The World's Largest Wind Turbines Will Be Taller Than the Empire State Building
Why are we going bigger?
A Department of Energy-funded research group spanning several American universities is proposing a wind energy scheme involving almost unimaginable scales. The technology, which is still several years off from even being tested, would be capable of generating 25 times the power of a contemporary conventional wind turbine, but it would also come at a cost: really big-ass turbine blades.
How big? Each blade would span 656 feet, dwarfing the current largest blades in use (262 feet). This would require towers to be at least a third of a mile tall, or about 100 feet taller than the Empire State Building. The group's work was reported this week in the Los Angeles Times.
The new turbine blades are more properly known as Segmented Ultralight Morphing Rotors. The utility of such big honking blades is partially that they're not always so big. As wind speeds increase, the blades are capable of retracting. As the wind mellows, they again extend, capturing a larger volume of air in motion. This retractability would also be helpful for moving the blades from their manufacturing location to the turbine sites—transporting even normal turbine blades is an ongoing challenge.
The blades would be most likely installed offshore. Towers would be outfitted with only two blades apiece (vs the current three), and, to minimize strain, would face downwind rather than into the wind.
cont'd
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-worlds-largest-wind-turbine-will-span-a-half-mile
