China plans wind tower as big as the Eiffel Tower, blades 1000ft across (Better at killing birds and bats?)

By Jo Nova

In the race for “free” but random energy, or perhaps for bigger status symbols, China set a new record in July with a 16MW wind tower with a rotor diameter of an awesome 853 feet (260m). It’s a bird mincer one quarter of a kilometer across. But already plans are being drawn up for an even bigger one.

What could possibly go wrong? It’s typhoon proof…

Gargantuan 22-MW wind turbine will be among history’s largest machines

By Loz Blain, New Atlas

Imagine something as tall as New York’s Chrysler building, but spinning. China’s Mingyang Smart Energy has announced plans for a colossal 22-megawatt offshore wind turbine, and standing in its presence will be an unprecedented human experience.

The new turbine proposed for 2025 by MingYang, according to Bloomberg, will have a peak output of 22 MW, and a rotor diameter over 310 m (1,017 ft), corresponding to a swept area of at least 75,477 sq m (812,425 sq ft, 14.1 NFL football fields, 60 olympic swimming pools), minus hub.

The Eiffel Tower is 324m tall.

A few months ago Siemens got bad news on turbine maintenance that was so bad it caused a 36% share plunge in a single day. And the news for wind turbines is still so bad Siemens shares haven’t recovered.

So if cables become uninsurable, bearings get brinelling, the leading edge degrades or MingYang wipes out entire flocks, eagles and whales — will they even mention it?

 

10 out of 10 based on 95 ratings

117 comments to China plans wind tower as big as the Eiffel Tower, blades 1000ft across (Better at killing birds and bats?)

  • #
    Simon

    Bats don’t usually fly offshore.

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    • #

      Poor Simon, no clue, but always typing factless stories:

      This Halloween, meet a fishing bat that hunts at sea

      The sun-bleached islands that dot Mexico’s Sea of Cortez look more like a desert than an ocean paradise. Scrubby plants and tall, prickly saguaros rise from fields of loose rock. And in the crevices between those rocks, a remarkable bat roosts.

      Mexican fishing bats spend the heat of the day asleep beneath the stones. But after sunset, they’re on the wing, rushing out to sea for fish. These small bats can fly more than 100 kilometers in a single night.

      “You could consider it a marine animal to a degree,” said bat ecologist Rachel Blakey of the University of Missouri. “It spends a lot of time out over the open ocean, eating salty stuff.”

      Fishing bats, and many other bat species, depend on healthy oceans to survive. They need clean and abundant places to hunt and roost. For bats, polluted seas and coasts would be downright spooky.

      Search gulag or your prefered search ebgine for “fishing bat” – you may learn s.th

      381

    • #

      HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW, poor Simon inserts shoes into his mouth once again with this factually challenged claim so easily exploded by Krishna Gans who does what YOU are allergic to doing….. research.

      Meanwhile a quick search has this from the United States Geological Survey

      How are bats affected by wind turbines?

      Dead bats are found beneath wind turbines all over the world. It’s estimated that tens to hundreds of thousands die at wind turbines each year in North America alone.

      LINK

      Coal, Nuclear power, NG combined kills far, far less than Windpower alone does but ecoloonies definitely love the bat choppers so much they sing praises to their murderous spinning tower gods, Hallelujah!!!

      11

  • #
    Harves

    Silent on the birds, Simon?

    480

  • #
    John Galt III

    “China’s Mingyang Smart Energy has announced plans for a colossal 22-megawatt offshore wind turbine, and standing in its presence will be an unprecedented human experience.”

    Nothing to worry about – see the word “Smart” above in the company’s name. I mean this is a “smart” Communist company in Communist China that is run by a Chinese Communist dictator.

    The company went public in 2019 and at around $14.75 – it is now $14.36 after reaching $35 a share a year ago. Not doing so well.

    390

  • #
    Greg in NZ

    In order to save the planet
    we have to destroy it

    Egg Foo Yong Folly

    340

  • #
    Peter Fitzroy

    Perspective is everything here, many more birds are killed by flying into buildings, or by cats.

    Let’s ignore the obvious and burn the Chinese witch. Also waiting for a post on Chinese coal power.

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    • #
      James Murphy

      Your “argument” is patently ridiculous. Surely even someone as wilfully ignorant as you can see that birds killed by wind turbines would be in addition to those killed by other means.
      Why are you implying that we shouldn’t worry about it?

      470

      • #
        yarpos

        Its the sort of selective thinking you have to engage in to make your narrative make sense. Like Simon talking bats not birds upthread.

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      • #
        Harves

        Similarly, Peter thinks exploding EVs aren’t a problem because lots of other fires occur anyway.

        331

      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        No at all but suddenly caring about birds, when it is a Chinese wind turbine? That’s selective thinking.

        if there was any real care for birds, then not removing the major killers be a more practical step.

        319

        • #
          Paul Miskelly

          Hello Peter,
          The last time you flew this kite, I shot it down by reminding you that none of the other alleged killers, unlike the wind industry, claims to be “saving the planet”.
          Meanwhile, here in Australia, Tasmania to be specific, the major killers of the critically endangered Tasmanian Wedge-tailed eagle are the wind farms.
          So, Peter, if I interpret your poorly-constructed second sentence correctly, you will be forced to agree with me that the wind farms in Tasmania must be shut down.
          There, that’s got you sorted.
          Regards,
          Paul Miskelly

          212

        • #

          but suddenly caring about birds, when it is a Chinese wind turbine?

          Why do you lie ?

          31

        • #

          Your Chinese strawman attempts are hilarious, did you buy them from the Wheat farmer recently?

          Really is that all you can drum up which indicate that you are talking on the run hoping you say something meaningful when instead you get your smackdown by Paul Miskelly because it was so EASY!

          So you think Cats killing birds is a crime against nature….?

          LOL

          11

    • #
      ianl

      During August/September last, China imported almost 100Mt of thermal coal to provide power in the face of low rainfall in the south of China (hydropower shortfall). This volume of imports in that short period is indeed a record. [Source Reuters].

      This is fact. It trumps low level sarcasm.

      261

    • #

      My nighbours cat is always hunting eagles, but is never catching one, never ever 😀

      270

      • #
        Philip

        yes, our cats fail to get anywhere near the two Regent Bowerbirds we have frequent our birdbath. Plenty of birds around here despite the cats.

        Bit of an urban myth the cats devastating birdlife meme. The only birds ours catch are the low IQ ones, like those grey dinosaur birds, and sometimes the little robin and honeyeater ones, of which there are thousands upon thousands, so what’s the actual problem?

        We love our birdlife and our cats. And the Regent variety of Bowerbird is the most striking bird. The gold is so vibrant and deep and the line against the black so sharp. I noticed one had a red dot in the middle of the forehead like an Indian woman.

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        • #
          Gee Aye

          Bit of an urban myth the cats devastating birdlife meme.

          No it isn’t. Your anecdote does not counter decades of research.

          816

          • #
            robert rosicka

            Not often I agree with the leaf but he is right and if wind turbines took out only feral cats instead of birds and bats they would actually be useful for something .

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          • #
            Philip

            That research is like a lot of environmental research. Wrong, ill conceived, ignoring context and significance. Generally performed by green activist PhD students below 25 years of age.

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            • #
              Gee Aye

              Wow. You convinced me.

              49

            • #
              Peter Fitzroy

              So who should be doing the research, old non degreeded oilmen working for Exxon?

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            • #
              KP

              “That research is like a lot of environmental research.”.. start off with what you want to prove and find the statistics to do it.

              Our 20-odd cats we have fed over the decades must have been the most useless bird hunters possible, they never managed anywhere near the bird kills researchers said, in fact their preferred wild diet was lizards, mice and occasionally rats.

              30

        • #
          DOC

          What about grounded fauna and lizards. Our blue tongues don’t survive for long.

          40

          • #
            Gee Aye

            Our skink population recovered from neighborhood cats after we got a dog.

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            • #
              robert rosicka

              Our lizard population is taking a hammering since we got a dog .

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            • #
              Philip

              Exactly. Skink population recovers immediately. Plus, there are so many skinks about you wouldn’t get rid of them if you wanted to. They are incredibly resilient.

              A long time ago, I had a quarter acre block under extensive nature based gardens and there was a lot of those medium size skinks. A girlfriend moved in with 2 cats. I was nature worshipping anti cat, and mortified of the prospects.

              Straight away, the cats caught heaps of them. But skinks aren’t that tasty I assume and they seemed to got a bit sick of them after a while. Skinks were seen a lot less, but you’d see some. But I ran with the narrative the cats got them all.

              The cats moved out after about 2 years, and within a week there were skinks copulating on the deck steps. You’d see them everywhere again. I was amazed. Back to normal, no harm done.

              But I missed the cats.

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    • #

      Perspective is everything here

      Correcct, where is your perspective view ??

      From your link:

      Collisions – Offshore Wind Turbines N/A N/A N/A
      Collisions – Solar Panels N/A N/A N/A
      Burning -Solar Towers N/A N/A N/A

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    • #
      old cocky

      We eat lots of sheep and cattle which graze on pasture, so it doesn’t matter about elephants.

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    • #
      Tel

      Duuuhhh Duuuhhh … de chicken industry kills more birds dan da windmills!!!

      You give the same garbage arguments every time, refuse to ever learn from your mistakes and frankly deserve nothing better than continuous ridicule. Cats kill small birds such as pigeons and starlings which are not endangered. Although feral cats can be a problem, usually for some of the small marsupials but that has nothing to do with windmills and there’s no easy way to remove feral cats.

      Migratory birds are a completely different problem to the large birds killed by windmills such as eagles. Separate mitigation methods are reducing the kill of migratory birds running into buildings … e.g. flashing lights and bringing down the long wave radio towers which are hardly being used anymore. None of this makes it OK for the steadily increasing killing of large birds … proving over and over how dreadfully hypocritical, and frankly dishonest, environmental activists really are.

      Besides that, neither you nor anyone else actually knows how many birds are killed by the offshore windmills since no one counts the bodies. Even the kills by onshore windmills are sketchy estimates, but we know the problem is getting worse because more mills are built.

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      • #
        Philip

        Environmentalists are not dishonest to their cause at all.

        Their cause is anti western civilisation. First and foremost. This is why we see their arguments as hypocritical, because we believe their first lie, that they are sincere about environment. But that lie’s purpose obeys their primary cause, so it’s ok.

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        • #
          Tel

          They are typically doshonest about what their cause really is … they pretend the purpose is to actually protect endangered species.

          This brings in well meaning followers to the movement and gives them a “good cause” to hide behind.

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      • #
        DOC

        Don’t know if it’s the big flocks of small birds people worry about. It’s the endangered species like eagles that raise the hackles when killed, which I gather is the specialty of the churning blades.

        70

    • #
      John Hultquist

      Right, PF.
      Just today I had a formation of Kestrels in the neighborhood. The first took out a window on the east side and the following second passed through to the west side and took that window out. The 3rd made it through both and kept of going. Two out of three ain’t bad, as the song goes. 🙂

      30

    • #
      Mike

      This is such a specious argument. The birds killed by cats and buildings are generally smaller, plentiful birds that are not endangered in any way. In fact the ongoing battle between birds and cats has been going on for centuries and mother nature will balance it out.

      Birds killed by wind farms are generally larger and don’t have a lot of natural predators. In fact many of them are already considered endangered or at risk. Wind farms introduce a completely unnatural mortality risk to these birds that can’t be balanced by natural predator/prey population adjustments.

      I thought your group was supposed to care about stuff like this.

      10

  • #
    Penguinite

    The blades will be so heavy they will only spin in the typhoon season but the Chinese PR machine spins constantly.

    330

  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    Have folks forgotten why it makes sense to have lost of moderate size generation facilities
    close to their consumers, and lots of overlap of capacity. No, because the folks making decisions seem not to
    have acquired much practical knowledge on anything.
    All that mass, all that motion — what could possibly go wrong?
    If the bearings and races aren’t perfect, the point stresses will be interesting. Will the detached blades float, d’ya think?

    371

    • #
      yarpos

      Bigger is better!! Eventually it will make sense for the world to be powered by just two giant windmills (for balance) We will be that small ball of concrete stuck to the bottom of them.

      180

  • #
    Glenn

    If this thing is anything like the quality of other Chinese manufactured things, it won’t last long…the first typhoon will take care of it.

    240

    • #
      RickWill

      the quality of other Chinese manufactured things

      Most stuff Australians buy is made in China. Some European badged cars sold in Australia are being made in China – I think China makes most of the Volvo range for Australia. I understand the Teslas coming into Australia are made in China. Honda badged cars are now being made in China for Australia. The Ford Rangers are now to be made in China for Australia. Most computer chips are made in China. The Lenovo laptop on my desk was made in China. The internals for the Asko dishwasher in the kitchen were made in China, if not the whole unit. My phone was made in China. Our TV sets were made in China.

      China aim to be the global manufacturer and are getting there. Their emerging competitor is India. US brands are currently looking to India to reduces China’s dominance.

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    • #
      DOC

      Is it being built for practical use, or are those big blades being built simply for bragging rights for China where others may consider them too cumbersome to bother with. There was a TV program a week or so ago on Fox which showed the final burial grounds for these windmills. They were chopped into pieces more convenient for handling and stacked in heaps with nowhere to go because the fibreglass and cement materials had no known use. It is a timely matter to address so early in the piece of the entire windmill history.
      In a town on the south coast of WA, they had a small ‘windfarm’ that died. It was too expensive for the town to pull them down, so they were left standing and a second farm was built next door. The last time we were there, all the blades had been removed from those second coming units.
      Can’t wait to see what constitutes the graveyards for all those solar panels and EVs. One advantage of putting them on farmed areas is they can all be bulldozed aside and the farm restored to agriculture which is at least reproductive and recycled every year.

      70

      • #

        In a town on the south coast of WA, they had a small ‘windfarm’ that died. It was too expensive for the town to pull them down, so they were left standing and a second farm was built next door.…..

        That would be Salmon Bay wind farm, near Esperance…Australia’s first,…built in 1987, and shut down in 1993.
        One of the decommisioned turbine nacells is on display in Esperance main street whilst the original site is now a “wind museam” with just one of the original 3 towers left standing.
        The replacement,..built in 1993.. is the Ten Mile Lagoon wind farm ..2.25 MW
        Note most of the WA wind farms are built to supply only the local town community and not connected to a grid.

        10

  • #
    Lawrie

    And to think all this to replace a coal fired power station that works 24/7 and 365 days a year and goes on to work for 60 years. Or we could build a SMR that does the same and takes up a fraction of the space and looks much prettier.

    410

  • #
    Neville

    I’m sure the Bowen, Albo idiots will want to follow like clueless lemmings and hope to see even more of these TOXIC disasters offshore and stuff the whales, dolphins, rare birds etc.
    And who knows how many of the new replacements would need to be installed by 2060? And what about the ongoing wastage of TRILLIONS of $ and the monster pits dug for landfill every 15 to 20 years?

    300

    • #
      Steve

      Yep. This is all marketing hype for the clueless round eyes.
      When the wind doesn’t blow this is all so much scrap. Tomorrow’s landfill.

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    • #
      robert rosicka

      I believe someone has done a parody of the song “Blowing in the wind” and it now goes “the answer my friend is Bowen and the wind” .

      60

  • #
    David Maddison

    The Chinese aren’t stupid but they know Westerners, infiltrated by Leftist Elites and their slave army of useful idiots, are.

    Relevant points:

    1) The Chinese know the high value of inexpensive coal power which is why they are building two coal power stations per week. The idiots of the West have granted them absolutely no CO2 emissions limits so Western manufacturing has been relocated to China and the West has deindustrialised with disastrous results for the West.

    2) This is a virtue signaling operation by the Chicomms to impress gullible and stupid Western leaders such as (in Australia’s case) Albanese and that pathetically dangerous simpleton Chris Bowen the anti-energy minister.

    3) As per point (2) this demonstration windmill will make gullible folks of the West think China really does “care for the environment” and supposed anthropogenic global warming, further taking any pressure off them to impose any CO2 emissions limits.

    4) China will happily oblige to sell these monstrosities to the gullible West, especially the most gullible countries such as Australia. The current Australian regime under Labor is even more gullible than the previous Liberal (pretend conservative) regime. Australia (except the thinking community, an extreme minority) is a fanatically committed believer in the anthropogenic global warming fraud, covid “vaccine” efficacy and safety and just about any decree or nefarious plan from the UN and WEF and are prepared to destroy the entire country to follow the UN and WEF to destruction.

    5) The Left keep telling us that wind and solar is the “cheapest and most reliable” form of electricity production when obviously this is not true. And yet they continue to make excuses to allow China to build two coal fired power stations per week. If W+S really was cheap and reliable, don’t you think China would stop building coal plant?

    6) Not that anthropogenic CO2 really matters but the whole destruction of the Western energy supply is based on this lie. The Left and the anti-energy lobby are silent about China being by far the world’s largest CO2 emitter and it is increasing dramatically. They emit more than twice as much CO2 as the next biggest CO2 emitter, the United States. Also CO2 emissions from the US and the West have been stable or decreasing for decades. Africa won’t rate CO2 wise as they are not allowed to industrialise as the West won’t allow them coal power stations, hence another reason the Chinese are colonizing Africa. They will give them the power stations they need – at a price (taking their minerals and enslavement).

    See graph:
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/World_fossil_carbon_dioxide_emissions_six_top_countries_and_confederations.png

    7) The Chinese don’t care about the environment at all. The destruction of bird life by this monstrosity is of no consequence to them or their slave army of useful idiot sycophants in the West.

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    • #
      Macha

      Meanwhile, Australia exports 4x the energy it uses internally. Yet we pay ever higher prices. Doh!

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    • #

      Re your point 6.
      China burns 12,000,000 tonnes of coal a day.
      Every day.
      Assuming complete combustion, that – neatly – produces 44,000,000 tonnes of CO2.
      EVERY DAY.
      China also burns oil and gas – more CO2.

      Now, I don’t think CO2 is a problem.

      Greta – or her handlers – may profess differently, like the Let’s Return to the Eighteenth Century folk, XR, or JSO or whatever their latest Useful Idiot banner is this hour.
      And, in their ignorance, so do most pollies in most countries – Arts Undergraduates, I think someone else called them.

      But, if CO2 actually were a problem, a REAL problem, then surely the watermelon clan would be seeking to stop Chinese CO2 production. Possibly by targeted use of nuclear weapons.

      Auto

      40

  • #
    David Maddison

    The lies told in support of the anthropogenic global warming fraud (and other destruction of the West) are alluded to by Orwell.

    Does the following sound familiar?

    In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell writes:

    In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?

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    • #
      DOC

      To argue against that logic will be censored by the new censorship laws on mis/disinformation. The governments and officialdom are exempt from their own laws, so everything said by those bodies must be truth. Mustn’t it?

      70

  • #
    Kalm Keith

    This is the ultimate insanity.
    Any properly qualified engineer-scientist knows that the driving force behind the creation of renewable Wind Turbines is not true.

    Human Origin CO2 does Not create Global Warming and death by incineration; that’s a faery story.

    The sole purpose of this new giant display is to advertise the “urgent need” to replace fossul fewls with more of Chynahs super expensive, whale and Bird killers.

    Naturally, there will be some “incentives” for any politician who buys a minimum of five turbines with Other People’s Money. There may even be some Chinese “influencers” at work after hours.

    As O’Biden Junior could explain; everyone benefits.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Check my arithmetic
      Radius = 155 metres
      PiRadius2 = 24025 metres =70.0 times the speed of sound for one rotation per second so the r.p.m. must be less than one rotation per 70 seconds
      In fact probably about one rotation every 3.5 minutes
      And the tensile stress on the blade fibres will be enormous. And did someone mentioned the bearings?

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      • #
        David Maddison

        Circumference = πD

        Where D = diameter in meters, m

        C = 155 x 2 x 3.14 = 973.4m

        Speed of sound is about 343m/s. Tip speed must be kept well below that.

        Max RPM to keep tip speed subsonic is 343/973.4 = 0.35 revolutions per second or 21rpm.

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      • #
        Simon Derricutt

        Graeme No.3 – best try 2.pi.r rather that pi.r.r

        60

      • #
        Ronin

        PI is 3.1416.

        51

        • #
          yarpos

          Approximately

          80

        • #

          IIRC, one State Legislature legislated for Pi to equal 3.
          Possibly 1920s.
          Possibly in the (Southern) USA.
          And I may have read it in a Guinness Book of Records in the 1960s …

          Or I’m misremembering … in which case, sorry!

          Auto

          20

          • #
            Graeme No.3

            Not quite. It was 1896 in Indiana (although other claims mention Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kansas).
            On Feb. 6, 1897, Indiana’s state representatives voted on Bill 246 to declare 3.2 the legal value of pi. The vote passed but the General Assembly but not the Senate, which the senators decided on Feb. 12 to indefinitely postpone the vote.
            .

            00

      • #
        Kalm Keith

        Hi Graeme, you’ve prompted quite a bit of feedback with this post.

        As David says, the circumference is just under 1000 metres.
        Always do a rough calc before using the slide rule. 🙂

        Not being interested in the topic it’s interesting to hear that the limiting factor is tip speed which, again from DM, gives a reasonable operating rate of 21 rpm.

        The main point I would make is that with the 21 rpm and three blades there is the potential for “pulsing” of about 63 beats per minute.

        Given that the human control system, the CNS, has us functioning with a heartbeat just a bit above that, there’s too on for lots of interference to humans and whales and any nearby farm animals.

        It’s not the “noise” that makes people nauseous and seriously ill, it’s the PULSING.

        Just looked at some photos of blades and wanted to throw up.

        Wind turbines are the greatest insult to have ever been dumped on humanity and the constant feeling of being permanently sea sick is added to the issues of Engineering stupidity, relative cost and ugly environmental consequences.

        Someone is seriously laughing at us; China, the WEF, WHO, the Schwamp, or the debil himself.

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        • #
          Kalm Keith

          Autocorrect

          Should read; ” there’s lots of interference”.

          Plus; The largest organ in the body is the skin and along with the lungs it receives the pulsing and sends feedback to the CNS, which gets confused and makes us seasick, and worse.

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        • #
          DOC

          One would say many are laughing at the West and shaking their heads. The former leaders of scientific development going off their brains in reverse must be great entertainment for those looking on from outside while they take over the universe. So easy to kill the former Western first world cultures; it’s unbelievable. That’s the story of the current wars.

          What’s not funny is, Bowen will see this huge windmill construct like the Tower of Babel and like the builders of the tower think he is the God at its pinnacle, see them as an answer and send our economy further into the dust by trying to force us to build them. That should have the laughter turn into belly wrenching spasms of greater delight.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Naturally, there will be some “incentives” for any politician who buys a minimum of five turbines with Other People’s Money. 

      Any politician or public serpent that actively promotes wind and solar to the exclusion of sensible, logical, economic, engineeringly and scientifically appropriate electricity generation solutions such as coal, gas, nuclear and real hydro (not SH2) should be subject to a forensic accounting audit to make sure they are not in corrupt receipt of monies.

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  • #
    Neville

    Never forget we’re supposed to be building these TOXIC disasters to stop Greenland and Antarctica melting and trying to stop their dangerous, loony SLR that doesn’t exist.
    There’s a good debate at WUWT about Greenland reaching a so called TIPPING POINT, yet even Nick Stokes seems to be sceptical about the claims of the stupid extremists.
    BTW who really BELIEVES that we can stop their so called dangerous CC by WASTING TRILLIONS of $ on TOXIC W & S?

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/10/23/greenlands-tipping-point-cancelled-claims-of-a-runaway-melt-are-overblown/

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    • #
      DOC

      Neville, imo the purveyors of the AGW scam have never believed in their paper mache theory of CO2 causing the final inferno.
      It’s the effect of chasing that rainbow they are after.
      The impoverishment of the West is the real aim. That Western politicians believe the theory shows how damnably dumb one gets when such power is there for the taking. Everything is expendable in the chase. Even when enemies are obviously laughing at them and making hay staying with the fossil fuels we produce for them so they can manufacture the weapons of our own economic doom, our politicians are too dumb to see.
      Facing wars which the destruction of our energy system will make impossible for us to win, our politicians persist in chasing their own nirvana. When the people are suffering from unsustainable COL increases, Albo, Chalmers, Burke and Bowen see nothing. In fact, Chalmers giggles!
      The fact they destroy us now versus the climate supposedly doing it a century later goes over their heads. Poor people have no power. It’s all a power game our politicians are destined to lose, along with the nation when our enemies can simply walk in to take over the detritus our current politicians are leaving us to grovel in!

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  • #
    Neville

    The Bowen donkey is very excited about Aussies playing a leading role at COP 28 in Dubai in December and their ABC are hoping we’ll WASTE many TRILLIONS of $ on TOXIC W & S. And of course we’ll have ZERO impact on the temperature or climate or SLR etc.
    Meanwhile China, India and the developing countries will be building HUNDREDS of new coal power stations every decade until 2060 at least.

    https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/bowen/media-releases/joint-media-release-lead-role-australia-cop28-climate-adaptation-talks

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  • #
    Ronin

    Trust the Chinese to go gargantuan big on things, so it should be a real spectacle when it goes up in flames.

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  • #
    Philip

    The Spruce Goose.

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  • #
    Ronin

    That worked out well, eh.
    Did anyone torture themselves and watch 3 and a half corners about Turnballs folly, also known as Snowy 2.

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  • #

    Germans failed with their giant windmill Growian

    GROWIAN was the largest wind turbine in the world for a long time. Much about the turbine was new, and had never been tried before on this scale. There was an error in the design of the casing, which meant that the turbine could not be operated at full power. Issues with materials and construction made it impossible to run it continuously as a test. The turbine stood still for most of the time between the first test run on 6 July 1983 through to when operations ceased in August 1987. It officially came into commission on 4 October 1983.

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  • #

    Okay, that’s it. I think it has finally reached peak stupidity.

    Look at the image at this link. Now look closely.

    This is the not even blade in question, umm, stretching off into the distance. This is just the (Mingyang) blade for the diameter of 853 feet, so this blade is around 122 Metres in length, and the blade for the 22MW unit is around 150 metres long. Okay, now note the people standing on top of that blade, umm, lots and lots of people. (Look at the thing. Imagine the cost ….. just this one blade alone)

    There needs to be clearance between the bottom of the swept blade and the ocean, so the tower needs to be 160 metres tall (so, more than 40 stories tall) and strong enough to hold a 16MW turbine, umm, 385 TONNES of it.

    Okay a typical offshore wind plant. Fifty of those turbines, and let’s give them the benefit of the doubt, 16MW, so a Nameplate of 800MW, and again, benefit of doubt, a whopping 40% Capacity Factor, so an effective average power delivery averaging 320MW. (Umm, so five of these plants in totality to replace ONE coal fired power plant.)

    But hey, just one plant for now.

    Umm, remember that blade in the image.

    That’s 150 of them.

    And wind power is just soooooooo cheap eh.

    Staircase up the middle of the tower for maintenance. Naaaah! Let’s not, tradesman, two of them. How long to climb up that. So, helicopter it is. Specialist maintenance crew now, lowered down carefully, work in confined spaces, work at height. And work now on FIFTY of them, not just ONE large generator on the floor of a power plant. Time, money.

    See now why it’s reached peak stupidity.

    Cheap ….. Huh! Fat chance that!

    Tony.

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      Bushkid

      Indeed.

      Also, look at the sheer size of the factory needed to manufacture the thing, and remember that they won’t be making just one of these things at a time, but multiples, so multiply what you see in that image by several/many times.

      The manufacturing of the materials and machinery alone for that factory would be mind-boggling, no doubt some of it with Australian-mined iron ore and coal.

      The real cost of all this is never mentioned; it’s always just “the wind and sun are free”, we just have to collect it and store it (as if a battery is the same as a dam that collects and stores rainfall, as some dimwitted Australian politician said.)

      The sheer stupidity and ignorance of all this is devastating and depressing. And the buggers are accelerating rather than expressing even the slightest concerns or doubts, or taking notice of the failures already evident overseas.

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      Ronin

      I was just thinking, remember the trouble pilots had with those rotary engined biplanes in WW1, all that mass up front spinning, a big flywheel if you will, on a moveable platform, so when a windshift happens and the whole unit pivots to meet the prevailing breeze, the stresses on the bearings, shafts, mounts and structure must be enormous.

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      Honk R Smith

      I am embarrassed for you Ozzians …
      letting someone make bigger blades than you.
      https://youtu.be/dSnosk4tWrg

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      KP

      ” So, helicopter it is.”.. Oh,the wind turbine has a jammed pitch control gear, send out the repair men to the turbine that won’t stop turning and lower them on a 170M wire just behind the spinning blades so they can access the controls. Don’t let the wind shift cause the blades to grab the wire hanging from your helicopter..

      I’m dying to see them being transported by road.

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      TonyfromOz
      October 25, 2023 at 10:22 am · Reply
      Okay, that’s it. I think it has finally reached peak stupidity.

      Dont count them chickens so soon Tony, …. there is plenty more stupidity to come yet !

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    Geoffrey Williams

    One is left speechless by the size of these monstrosities . .
    The effect on our environment is just unimaginable.
    Yes indeed ; what could possibly go wrong ?!

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    The Chinese must think they’re able,
    To build a new Tower of Babel,
    When on reaching too high,
    Could fall from the sky,
    Which may have more truth than fable.

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    Neville

    So how will the world build and generate enough energy for the 9.7 billion people by 2050 and then 10 billion by 2060????
    Do we really BELIEVE that developing countries will be driving TOXIC EVs and using expensive, TOXIC W & S energy generation???
    If you are that DELUSIONAL you should have your head examined, along with their so called scientists, pollies, MSM and any number of other loony RELIGIOUS extremists.
    Here are the projections for global population from OWI Data using the UN pop data.

    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-with-un-projections

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    Stevem

    There are well documented problems with bearings and cables for offshore rigs as well as other crippling maintenance costs for these things. China has a horrendous environmental record. These structures will be left to rot as a hazard to navigation once their economic life is over. This life span will, to some, be unexpectedly short due to the inherent problems.
    The PRC just does rubbish like this to pretend they’re environmentally sensitive while destroying the world behind their bamboo curtain.

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    Curious George

    This is an attempt to make Siemens, Vestas, etc. to do something stupid.

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    Neville

    AGAIN here’s the tiresome DATA or very simple sums to consider for the OECD and NON OECD countries co2 emissions in 1951.

    OECD = 5 billion Ts per annum.

    NON OECD- = 1.24 bill Ts per annum.

    In 2021 OECD = 11.7 bill Ts per annum.
    In 2021 NON OECD = 24.4 bill Ts per annum.
    More proof that nothing will change for decades into the future even if the OECD countries reduced co2 emissions to 1951 levels or back to 70 years ago.
    The graphs are active so just highlight the year and check the data for yourselves.
    We know that China, India and the entire NON OECD will continue to rapidly increase co2 emissions until 2060, so why should the OECD reduce ourselves to poverty and obviously risk invasion from China etc in the near future?
    Any ideas anyone? I don’t know how I can dumb this down any further for our blog donkeys.

    https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=OECD+%28GCP%29~Non-OECD+%28GCP%29

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    Iain Reid

    while this generator is physically large, it’s output is pitifully small when you factor in wind speed variation. Assuming an average of 50% output of name plate capacity it is only an 11 Megawatt generator.
    It simply illustrates the feebleness of these devices, physically large that they may be.

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    exsteelworker

    Opening 1000s of new mining sites for rare earths, vacuuming up the ocean beds of all life for rare earths and then dumping the sludge over the ocean bed just to make sure everything dies. Covering the planet with millions of man made ruinables with a short life span and big batteries that go boom. What could possibly go wrong?….you can thank the moronic GREENS for the destruction of the environment all this ruinables push will do. Keep on voting for them you inner city elites.

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    william x

    Everyone forgets the renewable offsets.

    Birds are killed by wind turbines …it doesn’t matter to the green machine….
    In the link below, the offset (for the birds lost), is the coral they will try to grow on their subsea windfarm supports.

    “Giving corals a home on our offshore wind farms”
    https://orsted.com/en/who-we-are/sustainability/nature/net-positive-biodiversity-impact/recoral

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  • #

    Industry leaders call for a pause in offshore turbine size growth so supply chain can catch up to recent jump from 8-9 MW to 13-15 MW. Monopiles, towers, crane boats, etc., all need new production facilities.
    https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/08/28/scale-up-smarter-not-harder-why-offshore-wind-ambitions-can-be-met-more-efficiently-if-turbine-growth-is-paused/

    China did not get the memo, introduces huge 22 MW turbine with 1,000′ rotor diameter.
    https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/10/23/22-mw-offshore-wind-turbine-in-the-works-for-2024-25/

    This may be China’s move to dominate the offshore wind supply business, especially if they gear up a supply chain for it. Bigger turbines produce cheaper juice.

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    JB

    I wonder what wind speed is needed to achieve maximum capacity from these machines.

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      Usually that is around 20 mph ,……with 35 mph safety shut down
      But with this size contraption,..who knows ?

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        JB

        The older Enercon 126 with a rotor diameter of 127 metres requires a windspeed of 59.4 km/h to achieve its rated output of 7.58 Mw. There is nowhere in Australia that has an average windspeed anywhere near that. Therefore to achieve 7.58 Mw would require many smaller turbines that generate their rated capacity at lower speeds.

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    Old Goat

    The Chinese aren’t this stupid – as David M has stated is virtue signaling . I will help create the illusion that they are onboard with “Climate Change*” and this will delay when the useful idiots wake up . Meanwhile the world still runs largely on fossil fuels .

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