[ RadSafe ] World's Biggest Wind Park -Capacity Factor vs. Nuclear

[Stewart Farber]

RE: Lies, damned lies, and statistics

Hello all,

A modern 1 MW wind turbine typically has a blade diameter of 62 meters or 
greater and turns up to 23 rpm. Thus these 3 bladed 1 MW wind generators 
have a tip velocity of about 245 feet/second, a much higher tip speed than 
the older 1970s vintage wind turbines.  Smaller turbines  had higher rpm but 
much lower blade velocity along the outer blade elements vs. today's 1 MW or 
larger turbines.  In part,  the high tip speed of modern wind turbines is 
what led me to author a satire about the serious hazard of a "Loss of Blade 
Accident" [LOBA] in wind power generation back in 1981. This satire was 
based on an actual LOBA at a windmill in California when the President of 
the company which supplied a turbine to a windfarm was inspecting the tower, 
and fell to his death when the windmill threw a blade.

The main point is that  modern large wind turbines have proven very damaging 
to birds and especially raptors and migrating birds,  which are totally 
fooled by the 203 foot diameter blades with their extremely high tip element 
velocity, which is almost 25% the speed of sound.

Comparing what is claimed by Mr. Salsman about what house cats may or may 
not do in an urban setting to starlings and grackles vs.the  large numbers 
of raptors and migrating birds killed near wind farms covering huge areas is 
a completly inappropriate and meaningless comparison.

Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
Air Pollution Control



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Salsman" <james at bovik.org>

> Otto Raabe wrote:
>
>> Wind farms are dangerous to birds, they can kill flocks of birds.
>
> That was also true in the 1970s, when the fast 25 kW turbines killed
> many raptors.  The new multi-megawatt turbines spin much more slowly,
> and kill fewer birds per acre of wind farm usage than house cats over
> the same suburban area.
>
> Sincerely,
> James Salsman



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