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SpeedyHAM79 t1_ixk48na wrote

They are good for the environment. They are relatively quiet- usually around 43 Db (an A/C unit is around 50 Db. They require some maintenance, but it's in line with other power plants for the amount of power they produce. They can catch on fire, so can your car, your house, and just about anything else. The reason you see video's of them on fire is that they are large and very visible, so when a fire happens it gets recorded. They kill birds, but far less than housecats (4000% less each year). They are usually designed to last around 20 years and make more energy than it takes to produce them in 5-6 months depending on where they are sited (wind conditions). There are also new ways being used to recycle the turbine blades so they don't have to be landfilled at the end of life. I don't currently work in the industry, but have in the past. Tell him to stop watching YouTube and research facts from reputable sources.

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masoyama t1_ixkfhl9 wrote

I am a “designer” of wind turbines and agree with all of this points. From an engineering and climactic point of view, they’re pretty fantastic for the environment.

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dumb_password_loser t1_ixlavnm wrote

I'm wondering a bit about the impact of off-shore windmill parks though.

If you look at wind maps such as windyTV, you see that wind speed drops a lot at the shoreline. I guess the buildings, trees,... make the boundary layer larger.So the surface, has a major impact on wind patterns. And continental climate is different from sea climate.

But if they put windmill park in the middle of the sea, some energy gets extracted from those big laminar bodies of air, making them more turbulent, like buildings and trees on land.It maybe shifts the "shore" in the middle of the sea. Maybe the winds lose some of their momenton and can't carry the usual amount of moist inland increasing the size of the continental climate regions.

I'm pro windmill though, I live pretty close to a bunch of them and I think they're gorgeous.

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Liquid_Cascabel t1_ixljyi9 wrote

>If you look at wind maps such as windyTV, you see that wind speed drops a lot at the shoreline. I guess the buildings, trees,... make the boundary layer larger

Yup but that is more pronounced at a low height while WTs tap into wind at 100+ m height where the effect is less dramatic.

>maybe shifts the "shore" in the middle of the sea. Maybe the winds lose some of their momenton and can't carry the usual amount of moist inland increasing the size of the continental climate regions.

Ironically the turbulent nature actually helps mitigate the effect (which is not that large in the first place) because it improves "mixing" with the untapped wind

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FowlOnTheHill t1_ixlkfvh wrote

I’ve seen videos of vertical tube type turbines. How efficient are those on a large scale compared to the existing ones? And do they eliminate some of the drawbacks?

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robot_egg t1_ixmd9ib wrote

I'm really interested in the new method(s) for end of life treatment of the blades. Could you expand on that, or post a link to somewhere that discusses it? Does it scale to high volume as we install more wind capacity?

Feels like a tough problem given the thermoset resin used.

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ZoofusCos t1_ixmma6w wrote

I'm sorry but how can something be "4000% less"? Surely something can only 100% less than something, i.e. nothing?

Do you mean 1/4000 the amount? That would be 99.975% less.

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SpeedyHAM79 t1_ixo1ain wrote

I should have stated it the other way around- that cats kill 4000% more birds each year than wind turbines. Your math is correct.

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jarlrmai2 t1_ixppz6f wrote

The problem with them and birds is they tend to kill the birds cats can't, large rarer, slower breeding birds of prey etc. I still think getting rid of fossil fuels is key, but the large birds killing problem certainly needs addressing.

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BioTechproject t1_ixkqoft wrote

Another counterpoint I may have is that in order to prevent fires, inert atmospheres (mainly SF₆ afaik) are used, which itself has a very high gwp. However that only becomes an issue during leaks.

Generally they are still way better than any fossil fuel.

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ljorgecluni t1_iy65mwh wrote

I like this!

Perhaps you can help me explain to my captives that the guillotine is a good method for executing them. It is quieter than my shotgun (about 8Db vs 88Db) and the guillotine requires only 1/5th the amount of wood as the gallows requires (and only 25% of the rope). Guillotines can unintentionally amputate a digit or an appendage, but so can butcher knives, cars, hydraulic presses, lathes, CNC machines, augers, and this owes to operator error. At the end of their life cycle, guillotines are far more recyclable than gas chambers, and more sustainable with less carbon output and far less dependency on supply chains. And both MVCs and overdoses of prescription drugs kill far more people (4000% and 5200%, respectively) than guillotines kill each year.

Now you take it from here, please.

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