Environment

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Environmental and ecological discussion, particularly of things like weather and other natural phenomena (especially if they're not breaking news).

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If We Want Bigger Wind Turbines, We’re Gonna Need Bigger Airplanes (spectrum.ieee.org)

submitted 4 days ago by Powderhorn@beehaw.org to c/environment@beehaw.org

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The world’s largest airplane, when it’s built, will stretch more than a football field from tip to tail. Sixty percent longer than the biggest existing aircraft, with 12 times as much cargo space as a 747, the behemoth will look like an oil tanker that’s sprouted wings—aeronautical engineering at a preposterous scale.

Called WindRunner, and expected by 2030, it’ll haul just one thing: massive wind-turbine blades. In most parts of the world, onshore wind-turbine blades can be built to a length of 70 meters, max. This size constraint comes not from the limits of blade engineering or physics; it’s transportation. Any larger and the blades couldn’t be moved over land, since they wouldn’t fit through tunnels or overpasses, or be able to accommodate some of the sharper curves of roads and rails.

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[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

This...feels like we've lost the plot.

[–] ranandtoldthat@beehaw.org 3 points 4 days ago

Larger wind turbines are more efficient in terms of both land use and materials, so it very well might be worth building a bigger plane to install them.