this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago

That's 360,000 homes in 10 years! The growth is unstoppable!

/s parodying the idiotic misuse of units

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Holy guacamole I need more pictures of this giant.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

I am having trouble comprehending how large that is. 260 m blade diameter, means at least 500 m tall. The CN Tower is 550 m tall.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Are there particular pros and cons to the scale of each individual turbine? I think this is the first time I've seen that figure reported as opposed to the capacity of the wind farm as a whole

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago (2 children)

With larger turbines you need fewer for the same capacity. This means less manufacturing, easier maintenance, they are taller, which means more stable and stronger wind, and a lower price of construction. However larger turbines also lead to greater stresses on the system, so that can again increase maintenance and large blades are hard to transport on land.

So it is a compromise. Up to now offshore wind turbine manufacturers always built bigger turbines with newer generations. However the engineering challenges increases, so many have stopped going for bigger then 14-16MW and instead go for increased numbers of turbines with higher reliability.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I can picture the equipment procurement meeting perfectly based on this description, good analysis

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Last issue. The forces on the tips of the wind turbines are insane.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Over a large range of sizes for many physical reasons larger turbines can be more efficient per space and per cost. For example there is less ground effects for larger turbines and the rotor area scales quadratically with hub height.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

How do the units even work out? That's 0.5 kW per household, a ridiculously low number.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

It might power 36k households on average but definitely not during times of any serious load.

At night all I've got running for several hours is my fridge.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Nice! Just think of the number of Xinjiang internment camps they could power! (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps).

[–] CowsLookLikeMaps 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)

China pushing hard on renewables is objectively a good thing for the world.

China is also a human rights disaster and deserves to be shamed for its disgusting treatment of Uyghurs.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

While I agree that China pushing renewables is good, shaming them for a genocide doesn’t seem like an appropriate response.

If some guy in your high school beats the crap out of every disabled kid he sees, but on the weekends he hands out soup at a soup kitchen, should that person be celebrated?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I'm guessing by this logic you're not voting for Biden, or don't support voting for him if you don't live in the US?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Not OP and don't live in the US. I don't support voting for Biden, find a better democrat for fucks sake!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Imagine if every time something inside the United States got discussed someone popped in to say "remember how we have the most enslaved people of any developed country on the planet"?

I'd be fine with it personally. But if you think that would be annoying, maybe you should stop doing the same thing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I wouldn’t find it annoying. I think it is important to remind the populace of the abhorrent things governments do, ESPECIALLY when they continue to do these things. The camps are still operational. So I’ll be happy to shut up when they shut them down.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Fair enough, I have pretty much the same attitude towards Israel's ongoing genocide. I don't like what China is doing but I'm not funding them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I agree on the Palestine genocide and it’s terrible the U.S. requires an ally in the Middle East so bad they are willing to overlook and contribute to what is happening. But everyone is funding China because everyone buys their products. I have tried hard to stop buying their products. It is challenging, and sometimes impossible, but I do my best. Anyway, I’ll stop derailing the conversation in an energy forum. Thanks for your patience and not deleting my posts, mods.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Surprised they aren't pushing more aggressively into floating offshore.

Does anyone known why they aren't?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

It's freaking hard