A new wind turbine blade design that researchers at Sandia National Laboratories developed in partnership with Knight & Carver of San Diego promises to be more efficient than current designs. It should significantly reduce the cost-of-energy of wind turbines at low-wind-speed sites.
Named “STAR” for Sweep Twist Adaptive Rotor, the blade is the first of its kind produced at a utility-grade size. Its most distinctive characteristic is a gently curved tip, termed “sweep,” which unlike the vast majority of blades in current use, is specially designed for low-wind-speed regions like the Midwest. The sites targeted by this effort have annual average wind speeds of 5.8 meters per second, measured at 10-meter height. Such sites are abundant in the U.S. and would increase by 20-fold the available land area that can be economically developed for wind energy.
The continued increase in the average size of utility-grade wind turbines may come to an end before all efficiencies are wrung out unless blade weight growth (which is nonlinear) can be reined in. The challenge is to develop new concepts that reduce the rate of weight growth, such as the swept STAR blade.
These new big-slow-blade designs are not only more efficient, especially at low speeds – they rotate slowly enough to remove the likelihood of danger to birds.
“Low wind areas like the Midwest?” HUH?
It’s called the windy city…
“John Stephan Wright and William (Deacon) Bross, two local boosters (windbags, some might say), who went up and down the East Coast yelling about the wonders of Chicago, according to Daily News library clippings…. Because of their loud boasts of the virtues of the city, Chicago was dubbed the “Windy City” after its “windy” citizenry in the 1850s.”
“Such sites are abundant in the U.S. and would increase by 20-fold the available land area that can be economically developed for wind energy.”
It’ll probably also increase by 20-fold the number of places that crazed environmentalists will protest building wind farms because they kill birds and ruin the view.
“they rotate slowly enough to remove the likelihood of danger to birds. ”
Are there really a huge number of birds that are being killed by windmill blades. If there are they must be the dumber birds so this will give them a push in evolutionary terms.
I for one will welcome our new bird overlords.
This is an example of relatively small government investments enabling very useful research. These guys had been pushing their designs for “some time,” they say, before they got the $2 million DoE contract, of which $800,000 was cost-shared. Other projects, perhaps as promising, didn’t get funded because of “budget reallocations,” according to the story.
Jeez, a little money invested wisely can produce so much promise. Maybe with Halliburton moving to Dubai there will be some budget available to expand our public investments in useful research like this.
I see windmill blades on the back of semi trucks heading west almost everyday here in Texas…
I cant help but admire the engineering that went into making those things. They are stunning, in a geeky techie kinda way…
Looking at the oil dependency issues, we cant build them fast enough.
I wouldn’t want to live within earshot of one of these things whooshing all the time.
I’m very much in favor of increased wind power. Even as an extreme animal lover, including birds and bats, I have to point out that the dangers of global climate disruption are likely to kill far more birds and bats than windmills.
That said, it is not necessarily the blades that cause the danger. Many birds and bats migrate at night. By instinct, they fly higher than tall trees and historically did not need to avoid obstacles. Now, with windmills and tall buildings, they frequently fly into the stationary obstacles.
Birds and bats are as likely to fly into the tower as the blades. So, call them stupid if you like. They’re following their migratory instincts. If you want real stupidity, look for the moron sending email from a crackberry while driving.
everytime i hear someone argue against these things (invariable for one of two reasons: they supposedly kill birds and are an eyesore) i want to grab that person and shove their face into a box fan on its highest setting.
you know how many birds fly into highrises every year? lets ban those.
as for the eyesore argument, i look at the newly built windfarm near Atlantic City and I think it looks neat. would these dinguses rather pollute the air and pump more money into OPEC instead? morons.
I love wind power. And the great thing is when/if we figure out that Global Warming is caused by the sun we can hook up gasoline powered motors to them and turn them into fans.
Anyone have the answer?
Why only three blades on the turbine? Why not six? The more blade area the more energy may be captured. Other turbines, jet engines or old farm windmills for example, have many more blades.
#11. Wind turbines have an upper efficiency limit that three blades can reach just fine. Adding 3 more blades would just increase the cost of these turbines.
Actually, with the onset of large 3-bladed windmills, the incidence of bird deaths through impact is generally much less than 1 per year. And there hasn’t been a whole boatload of resistance from American enviros to wind power – as opposed to the let’s-pretend variety in the UK who only decided to join the environmental movements when it became possible their view might be interrupted.
Dolts who try to accuse ecology activists of practices like this – in the US – generally are (1) dead weight who wouldn’t get off their butts to change anything; and (2) usually too dim to comprehend renewable resources, anyway.
A number of wind farms have been proposed for rural areas in western New York and people are having a fit. Noise, eyesore, constant shadow blinking, etc. Everyone wants to solve the dependency on oil until their little piece of heaven is involved in the solution. How about the battle being waged by the rich and famous on Martha’s Vineyard over the proposed off shore wind farm. Not in my backyard, or off my million dollar beach.
Here in Western Australia they have a large scale wind farm down near Albany on the cost of the Southern Ocean. It is a perfect spot for it. Strong constant wind, and small population.
But there are a bunch of angry people who complain that these turbines are too noisy, too big, and they kill birds. [pls use tinyurl]
Ya can’t win!
Nice link, Ron — it doesn’t say anything that you did.
Don’t forget the snobs who whine about saving the environment but complaint that the wind turbines will depreciate the value of their property.
IMO that’s the first and most important hurdle to tackle.