Originally Posted by horse1
Originally Posted by shootbrownelk
All the windchargers around here are shut down, we've had 40mph sustained wind and 60+ gusts for the last few days. Green ain't so great unless conditions are perfect. I say we need Nuke and Coal plants and plenty of them. We have plenty of uranium and coal right here. Let's take advantage of it.

I'm not arguing the high-wind shut downs, I see it in ND/SD almost daily that some aren't turning, and in high wind most if not all are sitting still. It's surprising that they haven't figure out 2 things:

1. How to "feather" the vanes in order to still make power in high winds without so much flex as to damage/over-stress the vanes.

2. How to proportionally vary the turbines to produce more energy during high winds. Something along the lines of a transmission or CVT.

Actually, they do all that now but the sheer size of these machines makes them susceptible to damage beyond certain wind speeds and sustained operation. And no matter how hard you want to wish it to be so, light winds simply can't turn those huge blades sufficiently to produce power. Those generators take a lot of energy just to turn the shafts on them to produce electricity. They aren't static...


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