
World's Latest 8MW Windmills Now Make Jumbo Jets Look Tiny - Osiris30
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-04-28/world-s-biggest-windmills-now-make-jumbo-jets-look-tiny
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gozur88
Turbines. Wind. Turbines. They're not being used to mill grain.

Beyond that, does anybody know what the practical limit is to a wind turbine's
size?

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astrodust
At some point the blades would poke up through thinner parts of the atmosphere
and it would be pointless, so let's say under six miles?

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venomsnake
>The 80-meter blades of the MHI Vestas V164 make the machine almost as high as
the Times Square Tower in New York, and are so large that they were “a
nightmare” to transport on narrow country roads, Jens Tommerup, chief
executive officer of the venture, said in an interview.

That is understatement. Transporting the blades took 40% of the budget back in
the late 00s IIRC.

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jchung
Super curious about this. Do you have a source? Any idea what equipment is
needed to build these blades? I wonder at what point it becomes cheaper to
move the equipment instead of the finished blades and build them on site. Or
take a hard look at airships again
[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/29/a-new-
generatio...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/29/a-new-generation-
of-airships-is-born)

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venomsnake
I will try to find. It was in peak oil/the oil drum years. The user was a guy
called Jerome a Paris - investment banker that specialized/s in making wind
farms happen. He made a breakdown of the costs withing a project.

I think he had profile both in eurotrib and dailykos. Sadly my inability to
formulate a coherent google search fails me now.

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Someone
Google gives me zillions of hits on "cost of windfarm is transporting the
blades". The first I looked at is
[http://windpower.sandia.gov/other/031428.pdf](http://windpower.sandia.gov/other/031428.pdf),
which computes costs of transport in the 6-7% range.

The second I opened is
[http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/61063.pdf](http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/61063.pdf).
From a quick glance, it has transport costs at around 10% of capital costs.

Of course, transport prices can go up a lot by increasing transport distance
or by changing location. Tops of mountains or densely populated areas may be
way more expensive.

I do not rule out that transport costs in some cases are way higher, but I
don't think it is generaLily true.

And that Jerome de Paris text may be on
[http://www.theoildrum.com/user/Jerome%20a%20Paris](http://www.theoildrum.com/user/Jerome%20a%20Paris).

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venomsnake
That was 8-10 years ago. The industry now is more mature. With pipelines of
projects and know how and economy of scale. Back then everything was invented
on the fly/ad-hoc and so on.

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zyxley
Ugh, another of those weird faux-scrollbar things at the top of the article.

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Terribledactyl
You mean the progress indicator?

Bloomberg's site design has felt all over the map lately. Like an A/B testing
gone really weird.

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jefurii
I initially read this as "BMW Windmills".

