The Case for Tiny Wind (or Hydro) Turbines
A proponent of the wind turbine shown at left writes:
I commented this 6 year’s ago . It is so simple even if you put in small stream 1 000 000 small turbines like this one, you will have more power. It’s the same for the wind , we don’t need this big huge wind Parks we need small efficient and most important easy for fixing and easy for installation. Not forgetting we can make smaller things with eco friendly materials.
Me:
There are a few reasons that claims like this are bullshit. The main one is that the power extracted from the wind is proportional to the square of the radius of the blades. We recall from our childhoods the formula: Area (of a circle) = pi r-squared. This is why real (not fictional) wind turbines are so large (and getting larger all the time).
Also, as I mention frequently, today’s wind turbines capture about 90% of the theoretically available kinetic energy from moving wind; given the laws of physics, there is no room for any significant increase in efficiency/output.
Even if neither of these were true, which would you rather cover the cost of maintaining: one large turbine or a million little ones?
Here’s a conversation that illustrates the impasse in which this country finds itself. In response to the “We hate what Trump is doing to (America), we have:
At the rate we’re going, there won’t be a single law-abiding institution left in the entire federal government by the time 2028 rolls around.
I just saw a question on social media: do you want your tax dollars going to feed someone else’s kids??
I’m not too sure about this. What about all the teachers, scientists, college students, healthcare professionals, retirees, corporate employees, government workers, librarians, park rangers, entertainment professionals, restaurant employees, and airline workers?
I think it’s also fair to say that the Founding Fathers never thought the U.S. electorate would have disintegrated into hundreds of millions of greedy pigs and hateful idiots, that would fully support a criminal conman.
Condemning horrific behavior is better than writing it off as acts of “boys will be boys.”
Suppose you were trying to pick a U.S. city that could possibly be riddled by violence due to drug cartels, street gangs, or some other sort of violent crime (even though none of these were reported by the major news agencies). Perhaps the last place you would go would be Portland, or any other place in Oregon.
The three-bladed wind turbines we see all over the world extract about 90% of the theoretically available kinetic energy from the air that moves through them. A 60% would violate the laws of physics.
As shown below, the vast majority of world news sources will not be playing ball with Pete Hegseth’s command that he has the right to approve all reporting on the Pentagon.
