4 ms·
Again? AGAIN? Another "no blades! save the birds!" technology that's little more than a concept. There are constantly amazing technologies just around the corn
by scblock 11y ago
Again? AGAIN? Another "no blades! save the birds!" technology that's little more than a concept.
There are constantly amazing technologies just around the corner that will definitely totally be awesomely better than existing 3 bladed horizontal axis wind turbine technology. And they'll always be less expensive than current technology somehow. Trust me, getting the cost right at this stage of the technology curve is almost impossible, and founders and technology developers are notoriously optimistic.
Yet they are always a few kW (this one is 4 kW) rather than 2 or 3 MW (a factor of 1000), and are always "just a few years away". And will never be a commercially successful product outside, perhaps, small scale demonstration and greenwashing projects.
We didn't get to the standard model of wind turbine by accident. It took decades of engineering and refinement. And yes, we still have a lot to learn. And yes the current technology has problems.
- bpodgursky 11y agoDecades? I would say it took centuries at least. The basic design hasn't changed since the middle ages.
- ifdefdebug 11y agoWell maybe changing the basic design of wind turbines would be somewhat like changing the basic design of wheels but still today's wheels are better than medieval ones.
- scblock 11y agoTruth. To clarify, I was specifically referring to wind turbines that generate electricity.
- posnet 11y agoAnother example of interesting developments. But this one at least seems to be scalable to 1MW. http://www.thinkerstools.net/powerpack.htm http://www.thinkerstools.net/powerpack.htm