Re:The Future of Wind Turbines? No Blades (2015)
by lightgreen on Saturday September 07, 2019 @05:41AM
(#20902788)
Regular turbine will be always be more efficient per square km of wind plant, but are you you sure that regular turbine will be always more efficient per dollar invested in construction?
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Re:The Future of Wind Turbines? No Blades (2015)
by adammunich on Saturday September 07, 2019 @06:20AM
(#20902910)
Yeah reducing the costs of maintenance would be huge for this industry.
Re:The Future of Wind Turbines? No Blades (2015)
by ajross on Saturday September 07, 2019 @10:11AM
(#20903848)
While it's true the vortex design has no moving parts and is thus inherently simpler, a regular old turbine is hardly a complicated machine. A bunch of fixed blades, some gearing, and an electric motor -- all of which are routine things that can be mass produced in huge quantities and have been for decades. Really the only serious difficulty with building out a modern turbine is the size of the blades and the transportation complexity of getting them to the site on existing road networks. And these Vortex things seem to be about the same size.