" resin is worthy of its own article. https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2023/a-recyclable-plant-based-material.html https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2023/a-recyclable-plant-ba...
satiric 3y ago
I know what they mean by the headline, but isn't laminated veneer lumber itself a composite? I guess they mean it outperforms fiberglass.

43 points by thelastgallon 3y ago

bifrost 3y ago

Pretty sure Nuclear outperforms wind Turbines as well. Less habitat loss aka lower footprint. Higher MW per acre.

jauntywundrkind 3y ago
Vastly more expensive. Leaves 95% of the fuel unburned & extremely dangerous for thousands of years.
- ben_w 3y ago
  Expensive yes; unburned is a choice (and less important given the energy density); the long term danger is both true and misleading because while it's a long time the actual volume of material is tiny. For me, the problem with nuclear is the safety profile: although the mean deaths per TWh is really really low, the observed upper bound on damage that can happen when it does go wrong is sufficient to bankrupt a superpower. Low mean/high variance is exactly the kind of scenario where I expect people to cut corners because they think it will never affect them.
  - chess_buster 3y ago
    Technically we don't know the mean deaths per TWh, only the mean death per produced TWh so far, giving that the waste is such a long term problem.
- neverrroot 3y ago
  Not when you factor in everything that has to go into making something like wind power work. The problem is that it’s very unreliable, its output is wildly variable, from nothing to a lot. Then there’s the efficiency that diminishes over time, and a much shorter life span. Compared to stable output and 40-50 years of power generation. And much lower environment impact overall (especially compared to the power generation over its lifetime)
- natmaka 3y ago
  ... exposes to major accidents, creates a dependency towards uranium, may induce nuclear weapons proliferation, sometimes daunting decommission process (check the ongoing U.-K. programme)...

bruce511 3y ago

I feel like the wind-turbine industry is ripe with possible innovation opportunities. It has now grown to the scale where serious r&d can expect meaningful returns. Especially in the area of residential-scale turbines. We've seen, with the roll-out of rooftop solar that people with good solar conditions are prepared to generate supplemental electricity. There's an untapped market for those in poor solar, but good wind, areas, or with a desire for both. I'm not saying it's a silver bullet, but so far the economics of wind at residential level are behind solar.

lll-o-lll 3y ago
Yeah, nah. Engineering says no, unfortunately. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRREJZdRA8g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRREJZdRA8g
occz 3y ago
I thought residential wind was basically a non-starter due to wind availability at low heights + power scaling exponentially with blade length?
- swores 3y ago
  Might there be a size at which it would make sense for multiple houses to group together and pay for a turbine that's big enough to supply all their electricity, rather than one per house like solar panels? (If enough of the local residents feel YIMBY about it, that is.)
  - jl6 3y ago
    There is certainly a market for smaller turbines in remote locations where it’s harder to maintain grid access, or any other scenario where pure $/W is not the only factor.
    - natmaka 3y ago
      In locations where wind regimes correlation to nearby other ones are among the lowest.

t0mas88 3y ago

This page is unreadable... 80% ads intermixed with a little bit of content.

lionkor 3y ago
Adblocker! You can try ublock origin, its the best of the bunch. If youre on iOS, Brave is a good(ish) option as it even blocks youtube ads. Enjoy.
- scotty79 3y ago
  DuckDuckGo has browsers for android and windows that block ads by default.
Brian_K_White 3y ago
Huh. It was fine for me. Firefox on Android. I do have both ublock origin and privacy badger installed, and I guess they did their jobs. I went looking in the addons settings while the page was up, and the privacy badger icon had a 13, and the ublock origin had a 24.
- raisedbyninjas 3y ago
  dns.adguard.com on Android works across browsers and other apps.
two_handfuls 3y ago
Agreed. I think we should shun pages that are completely unreadable without adblocker.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

The wood in this case is itself a "composite" though it may well be better in some ways than carbon fibre based composites, it feels a bit like promoting a natural cleaning product because it doesn't have "chemicals".

jakedata 3y ago

I think the sorbitol based "pecan" resin is worthy of its own article. https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2023/a-recyclable-plant-based-material.html https://www.nrel.gov/news/program/2023/a-recyclable-plant-ba...

satiric 3y ago

I know what they mean by the headline, but isn't laminated veneer lumber itself a composite? I guess they mean it outperforms fiberglass.