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1) I was curious why they can't just attach two partial blades onsite to make a longer one, and the article makes some attempt to address it, so, to save you fr

by SilasX 1y ago

1) I was curious why they can't just attach two partial blades onsite to make a longer one, and the article makes some attempt to address it, so, to save you from reading the whole thing: >Shipping them in multiple pieces and reassembling them on-site won’t work because the joints would create weak spots. Junctions would also add too much weight compared with that of blades made from single pieces of polymer, says Doug Arent, executive director at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Foundation and emeritus NREL researcher. >“It comes down to the stress engineering of the components,” Arent says. Blades could one day be 3D-printed on-site, which could negate the need for an airplane, but that research is still in early stages, he says. (Lundstrom says 3D-printed blades will never happen, since it would require a large, sophisticated manufacturing facility to be built at every wind farm.) 2) I'm also curious if anyone has done the numbers on how long it takes these large turbines to pay back the energy cost of flying them there? You would have to a) find out how much more energy they make from the same footprint compared to smaller wind turbines, and b) how much more energy it takes to fly them there compared to transporting the smaller ones (and I'd be curious about a smaller plane vs ones that can be transported on the ground).

wiredfool 1y ago
Jet engines are on the order of 50 MW, and big turbines are on the order of 10MW (at least, onshore ones). So you’re really only talking small multiples of the flight time, which is minimal compared to the lifetime of a wind turbine.
maxerickson 1y ago
The energy content of the max fuel load of a 747 is something like 2.5 gWh. The specifics of the site matter an awful in how fast that pays back. So like if the extra generation were 1 megawatt with a capacity factor of 30%, you are looking at 7500 hours, less than a year, to yield that much energy. That's a lot of assumptions, but the delivery flights probably average less fuel than that, and one of the benefits of size is that the capacity factor goes up.

by SilasX 1y ago

wiredfool 1y ago

Jet engines are on the order of 50 MW, and big turbines are on the order of 10MW (at least, onshore ones). So you’re really only talking small multiples of the flight time, which is minimal compared to the lifetime of a wind turbine.

maxerickson 1y ago

The energy content of the max fuel load of a 747 is something like 2.5 gWh. The specifics of the site matter an awful in how fast that pays back. So like if the extra generation were 1 megawatt with a capacity factor of 30%, you are looking at 7500 hours, less than a year, to yield that much energy. That's a lot of assumptions, but the delivery flights probably average less fuel than that, and one of the benefits of size is that the capacity factor goes up.