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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex stuff from either

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Speaker 1: is welcome to text uff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, and today

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Speaker 1: joining me in the studio is uh, you know a

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Speaker 1: good friend of mine, pillworker guy who also works with

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Speaker 1: me on Forward Thinking, Joe McCormick. No stranger to the program. Hi, everybody.

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Speaker 1: I think last time I was here was a few

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Speaker 1: weeks ago and we were talking about ghost voices coming

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Speaker 1: through the radio. Yeah, so I figured we should talk

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Speaker 1: about something a little more conventional this time. Okay, all right,

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Speaker 1: that sounds good. But not boring. No, not not boring, No,

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Speaker 1: we're not. I just mean not bordering on the realms

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Speaker 1: of the paranormal. Yeah, although the topic we picked does

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Speaker 1: have its share of interesting controversy, that being wind turbines.

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Speaker 1: And the reason we picked this is because our listener

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Speaker 1: Justin on Twitter quite some time ago, said I think

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Speaker 1: it would be great if you could do a podcast

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Speaker 1: on wind turbines if you haven't already. Frankly, I am shocked.

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Speaker 1: You've been doing tech stuff this long and you have

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Speaker 1: not done wind turbines. I'm shocked too, and I'm scared

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Speaker 1: to do a search right now to make absolutely certain

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Speaker 1: that you didn't do it a few years ago. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's possible, but that doesn't stop me from

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Speaker 1: doing a full episode. I mean, for one thing, if

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Speaker 1: we did cover it, it was back when I didn't

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Speaker 1: even know anything. You were lies. I knew nothing, John Snow.

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Speaker 1: So now I feel like I know a lot, and

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Speaker 1: or at least my research food is stronger, and so

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Speaker 1: I feel that we can have fun talking about this

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Speaker 1: and do the subject matter justice. So first of all,

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Speaker 1: I guess we should just mention what a wind turbine is,

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Speaker 1: and dudes, you probably know, but just in case, it

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Speaker 1: is a device that converts the kinetic energy from wind

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Speaker 1: into electricity. Sounds some well enough, except if you take

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Speaker 1: out that electricity part and get a little more loosey

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Speaker 1: goosey with the definition, I think the topic becomes even

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Speaker 1: more interesting because then you can really look way back

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Speaker 1: into history and find examples. Oh sure, I mean, like

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Speaker 1: using wind to do work for us dates back millennia,

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Speaker 1: and we're talking about like that's the principle behind sale.

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Speaker 1: It's one of the oldest ways to leverage natural forces

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Speaker 1: to do our jobs for us, apart from living on

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Speaker 1: a high place and needing to get down to a

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Speaker 1: low place. It's one of those really simple ways of

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Speaker 1: of exploiting really the natural world. And so if you're

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Speaker 1: not very imaginative, you may be thinking, wait a minute,

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Speaker 1: how do we use wind power things in the ancient world? Well,

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Speaker 1: you may have seen something before called a windmill. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: windmills date pretty far back that Some of the earliest

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Speaker 1: ones are the day date back to the two in China.

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Speaker 1: They were before don Quixote. Even. Yes, they were used

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Speaker 1: to pump water, so all ancient water pumps. And then

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Speaker 1: you also around that same time had vertical axis windmills

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Speaker 1: in Persia and the Middle East to grind grain. Wait

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Speaker 1: a minute, vertical axis, So that means that the windmill

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Speaker 1: is sort of being blown laying flat instead of standing

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Speaker 1: up right, well, instead of it looking like a fan

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Speaker 1: and and turning on that axis, you rotate that access

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Speaker 1: ninety degrees. So it's like a food processor. Yeah, more

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Speaker 1: like a food process. We'll talk we'll talk about the

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Speaker 1: differences between vertical access and horizontal access and why the

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Speaker 1: horizontal axis is the one we're mostly familiar with. That's

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Speaker 1: the if you think of modern wind farms, you're thinking

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Speaker 1: horizontal axis. Uh, turbines. But well, we'll get into that later, okay.

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Speaker 1: So we can use them to pump water, we can

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Speaker 1: use them to to turn a big stone and grind

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Speaker 1: grain into dust. That's really what we were using it for,

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Speaker 1: starting with the Middle Ages and moving forward, especially in

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Speaker 1: the Western world. You know, that was that was when

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Speaker 1: the rest of the when the Western world started to

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Speaker 1: catch on to this technology that had been used for

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Speaker 1: hundreds of years and other parts of the world. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And really to get to the point where we're using

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Speaker 1: wind to generate electricity, you have to get to about

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Speaker 1: eight seven. And that's when a physicist and engineer named

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Speaker 1: James Blyth or Blithe depending upon your pronunciation. Yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: some spellings of his name that includes an e at

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Speaker 1: the end, which which lends credence to that pronunciation. He

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Speaker 1: installed a wind turbine with blades made of sailcloth at

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Speaker 1: a vacation home he had and yeah, seven it stored

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Speaker 1: electricity and what he called accumulators, which are essentially batteries,

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Speaker 1: so had that was a storage methodology. They were full

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Speaker 1: of lead and quite lethal. Yeah. I read one account.

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Speaker 1: Now I hesitate to even mention this account because it

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Speaker 1: feels like it might be apocryphal to me, but I

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Speaker 1: read one account where he even offered to sell his

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Speaker 1: excess electricity to the surrounding village, but they discounted it

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Speaker 1: for it was the devil's work. I I have no

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Speaker 1: it sounds like one of those legends. Yeah, it's it

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Speaker 1: feels a little, a little on the legendary side to me.

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Speaker 1: But a few months after Blythe had installed his first

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Speaker 1: wind turbine, an American engineer named Charles F. Brush installed

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Speaker 1: a wind powered turbine of his own behind his mansion

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Speaker 1: in Ohio. The tower was sixty ft high, which is

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Speaker 1: about eighteen meters, so this was This was no tiny structure.

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Speaker 1: It was quite large. And sometimes brush is um is

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Speaker 1: mentioned as the first person to make a wind turbine

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Speaker 1: that generates electricity, which gets all the blythe fans up

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Speaker 1: in arms. At any rate, it's around this time, late

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century that people first started to create these sort

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Speaker 1: of things. That's really interesting. But I'm wondering, maybe I

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Speaker 1: just don't have a good sense of history at this point.

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Speaker 1: What were they doing with all that electricity in eighteen seven,

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Speaker 1: probably powering very early light bulbs that didn't last terribly long.

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Speaker 1: That would be the most that that would what be

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Speaker 1: what I would expect most of the electricity would go towards,

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Speaker 1: especially since these were both attached to residences. So these

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Speaker 1: weren't you know, these weren't the early days of a

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Speaker 1: power grid. This was for a specific location. As for

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Speaker 1: wind turbines, well, by the early nineteen hundreds, you had

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Speaker 1: more engineers experimenting with ways to use wind power to

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Speaker 1: generate electricity, and by the nineteen forties it became pretty important,

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Speaker 1: particularly in places that were involved with World War Two,

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Speaker 1: because things like coal we're really important for the war effort,

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Speaker 1: which meant that we had to be we had to

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Speaker 1: find ways of conserving it back at home, and so

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Speaker 1: it had a lot of people looking to things like

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Speaker 1: wind power to supplement what would normally be a cold

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Speaker 1: based energy grid. And uh by the time World War

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Speaker 1: two had ended, we started seeing fuel prices come down,

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Speaker 1: and it ended up killing wind power pretty much because

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Speaker 1: unlike wind power it was cheap, wind power was actually

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Speaker 1: expensive to build and maintain. And uh so why would

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Speaker 1: you spend the money for wind power when you have

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Speaker 1: this enormous source of fossil fuels that are much less expensive. Yeah, Well,

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Speaker 1: making use of wind powers seems to require more foresight.

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Speaker 1: You've got to have infrastructure in place, You've got to

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Speaker 1: have you know, appliances that take advantage of great electricity

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Speaker 1: using coal and oil. That's just easy, just set fire

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Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, and only that you also had less

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Speaker 1: of an awareness of the effects of using fossil fuels

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Speaker 1: and what they're long term consequences could be. So without

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Speaker 1: that knowledge, there was very little incentive to pursue wind

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Speaker 1: power as a meaningful supplement to our our energy needs.

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Speaker 1: And so it really wasn't until the nineteen seventies when

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Speaker 1: we started getting oil shortages that win power started to

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Speaker 1: rise to prominence again because now suddenly it was much

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Speaker 1: more expensive to get hold of fuel, and so it

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Speaker 1: made sense to look for alternatives. And then you get

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Speaker 1: into the environmental movement of the late seventies and into

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Speaker 1: the eighties, and that kind of helped perpetuate wind power,

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Speaker 1: and by the nineteen nineties we got to an era

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Speaker 1: where that was again a big focus, and that kind

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Speaker 1: of leads us up to today where we now have

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Speaker 1: lots of different companies and people looking into wind power

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Speaker 1: and finding out if it's if it's an all a

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Speaker 1: you know, a viable means of generating enough electricity for

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Speaker 1: it to be worth the investment, which is that's a

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Speaker 1: legitimate question. Yeah, well it seems to be a money question, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it is certainly a viable means of generating electricity.

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Speaker 1: The question is will it generate enough electricity um and

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Speaker 1: be cheap enough to be worthwhile to invest in, right

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Speaker 1: or could there be alternatives that would make more sense?

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Speaker 1: So that that's the question that people are asking, and

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Speaker 1: it's a good question to ask because it'll direct us

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Speaker 1: to the the most likely candidates to meet our needs

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Speaker 1: while we hope um not contributing to the problems that

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Speaker 1: we've seen with fossil fuels. Well, let's talk about how

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Speaker 1: wind turbines actually work. All right. So air is a fluid,

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Speaker 1: just let you know start that off. Gases are essentially

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Speaker 1: they work by fluid dynamics. Wait, I thought fluid was

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Speaker 1: synonymous with liquid. Well, liquids are fluids, but that's not

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Speaker 1: I didn't really know. I know that. But you know,

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Speaker 1: air will fill up a container and take the shape

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Speaker 1: of whatever containers in Then if you open up that

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Speaker 1: container and the air is whatever whatever gas is in there,

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Speaker 1: if it's lighter than the surrounding air, it will of

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Speaker 1: course come out of the container. It'll also pour into

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Speaker 1: a vacuum if given the opportunity. That is correct, And

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Speaker 1: so when this air is in motion, that's what we

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Speaker 1: call wind. Yeah, I know, I'm not I know all

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Speaker 1: of this is really simple, but it's the basis for

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Speaker 1: wind power. That that when that wind is moving, when

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Speaker 1: those air particles are moving, they carry force. But you

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Speaker 1: might step back a bit and say, wait a minute,

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Speaker 1: why does the air move in the first place. That

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Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. You know. What I used to

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Speaker 1: think when I was a kid was that, Well, it's

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Speaker 1: because the Earth is turning, right, and the gas is

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Speaker 1: just kind of floating around on top of it. So

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Speaker 1: like the gases is free floating and not at all

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Speaker 1: affected by by the gravity that the rest of us are.

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Speaker 1: And so since the world is turning, the wind is

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Speaker 1: blowing against us. That's that's quaint it also would you

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Speaker 1: know it seems very intuitive because you think about the

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Speaker 1: way weather patterns move in the United States from west

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Speaker 1: to east. That's what you would expect with the way

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Speaker 1: the Earth rotates. Well, you know, I can't say that

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Speaker 1: there is no effect of the rotation is a part

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Speaker 1: of that. There is some effect, but it's mainly caused,

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Speaker 1: I believe we know now by the Sun's effect on

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Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth. Yes, ultimately wind energy is

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Speaker 1: solar energy. Yeah, it's heat differentials, So you have the

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Speaker 1: Sun doesn't heat every part of the Earth exactly the

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Speaker 1: same in exactly the same time. Right, So sometimes you

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Speaker 1: have some places that get hotter than other places. When

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Speaker 1: a place gets hotter than somewhere else, the warm air

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Speaker 1: there rises up off the surface and creates a vacuum, right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that warm air is less dense than the cold

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Speaker 1: air that are that's in surrounding regions. Uh, the you know,

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Speaker 1: you can think of it. It's it's kind of weird

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Speaker 1: to say that the warm air just simply rises. In

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Speaker 1: a sense, the cold air pushes the warm air out

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Speaker 1: of the way because it's denser and is trying to

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Speaker 1: move into that space. But yeah, you've got the warm

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Speaker 1: air that moves faster, it starts to rise up. That

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Speaker 1: creates this vacuum that the cold air rushes in to fill.

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Speaker 1: That creates wind, which has kinetic energy and pushes against you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a funny side actually, we can argue about the

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Speaker 1: pushing the pulling. I've actually heard a story that Buckminster

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Speaker 1: Fuller used to like to correct people out what caused wind.

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Speaker 1: He would say that the wind doesn't blow, it sucks.

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Speaker 1: Think about it for a second. Well, I mean, it

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Speaker 1: does kind of make sense because to to blow, that

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Speaker 1: means you're pushing what what would actually be pushing the air?

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Speaker 1: Pushing is a local action caused by compression. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to be able to create the kind

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Speaker 1: of global weather patterns we observe. But suction can can

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Speaker 1: You can create a vacuum, and that suction can occur

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Speaker 1: over vast distances and cause these global effects. So in

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Speaker 1: a certain way, thinking about a cold north wind, it's

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Speaker 1: actually a warm south suck. Let's not give the Yankees

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Speaker 1: more more more cruel words to use toward us. Uh. No,

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Speaker 1: that that is I would say, that seems accurate to me.

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Speaker 1: That sounds it sounds logical to So next time you're

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Speaker 1: standing in the wind, think about this. The action is

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Speaker 1: happening on the part of you that's not getting blown upon. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Well this also kind of makes me think of the

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Speaker 1: argument about being in a space capsule and there's a

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Speaker 1: breach that you don't get sucked out into space, you're

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Speaker 1: blown out into space because of the difference in pressure. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a whole star Trek next generation where data correct

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Speaker 1: somebody for using that. Well, I would like to see

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Speaker 1: a debate schedule between data and buckminster Fuller, you would. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: neither of them are actually alive. Right, Well, I mean

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Speaker 1: even if data were a real thing, then you have

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Speaker 1: the whole alive debate. There. We're getting off top right, right, right, Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's go back to wind turbines. Okay, sure, So so

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Speaker 1: we we've established this kinetic energy occurs because gas molecules

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Speaker 1: are being pushed or pulled, however you want to think

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Speaker 1: about it, back and forth across the surface of the Earth.

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Speaker 1: We figured out, hey, let's take advantage of that. So

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Speaker 1: we build a big thing that looks like a fan.

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Speaker 1: How on earth does that take advantage of the wind

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Speaker 1: to turn it into electricity? Well, first of all, Joe,

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Speaker 1: have you ever or been in a car and put

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Speaker 1: your hand out the window and just to you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of feel the wind against your hands. Usually I

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Speaker 1: lean out the window and hang my tongue out my mouth.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, let's just pretend like you're a normal

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Speaker 1: human being and you would put your hand out now,

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Speaker 1: have you ever you've done this right where you put

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Speaker 1: your hand out a window where of course, okay, well

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Speaker 1: they've gotta go with me on this, Joe. This is

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Speaker 1: an analogy I'm trying to make here. So you know what,

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Speaker 1: It feels very different if you put your hands, say,

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Speaker 1: parallel to the ground, versus if you tilt it so

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Speaker 1: that the top the you know, like the the inner

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Speaker 1: edge of your hand is higher than the outer edge,

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Speaker 1: and then you can feel more resistance and you feel

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Speaker 1: like that lift. Well, the blades on a wind turbine

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Speaker 1: are designed in order to have a similar effect. They

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Speaker 1: are designed so that they take advantage of a lift

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Speaker 1: to drag ratio that makes it very efficient to translate

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Speaker 1: the kinetic movement of wind into rotational energy, meaning it

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Speaker 1: will turn the rotor. The rotor is the thing that

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Speaker 1: the blades are attached to. In fact, you would consider

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Speaker 1: the diameter of the rotor to be the full diameter

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Speaker 1: of the blades all the way out. That's that's the

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Speaker 1: diameter of the rotor. It's not just the centerpiece of

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Speaker 1: of where the fan blades connect to so the wind

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Speaker 1: blows against these fan blades, which generates this rotational energy.

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Speaker 1: It rotates the rotor which is connected to a shaft.

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Speaker 1: The shaft rotates, it is connected to a generator, and

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Speaker 1: the generator is what creates the electricity. It it actually

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Speaker 1: converts the rotational kinetic energy into electricity. Because as we know,

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Speaker 1: energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but you can

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Speaker 1: convert energy from one form to another, and that's important.

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Speaker 1: So none of this is making energy, right, We're just

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Speaker 1: harvesting energy and transforming it into another form of energy. Uh,

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Speaker 1: Because I mean, it's very easy to say, like we

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Speaker 1: we throw around the word energy and electricity often interchangeably,

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Speaker 1: but it is a little I mean, it's it's inaccurate

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Speaker 1: to do that. So the rotor blade designs are pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: They are meant to be like an airplane's wing, so

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Speaker 1: they are meant to take advantage of that lift to

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Speaker 1: drag ratio. Unlike an airplane wing. Obviously, it's not meant

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Speaker 1: to keep an aircraft in the air. It's meant to

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Speaker 1: be as advantageous to translating that wind into rotational energy

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Speaker 1: as possible. Although a lot of wind turbines either have

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Speaker 1: special blades that can move, uh like you can actually

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Speaker 1: change the orientation of the blade itself within the rotor,

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Speaker 1: or they are designed in such a way that if

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Speaker 1: the wind is blowing beyond a certain speed, the blades

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Speaker 1: won't turn anymore. We'll talk about why that isn't a

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Speaker 1: little bit uh So it's you know that that I

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Speaker 1: think alone is pretty cool. The blades themselves are long

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Speaker 1: because longer blades mean that you have a larger rotor diameter,

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Speaker 1: and that translates into more energy captured from the wind.

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Speaker 1: That makes sense, kind of like how a longer lever

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Speaker 1: will give you more leverage. Yeah, kind of like that.

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Speaker 1: So in general, if you double the rotors diameter, meaning

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Speaker 1: that you have these longer blades, like you double the

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Speaker 1: length of the blades, it quadruples the amount of energy output.

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Speaker 1: But large rotors need stronger winds to move, right, They're

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Speaker 1: heavier because you've got more materials, So there is a

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Speaker 1: law diminishing returns here. You could create a rotor that

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Speaker 1: is has blades that are so long that it's it's

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Speaker 1: so massive and heavy that no wind is going to

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Speaker 1: move it, which means it's it's useless. It's energy. I'll

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Speaker 1: put zero. So you get to a point where like, okay,

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Speaker 1: we can't go any higher than that, because it would

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Speaker 1: require a wind so strong that we're never going to

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Speaker 1: have that experience. So that's an important thing to remember.

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Speaker 1: So in some places, shorter blades are used instead of

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Speaker 1: longer blades exactly. So you want to be able to

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Speaker 1: capture energy, you know, or to at least harvest energy

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Speaker 1: and convert it to electricity. But you know, you can't

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Speaker 1: these huge rotors because the wind is just not powerful

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Speaker 1: enough to turn them. You could still do do the

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Speaker 1: same sort of thing with smaller rotors. It just means

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Speaker 1: that each individual wind turbine is going to be generating

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Speaker 1: less electricity than a larger one operating under ideal conditions.

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Speaker 1: So you would probably need lots of them right in

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Speaker 1: order to generate the same amount of electricity. All right, Well,

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Speaker 1: let's let's look at that electricity part. What's going on

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Speaker 1: at the generator level. We've taken the energy that turns

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Speaker 1: the blades, and that moves something inside the wind turbine itself,

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Speaker 1: inside the the generator housing. How does that turn into electricity? Okay,

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Speaker 1: so a generator is The very basic generator is all

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Speaker 1: based on electromagnetic induction, and we talk about this all

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Speaker 1: the time, both on tech stuff and on forward thinking.

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Speaker 1: Electromagnetic induction plays a huge role in a lot of

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Speaker 1: technologies today, and the basic idea is really simple. This

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Speaker 1: goes all the way back to Faraday Faraday's law. Now,

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Speaker 1: Faraday observed that if you brought a coil of copper

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Speaker 1: wire within the field of a fluctuating magnetic field, it

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Speaker 1: induced electricity to flow through the copper wire. So that's

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Speaker 1: that taught us that a fluctuating magnetic field can induce,

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Speaker 1: actually really technically induces voltage in a conductor. So a

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Speaker 1: generator electromagnetic generators essentially a a copper coil of wire

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Speaker 1: that normally surrounds a rotating shaft with magnets on it.

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Speaker 1: Permanent magnets maybe that's a possibility. Doesn't have to be

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Speaker 1: permanent magnets, but that's a very common one. And as

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Speaker 1: that chef rotates, those rotating magnets create this fluctuating magnetic field,

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Speaker 1: and that induces the voltage in your conductor. Now voltage,

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Speaker 1: you can think of it as like pressure for electricity.

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Speaker 1: So it pushes a current of electricity through and you

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Speaker 1: can then send that electricity down toward a transformer, and

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Speaker 1: transformer steps up the voltage so that you can actually

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Speaker 1: transmit it to the grid because the voltage is involved

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Speaker 1: are going to be fairly low. But transformer is a

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Speaker 1: very easy way of stepping up voltage. It's the basis

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Speaker 1: of AC power transmission. Actually. But we are talking alternating

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Speaker 1: current here, um, because there was realized that didn't Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because direct current you can't. That's not the way you

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Speaker 1: would transmit direct current. You would need a lot of

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Speaker 1: repeaters along that way. Direct current is great if whatever

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Speaker 1: load you're putting on the circuit is close to the

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Speaker 1: actual uh source of power. So a battery is a

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Speaker 1: great example that's direct current. But we're talking alternating so yeah,

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Speaker 1: really basic electronics here. I mean, this is the very

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Speaker 1: basis of alternating current that we're talking about. And and

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Speaker 1: so this is just a physical device that generates electricity

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Speaker 1: through this matter. It's actually pretty dern simple. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: really elegant when you look at it. Now. Granted, the

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Speaker 1: generators that you're going to find in modern wind turbines

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Speaker 1: are more advanced than what I've just described, but they

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Speaker 1: all are based on this fundamental idea. So, uh you know,

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Speaker 1: that's that's your that's the way that when turbines generate electricity. Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about these different designs. Earlier we mentioned sort

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Speaker 1: of the difference between the vertical axis and the horizontal axis.

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Speaker 1: I think the ones that we see most oft under

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Speaker 1: the horizontal axis, right, yeah, those are the ones that

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Speaker 1: were most familiar with. So let's start with the vertical

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Speaker 1: axis ones. Yeah. Yeah, these, uh, these spin around like

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Speaker 1: I would I would say the spinning is similar to

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Speaker 1: that you would see with a carousel or bring around

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Speaker 1: or a record player, that kind of thing. Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: dat it would be rotating in such a way that

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Speaker 1: you could you could look down on it from above

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Speaker 1: and see the axis for rotation, right right, So, uh

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Speaker 1: you know they look pretty funky now h I mentioned

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Speaker 1: a specific one because it's one that's actually in commercial

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Speaker 1: use today, the Darius turbine. And I said it looks

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Speaker 1: like a giant whisk sticking up in the air. But

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Speaker 1: you had a difference, Well, it looks like a wizard staff,

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Speaker 1: or typically the top of a wizard staff like gandalfs

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Speaker 1: or something has little Yeah, beautiful elegant, swirling kind of shape.

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Speaker 1: It looks like it should house a crystal of magnificent

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Speaker 1: ancient power. Yeah, because when you said it looks like

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Speaker 1: the top of a wizard staff, immediately thought of the

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Speaker 1: Discworld series, which has a naughty song called the wizard

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Speaker 1: Staff has a knob on the end. But I don't

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Speaker 1: think that's the kind you're talking about. Okay, Well, at

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Speaker 1: any rate, this thing looks a little funky, and uh,

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Speaker 1: you might ask, well, why don't we see more of these?

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Speaker 1: Because one of the big advantages of the vertical axis

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Speaker 1: wind turbine because that doesn't matter from which direction wind

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Speaker 1: is blowing, it will turn that turbine because the way

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Speaker 1: it's oriented, right, that's the fact it's vertically oriented. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so if wind comes from the east, everything's cool. Wind

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Speaker 1: comes from the north, everything is still cool because it's

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Speaker 1: designed to turn no matter which way the wind is coming.

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Speaker 1: That does sound like a good feature. But one thing

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Speaker 1: I would point out about this from looking at it,

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Speaker 1: it looks kind of delicate. Yeah, it's a little bit

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Speaker 1: on that on the delicate side. It's also you know,

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Speaker 1: because the base of it is near the ground, that

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Speaker 1: actually causes some issues. The biggest issue being that wind

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Speaker 1: at ground level gets broken up by lots of stuff, trees, buildings.

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Speaker 1: You know, wind is not as steady nor as strong

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Speaker 1: at ground level as it is at higher elevations. So

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Speaker 1: that's a problem because unlike the other types of wind turbines,

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Speaker 1: which are usually on very tall uh you know poles,

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Speaker 1: these go all the way down to the ground, and

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Speaker 1: that means you're not going to get as much steady wind.

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Speaker 1: They're less efficiently, or at least they generate less energy

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Speaker 1: less electricity than uh than your typical horizontal axis wind turbines.

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Speaker 1: And uh. Also they take up more more of a

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Speaker 1: footprint on the ground because all of your all of

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Speaker 1: your infrastructure, like the generator and everything that's actually at

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Speaker 1: the base of a vertical axis wind turbine. It's all

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Speaker 1: like you can imagine, like a small building almost at

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Speaker 1: the very base of these things. Uh. And so that

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Speaker 1: means that it takes up more square footage actually on

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Speaker 1: the ground itself, whereas horizontal ones you can have all

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Speaker 1: of those elements, the wind, the generator, everything built into

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Speaker 1: the head of the horizontal axis turbine. So you know,

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00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 1: they're on these tall towers that you'll you'll see like

430
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:32,159
Speaker 1: the really tall they look like almost like, I don't know,

431
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:34,680
Speaker 1: like antenna or something, because they stretch out so far

432
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:39,879
Speaker 1: and they look so relatively thin. Uh. Generally speaking, in

433
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 1: most cases, the only thing that's in the neck of

434
00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:45,960
Speaker 1: those towers is the power cable that comes down and

435
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 1: then goes eventually to a transformer. The stuff like the

436
00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:52,440
Speaker 1: generator and everything, all of that's at the top where

437
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:55,439
Speaker 1: the fan blades are, which makes sense because you know,

438
00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:59,120
Speaker 1: you want to translate that energy into electricity as efficiently

439
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: as possible and don't want to have to turn an

440
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:06,720
Speaker 1: enormous shaft in order to generate this electricity. You want

441
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:10,919
Speaker 1: that to be compact, so they tend to take up

442
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 1: less space actually at ground level, and that's one of

443
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:17,080
Speaker 1: the advantages of the horizontal one. Like we said, that's

444
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:19,960
Speaker 1: those are the ones that you're that look the most

445
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:21,920
Speaker 1: familiar to you. Right, Well, let's talk about those now,

446
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 1: the non wizard ones. Sure. So yeah, I mean this

447
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 1: is essentially the the you know, updated version of the windmill. Right.

448
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:33,080
Speaker 1: These are the ones that look like giant fans. Uh.

449
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:36,639
Speaker 1: They need to be facing into the wind to be effective.

450
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:39,440
Speaker 1: So if the wind is coming from the east and

451
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:42,320
Speaker 1: and your turbines are all facing that way, that's fine.

452
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:45,720
Speaker 1: But if the wind shifts direction, then unless you're able

453
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:49,440
Speaker 1: to turn the turbine so it faces the new direction

454
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: of the wind, you're not going to be harvesting the energy,

455
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,080
Speaker 1: or at least not as efficiently as you should. Uh.

456
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 1: That's why a lot of these, almost all of the

457
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:03,200
Speaker 1: horizontal wind turbines have some sort of yaw control y'aw control,

458
00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: and that allows you to change the direction of the

459
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 1: face of the turbine. Yeah, you mean why a wya? Yeah,

460
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 1: the turning side to side, so that way you make

461
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 1: sure that whatever way you're facing is the most efficient

462
00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:21,159
Speaker 1: way to harvest as much of the energy as you

463
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:27,119
Speaker 1: possibly can. So they also are really tall because wind

464
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:31,439
Speaker 1: speed increases, generally speaking, with elevation. You've probably experienced this

465
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:33,960
Speaker 1: before in your life. If you go up on a

466
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:36,919
Speaker 1: mountain or on the observation deck of a tall building.

467
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: There's just more powerful window here, and you might think, Wow,

468
00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:42,119
Speaker 1: it's really breezy up here and didn't feel like that

469
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: down street level. Well, I mean, your it's not your imagination.

470
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: Wind power does increase with elevation, so that's why these

471
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 1: tend to be really tall. It's also why they tend

472
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:54,560
Speaker 1: to be more efficient, or at least have more of

473
00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:57,920
Speaker 1: an energy output than the vertical access ones, because they

474
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 1: are located at a place where they going to get

475
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: more steady wind. Now elevating that you know, if you

476
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 1: elevate the turbine by twice as much like if you

477
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: go from one height and you increase that height by

478
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 1: a factor of two, it only really results in a

479
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,920
Speaker 1: twelve increase in energy out. But now that's significant, but

480
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 1: it's not the same as increasing the diameter of the rotor.

481
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:27,600
Speaker 1: So doing both helps. And of course if you're increasing

482
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 1: the diameter of the rotor, you have to start increasing

483
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:34,440
Speaker 1: the elevation because eventually the blades get so long that

484
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 1: they would encounter the ground, or they would have they

485
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: would hit that spot where they're getting less steady wind

486
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:45,680
Speaker 1: because of the ground interference. So usually if you're talking

487
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:50,960
Speaker 1: about wind turbine with that's at a really high elevation,

488
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,360
Speaker 1: it also tends to have a really large diameter. Okay, well,

489
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:57,120
Speaker 1: while we're on that subject, I think we should turn

490
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 1: to how much power they actually generate, Like how much

491
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:02,480
Speaker 1: juice can you get out of one of these and

492
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:06,159
Speaker 1: is it fairly predictable? Well, you have to answer some

493
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:08,880
Speaker 1: questions first. I mean, there's not like you can't say,

494
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 1: you know, a wind turbine generates x amount of power.

495
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 1: It really depends on two factors, uh, two main factors,

496
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,640
Speaker 1: multiple factors, but two big ones. One is the wind

497
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:23,439
Speaker 1: speed and UH at whatever position the turbine happens to

498
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:25,719
Speaker 1: be at, so you want to you need to know

499
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 1: what the wind speed is going to be uh. And

500
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 1: another is the diameter of the rotor. Those are the

501
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:32,399
Speaker 1: two factors you need to know. Now. I would have

502
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 1: thought intuitively that the faster the wind, the more power

503
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 1: you get out of it. But that's not exactly right,

504
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: is it. Well, it's you know, if we had perfect

505
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: machines that were capable of harvesting energy no matter how

506
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 1: hard the wind was blowing, then maybe it would be correct.

507
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 1: But that's not the case. The case is that beyond

508
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 1: certain speeds, it no longer becomes safe to operate wind turbines.

509
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: So wind turbines are designed and the generators we use

510
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:04,400
Speaker 1: are are maximized for a particular ideal speed, and it

511
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 1: tends to be thirty three miles per hour or fifteen

512
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: meters per second. That's the maximum energy output, and part

513
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:15,960
Speaker 1: of that is a technological um limitation. Part of it

514
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:20,959
Speaker 1: is just a safety limitation. So at that wind speed,

515
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 1: assuming that you're having an ideal a situation where you're

516
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:30,600
Speaker 1: you're consistently getting that wind speed, which second, yes, that

517
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 1: that at that wind speed, if you have a ten rotor,

518
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 1: it will generate ko watts um at that speed. If

519
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 1: you have a forty rotor, it will generate five kilowatts.

520
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 1: And if you had an eighty meter rotor, which would

521
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: be pretty darn huge, you would generate two thousand, five

522
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: hundred kilowatts. So your average wind turbine generates about one

523
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:55,840
Speaker 1: point eight megawatts of electricity per year under ideal conditions,

524
00:29:56,520 --> 00:30:00,719
Speaker 1: which is not to supply almost six hundred homes with

525
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 1: electricity for that year. Okay, I saw that number and

526
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: decided I would do just a little bit of math. Now,

527
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 1: I'm glad you you took this upon yourself. Joe. Well, uh,

528
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 1: we have to take in mind that we're starting with

529
00:30:14,040 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: some rough estimates here, and there may be factors so

530
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 1: that we're not considering. This isn't a gospel number, but

531
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 1: this is this is just a a armchair right kind

532
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 1: of figure. According to the US Census Bureau, between two

533
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 1: thousand and eight and two thousand twelve, there were a

534
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 1: hundred and fifteen million, two hundred and twenty six thousand,

535
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:36,640
Speaker 1: eight hundred and two households in the United States. So

536
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 1: I compared that against the six hundred homes that each

537
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: of these could power. If you divide that number by

538
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: six hundred, it comes out to a hundred nine two thousand,

539
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 1: forty four point six. So, based on that rough estimate,

540
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: that's how many wind turbines you'd need to power all

541
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 1: the homes in the US for that period. There's probably

542
00:30:56,080 --> 00:31:00,160
Speaker 1: more homes, so so just under two hundred thousand, really, yeah,

543
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 1: two hundred thousands, Now that that would be the homes. Also,

544
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 1: I guess the Census Bureau didn't take into account other buildings. Sure, yeah,

545
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 1: if you were talking about an entire city. Obviously the

546
00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: homes only make up a tiny percentage of all the

547
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: electricity needs. And I'm not sure about those six hundred

548
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:19,280
Speaker 1: homes if that's uh talking about a household of a

549
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: certain type of energy usage, and if that applies across

550
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: the board. So there are a lot of other factors

551
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 1: to consider, but that's kind of an interesting number. Two

552
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: hundred thousand, I mean, that's that's a large number of

553
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 1: wind turbines. But then you spread across an entire country

554
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 1: like the size of the United States, and it doesn't

555
00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 1: become as as as a huge a number on the

556
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: surface as you would first imagine. So um. And also,

557
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:47,479
Speaker 1: you know, wind farms can have a whole bunch of

558
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 1: these together, like like two dozen at a time. But

559
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 1: wait a minute, if you put a whole bunch of

560
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: them together, don't they eventually start stealing all of the

561
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 1: wind that the earth needs? Oh? You mean like if

562
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 1: we if we have too many wind turbines, them will

563
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: will run on a wind and then the world will

564
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 1: just have this weird heating thing because the hot air

565
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: won't go where it needs to go and the cold

566
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 1: air won't go where it needs to go. Yeah, that

567
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 1: would be if you if you subscribed to a UM

568
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 1: Joe Barton's philosophy. Joe Barton is a Texas politician who

569
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 1: actually did claim once that wind power could use up

570
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 1: all of our wind, or at least slow it down

571
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 1: and thus interfere with and this is a quote God's

572
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 1: way of balancing heat. UM it's safe to say that

573
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 1: scientists disagree with this particular point of view. They don't

574
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: think that the wind farms will use up our precious

575
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:45,040
Speaker 1: wind resources there. I mean, it is true that a

576
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 1: wind farm will affect the wind patterns in the general area,

577
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: but not so much as to be significant enough for

578
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: you for it to have any meaningful effect. It might

579
00:32:56,400 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 1: have a measurable effect if you were using very sensitive equipment,

580
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 1: but not in a way that would actually mean that

581
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 1: you know, you're having like climate change issues. Well, are

582
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 1: there any safety issues or anything like that we should

583
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: worry about with wind farms? Sure? I mean, you know,

584
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:17,160
Speaker 1: any device that's going to be operating, especially at that elevation,

585
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 1: with blades that are that long, that's going to be

586
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 1: operating in like in windy environments, they're always going to

587
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:26,480
Speaker 1: be safety concerns. If the wind blows too hard and

588
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 1: those blades turn too quickly, then you could have some

589
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 1: true vibration problems that could cause a failure, a mechanical

590
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 1: and structural failure of the wind turbine to the machine itself. Yeah,

591
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: and then you've got you know, rotor blades flying off

592
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: or something like that. So so you need a safety override. Absolutely, yeah.

593
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 1: I mean you've heard of you know what a resonant

594
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 1: frequency is, right, the idea that if something starts to

595
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 1: vibrate at a frequency that resonates with whatever material it's

596
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 1: made out of, it can get out of control. How

597
00:33:57,120 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: the opera singer breaks the glass. Yeah, I don't know

598
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 1: if that's possible in reality, if we ever looked into that.

599
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:06,160
Speaker 1: I know that h an unamplified voice. It's really I

600
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:08,440
Speaker 1: think it's been done, but it's one of those super

601
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:10,800
Speaker 1: rare things that tends to be an amplified voice that

602
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 1: does it, which which is completely possible. You can find

603
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:16,839
Speaker 1: the pitch of and crystal works best. If you can

604
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 1: find like a piece of crystal like glass and then

605
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: find what the pitches and then use an amplified voice,

606
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:25,879
Speaker 1: you can absolutely shutter it. But so this could also

607
00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 1: shatter a wind turbine, not the opera singer, but the wind. Yeah.

608
00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:30,839
Speaker 1: If the if the wind turbine rotor was turning out

609
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:33,719
Speaker 1: a frequency that resonated with the material, then that could

610
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,000
Speaker 1: be a huge problem. So there are a lot of

611
00:34:36,080 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 1: safety features that are included with wind turbines to prevent

612
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 1: any sort of high speed failures. And high speed wind

613
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: is usually considered something around forty five or tweet twenty

614
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: meters per second or faster, and a lot of them

615
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:53,360
Speaker 1: have a vibration sensor to make sure that it shuts

616
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 1: down in the case of of any kind of influence

617
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:00,359
Speaker 1: that would make the wind turbine vibrate, whether that's high

618
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:03,239
Speaker 1: winds or like an earthquake. And it is one of

619
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: the most elegant, awesome types of of fail safes that

620
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,320
Speaker 1: I've ever heard of. For for your basic vibration sensor,

621
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:13,279
Speaker 1: did you did you happen to see what it was?

622
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:24,799
Speaker 1: There is a little gremlin that lives inside. Is it okay?

623
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 1: It's actually imagine that you have a little platform inside

624
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 1: the this enormous wind turbine, and on that little platform

625
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:37,040
Speaker 1: is a little metal ball and that metal ball also

626
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: is tethered by a chain to a sensor, and the

627
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 1: ball just sits there on the platform. But if the

628
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:48,840
Speaker 1: the the turbine shakes, if this turbine, that that ball

629
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:52,840
Speaker 1: falls off, the platform pulls the chain taut, which activates

630
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:56,719
Speaker 1: the fail safe. It's brilliant, right, It's so simple. It's

631
00:35:56,760 --> 00:36:00,359
Speaker 1: not some sort of digital switch. It's literally this physical thing.

632
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:02,800
Speaker 1: How do you return the ball to its home boyl

633
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:04,399
Speaker 1: and you have to send a maintenance guy out there,

634
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 1: which you would need to do anyway, Like in the

635
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 1: case of something where it's causing a real you know,

636
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 1: safety issue, you would want a maintenance person to come

637
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: out there anyway to give it a good once over,

638
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: to make sure there was no damage to the wind turbine.

639
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 1: To be the person who replaces the ball, that's your job,

640
00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:23,399
Speaker 1: Like you have to love to go and put it. Yeah, Like, well,

641
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 1: well wait a minute, now, So what happens when the

642
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 1: ball rolls off? Does it? Does it like put the

643
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 1: brakes on the rotor? It literally does. Yeah, these rotors

644
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:35,880
Speaker 1: have breaking systems that are meant to immobilize the rotors.

645
00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: So yeah, it engages the brakes so that the turbine

646
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:45,000
Speaker 1: blades won't won't turn anymore and we'll stay uh and

647
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:48,480
Speaker 1: I hope it uses regenerative breaking so that they can

648
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 1: at least get some of the electricity on that. Uh.

649
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 1: You know what, some of these systems also have a

650
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 1: blade realignment system. That's what I was talking about earlier.

651
00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: So remember when I said you have your hand out

652
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 1: of the car window, and when it's when you've got

653
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:03,240
Speaker 1: it angled. You can feel the force of the wind,

654
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: and when you when you move it more parallel to

655
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:07,399
Speaker 1: the ground, you don't feel it as much. The same

656
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 1: sort of thing. The realignment system will realign the blades

657
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 1: so that the wind is no longer pushing against the

658
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 1: blade to create that rotational force, and some of the

659
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 1: blades are designed so that if wind does hit that

660
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: that speed, just because the blade design itself, the blades

661
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 1: will no longer turn with the same force that they

662
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 1: did before, which is kind of cool. It's actually a

663
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 1: physical design of the blades as opposed to, you know,

664
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:37,279
Speaker 1: electronically changing their orientation. Okay, so wind turbines might be

665
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:41,240
Speaker 1: susceptible to high winds, but they have these failsafe features

666
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:42,959
Speaker 1: in place. Though. That does put me in the mind

667
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 1: to think about we should talk about pros and cons.

668
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 1: What are the pros and cons of wind power? Obviously

669
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 1: there's gotta be something going against it. Yeah, but before

670
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 1: we get to that, I mean, the pros are fairly obvious,

671
00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:57,799
Speaker 1: but we shouldn't mention them. At least. The main one,

672
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:01,279
Speaker 1: of course, is that the actual method of action in

673
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 1: the power generation is completely clean. Yes, that you're not

674
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:08,759
Speaker 1: burning anything there are no emissions, you're not using a

675
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:13,680
Speaker 1: finite resource. It's it's clean and it's renewable. And that's

676
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:16,319
Speaker 1: the biggest pro right there, Right, the fact that it's

677
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 1: a renewable source of energy that's not going to cause pollution.

678
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: As as for the generation of that electricity, right, the

679
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:25,759
Speaker 1: actual building of the device may be different, but we'll

680
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 1: talk about that in the second in the And it

681
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 1: allows for domestic energy production, which is really important. Right.

682
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:34,239
Speaker 1: As long as you've got wind, you can make this.

683
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:36,799
Speaker 1: You don't need to get your energy from somewhere else, right,

684
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: And and that's a matter of national security. I mean

685
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 1: people often forget that, but our our energy problems are

686
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,840
Speaker 1: also national security problems. And that was a big reason

687
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:51,759
Speaker 1: why UH. During UH several administrations, presidential administrations, there have

688
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 1: been proposals to find alternatives to fossil fuels, not just

689
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 1: from an environmental standpoint, in fact that's often not even

690
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:02,720
Speaker 1: a rest, but from a national security standpoint. The idea,

691
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 1: we need to be able to produce whatever, you know,

692
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 1: energy source wherever we're going for the storage of energy,

693
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:13,680
Speaker 1: whether that's in fuel or renewable resources or whatever. We

694
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 1: need to be able to do that. Domestically. So that way,

695
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 1: if there ever is a foreign power that we get

696
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:22,840
Speaker 1: into a disagreement with, we don't have to worry about

697
00:39:22,880 --> 00:39:27,760
Speaker 1: them cutting off some needed resources. So it's it's something

698
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,799
Speaker 1: that all countries think about, right, the idea of how

699
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:35,640
Speaker 1: can we be as self sustainable as possible totally? Yeah,

700
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 1: without you know, destroying your own countries and environment and

701
00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:42,840
Speaker 1: air quality and things like that, and of course the

702
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: global questions like climate change and everything that that entails.

703
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 1: But so I think the pros are fairly obvious and

704
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 1: they're pretty substantial, but there have to be some cons

705
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:57,840
Speaker 1: in place, quite a few. They're not necessarily insurmountable, but

706
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: they there are some that you have to knowledge so

707
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 1: that you can at least say, all right, does this

708
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:07,000
Speaker 1: in the long run matter or is this something that

709
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 1: is superfluous? Right? Well, I would say the first one

710
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 1: that comes to my mind is that you can't put

711
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 1: them just anywhere. You've got to be somewhere where you

712
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 1: have the right kind of wind and the supply of

713
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: wind to take advantage of this. Yeah, there's some places

714
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 1: that you don't get a lot of air movement. It's

715
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 1: just because there's you know, that's just the region that

716
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 1: you're in. And if that's the case, then something like

717
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:32,200
Speaker 1: a wind turbine is not gonna be a whole lot

718
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:34,280
Speaker 1: of use. If there's nothing to push against those blades,

719
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:37,840
Speaker 1: you're not going to generate any electricity. So often you

720
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:41,399
Speaker 1: will see uh, these turbines located at places where there's

721
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:45,120
Speaker 1: quite a bit of wind regularly throughout the year. Uh.

722
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 1: You know, if it's one of those things that changes

723
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:49,359
Speaker 1: from season to season, that also is a problem because

724
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 1: it means that in some seasons you'll be generating electricity,

725
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,799
Speaker 1: in other seasons you won't be. So you often see

726
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 1: them along shorelines, for example, because you tend to have

727
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 1: pretty steady winds along those, But you're not going to

728
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 1: see them in areas where there's not this you know,

729
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 1: constant wind. Well, there's another reason you can't just put

730
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:09,480
Speaker 1: them anywhere. That doesn't have to do with the supply

731
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 1: of wind, but with the willingness of the people around

732
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:14,799
Speaker 1: to allow them to be put in place. A lot

733
00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:18,160
Speaker 1: of people don't like wind turbines. They this is big,

734
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:20,320
Speaker 1: it's ugly, I don't like the noise it makes, I

735
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 1: don't like looking at it. And this is the Nimby issue.

736
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 1: The not in my backyard problem. Yeah. Uh, And it's

737
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 1: one of those things that you know, it's understandable. You

738
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: you have let's say that you are a homeowner. Well,

739
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:36,439
Speaker 1: that means you've got you know, money invested in your home,

740
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:38,760
Speaker 1: whether you're the one who bought it or you inherited

741
00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:41,840
Speaker 1: it or whatever. There is value in that and you

742
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:45,200
Speaker 1: don't want anything to decrease that value. That's a hit

743
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:48,120
Speaker 1: to you personally, So I totally understand it from that perspective.

744
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 1: And then there is the nuisance factor to these turbines

745
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: make noise. They actually do generate noise as well as electricity,

746
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 1: so that can be an issue too, and in fact

747
00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 1: plays into another con that is probably one of the

748
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 1: more at least unresolved problems, the thing that we aren't

749
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: entirely sure if it really exists or not. Are you

750
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: talking about wind turbine syndrome. I'm talking about wind turbine syndrome.

751
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:18,320
Speaker 1: I've read about this online. I remember coming across people

752
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:20,880
Speaker 1: just kind of mentioning it in comments something. You know,

753
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:24,040
Speaker 1: you you write something about wind turbines and then somebody

754
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 1: comments like, yeah, but they're making us all sick. You know,

755
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:30,359
Speaker 1: they gave me a disease. I was curious if there's

756
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 1: really anything to that, and I'd say the answer is,

757
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: I don't really know, but it seems kind of doubtful.

758
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 1: I'm skeptical, but skeptical in the sense that if scientific

759
00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:47,279
Speaker 1: research discovered that there is in fact an effect, I

760
00:42:47,320 --> 00:42:50,759
Speaker 1: would say, all right, I was I was skeptical of it,

761
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:53,719
Speaker 1: but it turns out there is an effect here. The

762
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:57,879
Speaker 1: symptoms that are often cited are really vague, like they

763
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 1: often go along with hypochondria. Well, a lot of people

764
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 1: have claimed a lot of different symptoms that they're suffering

765
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 1: because of wind farms, allegedly. There was an article and

766
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:10,880
Speaker 1: New Scientist in October two thousand twelve called the Sickening

767
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:15,000
Speaker 1: Truth about Wind Farm Syndrome that catalogued a lot of

768
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:19,720
Speaker 1: the different claims people have made about what wind farms

769
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 1: did to them. And it seems to just run the

770
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:25,480
Speaker 1: entire gamut everything that you could imagine being wrong with

771
00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 1: a person somebody has blamed on wind farms, which kind

772
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 1: of makes you suspicious, like a real syndrome should have

773
00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:35,480
Speaker 1: a more limited and controlled list of symptoms. Yeah, the

774
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 1: non specific symptoms are a warning flag from especially for skeptics,

775
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:44,839
Speaker 1: but it's also interesting you found a meta study that

776
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 1: was came to an interesting conclusion. Yeah. Well, so there

777
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:52,600
Speaker 1: was a paper in the Journal of Laryngology and Otology

778
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:56,520
Speaker 1: called wind Turbine Syndrome fact or fiction, and it was

779
00:43:56,560 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 1: a review of other published reports on the health effect

780
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 1: wind turbines that have come out in the past ten

781
00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 1: years or the past ten years from last year, so

782
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:08,359
Speaker 1: it would have been I guess two three through and

783
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 1: their findings were inconclusive. But I'll just read you what

784
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:15,960
Speaker 1: they said in their little abstract in the results, they said,

785
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:19,800
Speaker 1: there is evidence that infrasound, and this is the sound

786
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:23,720
Speaker 1: phenomenon that's supposedly created by wind turbines causing this problem,

787
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:28,480
Speaker 1: there is evidence that infrasound has a physiological effect on

788
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 1: the ear. Until this effect is fully understood, it is

789
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:35,440
Speaker 1: impossible to conclude that wind turbine noise does not cause

790
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:38,759
Speaker 1: any of the symptoms described. However, many believe that these

791
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:43,840
Speaker 1: symptoms are related largely to the stress caused by unwanted

792
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:48,239
Speaker 1: noise exposure. So in other words, the noise is irritating

793
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:52,399
Speaker 1: and that may in fact be the cause. Like it's

794
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 1: more of a hate hearing that as opposed to this

795
00:44:55,600 --> 00:45:01,359
Speaker 1: cause is directly the the reason why I have these symptoms. Right,

796
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:04,839
Speaker 1: So they basically say, there is some evidence to think

797
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:08,800
Speaker 1: you might be experiencing some symptoms because of turbine noise,

798
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:11,800
Speaker 1: but we don't know. And the they said the effects

799
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: of infrasound require further investigations. Essentially, somebody should do a

800
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:18,879
Speaker 1: controlled study on this so we can actually find out

801
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:21,440
Speaker 1: what's going on, whether, if anything, whether or not there

802
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 1: is a true physiological effect, or it's just annoying, and

803
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 1: so the effects that we that we feel as a

804
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:30,839
Speaker 1: result of that are more about being annoyed and less

805
00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:33,920
Speaker 1: about directly the noise itself. Right though, I don't want

806
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:37,320
Speaker 1: to be dismissive of the annoyance factor. I mean, having

807
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 1: a a constant sort of grading noise going on in

808
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 1: the place where you live can be a real problem.

809
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:47,400
Speaker 1: I can see how that would cause psychological stress on somebody,

810
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:50,759
Speaker 1: and so I'm not dismissing the way they feel if

811
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 1: that is really the source of how they feel. It

812
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:55,880
Speaker 1: may be the case that a lot of the people

813
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:58,799
Speaker 1: who claim to be suffering from wind farm syndrome are

814
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 1: just feeling st based on this noise. But but the

815
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:05,760
Speaker 1: bottom line is we need more research. Somebody should actually

816
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 1: look into this in a rigorous and controlled way. Absolutely. Yeah.

817
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 1: So so the jury is still out on that. There

818
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:16,880
Speaker 1: are other cons with wind turbines that are uh you know. Again,

819
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:21,520
Speaker 1: there's there's debate on how extensive the con is, but

820
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:24,560
Speaker 1: it's clear that there is a con For example, uh,

821
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 1: that they can have a very negative impact on bird

822
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 1: and bat populations. They can kill birds and bats. Now

823
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 1: there's some that claim that this love borders on massacre,

824
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:39,320
Speaker 1: that it's it's wholesale slaughter of animals. There are the

825
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 1: reports that say that yes, birds and bats do sometimes

826
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:48,000
Speaker 1: uh collide with wind turbines and it kills the animal,

827
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:50,959
Speaker 1: but that if you were to compare it to other

828
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:55,680
Speaker 1: means of electricity production, the animal deaths are actually much

829
00:46:55,800 --> 00:47:01,719
Speaker 1: lower than comparable means of generating electricity, and that it

830
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 1: may not impact animal births the way other methods of

831
00:47:06,040 --> 00:47:10,279
Speaker 1: electricity generation do. So without doing a study where you

832
00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 1: look at both the the birth rate and the death

833
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 1: rate of animals, you can't really come to a conclusion

834
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:20,600
Speaker 1: saying wind turbines are more dangerous than other means of

835
00:47:20,640 --> 00:47:24,320
Speaker 1: generating electricity. Now, they are they do have a negative impact.

836
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 1: You can't get around that. The question is how bad

837
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:29,160
Speaker 1: of a negative impact is it, and is it worse

838
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 1: than other methods. Yeah, it seems almost hilarious to me

839
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 1: the idea that someone from like the coal lobby could

840
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 1: be saying, look, wind farms are really devastating the local ecology. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

841
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:45,959
Speaker 1: It's the wookie defense. Hey look at the wookie. Um yeah,

842
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:47,839
Speaker 1: it's a little it's a little weird, but I mean

843
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 1: it is one of those things that you have to

844
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:53,040
Speaker 1: take into consideration. Uh, there's also the issue of carbon footprint.

845
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 1: We mentioned that the generation of electricity is greenhouse gas

846
00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:02,760
Speaker 1: emission free, but the manu facture the construction of these

847
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:06,480
Speaker 1: wind turbines all have a carbon footprint and that you

848
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:10,960
Speaker 1: have to take that into account. Pretty much any way

849
00:48:10,960 --> 00:48:13,000
Speaker 1: of generating power. I can't think of one where that

850
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:15,840
Speaker 1: wouldn't be sure. It's just one of those It's just

851
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:17,680
Speaker 1: one of those that you you know, you're like, all right, well,

852
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:19,799
Speaker 1: you've got to look at the big picture and then

853
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:22,680
Speaker 1: you make your determination. And I think from a big

854
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 1: picture perspective it's kind of a non factor. But you

855
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:28,320
Speaker 1: also have rare earth minerals that you have to think about,

856
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:32,440
Speaker 1: neodymium magnets, permanent magnets that are used in a lot

857
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:36,120
Speaker 1: of these Uh, those are rare earth minerals, which largely

858
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 1: just come out of China, and there are there's a

859
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:42,160
Speaker 1: whole suite of issues related to that. In fact, I've

860
00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:45,240
Speaker 1: done an episode of tech stuff about rare earth minerals,

861
00:48:45,239 --> 00:48:47,160
Speaker 1: So if you want to hear the whole story, you

862
00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 1: can go and listen to that old episode. But just

863
00:48:50,080 --> 00:48:53,000
Speaker 1: suffice it to say that that also comes with some issues.

864
00:48:53,040 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 1: It's again, I don't think it's insurmountable. I don't think

865
00:48:56,160 --> 00:48:59,480
Speaker 1: it's a bigger issue than say, burning fossil fuels, but

866
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 1: it is one you have to take in consideration. Uh So, yeah,

867
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:04,359
Speaker 1: there are there are a lot of issues like that.

868
00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:09,560
Speaker 1: And one another con to consider is that economically speaking, uh,

869
00:49:09,600 --> 00:49:12,359
Speaker 1: the generation of electricity through wind power is still more

870
00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: expensive than with fossil fuel. Sure, and that's so that's

871
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:18,640
Speaker 1: a big goal in the wind energy industry is to

872
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:21,680
Speaker 1: bring that price per kill a lot down so that

873
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:25,239
Speaker 1: it is competitive against fossil fuels, so that there's an

874
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:30,120
Speaker 1: economic incentive to pursue wind energy, not just the environmental

875
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: and national security side, right, And that's the problem we

876
00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:36,080
Speaker 1: always see with less prevalent technologies or newer or you know,

877
00:49:36,120 --> 00:49:39,719
Speaker 1: emerging technologies. They're they're just more expensive until they can

878
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:42,480
Speaker 1: reach the point of market saturation where it becomes cheaper

879
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:45,839
Speaker 1: and cheaper and cheaper. Either that or the alternative, the

880
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:48,719
Speaker 1: fossil fuels become so expensive as to make it more

881
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 1: competitive that way, right, or you could subsidize the heck

882
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 1: out of it from the government. That's what happens in California. Yeah,

883
00:49:56,000 --> 00:50:01,000
Speaker 1: but there's some really cool future uh implementations of wind

884
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:03,879
Speaker 1: technology we need to cover really quickly. We've talked about

885
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:06,359
Speaker 1: a couple of these on Forward Thinking before. Yeah, so

886
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:09,320
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about the solar wind energy tower really briefly,

887
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:12,440
Speaker 1: just to explain what it is because it's a neat concept. Well,

888
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:16,040
Speaker 1: you should know that the acronym is sweat without an A. Yes,

889
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:19,160
Speaker 1: W S W E T. I'm gonna get that acronym

890
00:50:19,280 --> 00:50:22,040
Speaker 1: right one of these days. So, yeah, this is ah,

891
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 1: this is an interesting concept. Imagine a tower without a

892
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:27,759
Speaker 1: top and it's not in the desert I'm doing it.

893
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:30,760
Speaker 1: I'm imagining really tall tower. So you've got super hot

894
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:33,680
Speaker 1: air inside this tower because you're in a desert, and

895
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:36,400
Speaker 1: then you spray some water at the top of the tower,

896
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:39,120
Speaker 1: which cools the air at the top, and that cold

897
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:41,359
Speaker 1: air is much more dense than the hot air that's

898
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 1: beneath it, So it's gonna start to sink, and it's

899
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:45,520
Speaker 1: going to pick up speed as it's going down the

900
00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:48,720
Speaker 1: interior of this tower, so it falls faster and faster

901
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:50,759
Speaker 1: and faster. And at the base of the tower, on

902
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:54,520
Speaker 1: the inside, you have all these wind turbines facing inward,

903
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:57,440
Speaker 1: so that the air rushing to the bottom of the

904
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: tower goes out through these turbine. It's turning the turbines

905
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:04,560
Speaker 1: and generating electricity. So that's the basic ideas that with

906
00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:07,280
Speaker 1: these these sort of towers you can generate a significant

907
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:10,080
Speaker 1: amount of electricity this manner, it does have some fact

908
00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:12,880
Speaker 1: there's some some drawbacks. One is that you have to

909
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:14,680
Speaker 1: put it in a place where the air is gonna

910
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:17,719
Speaker 1: get really hot, and another is that requires water. So

911
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:20,960
Speaker 1: generally speaking, the places that get really hot sometimes have

912
00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:24,239
Speaker 1: limited access to water, which means you have some transportation

913
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 1: issues to get water out there. But it's a neat idea,

914
00:51:27,840 --> 00:51:29,440
Speaker 1: and so that's one of the ones we wanted to

915
00:51:29,480 --> 00:51:33,600
Speaker 1: talk about, what about a floating wind turbines and therese

916
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 1: are in different parts of the world, although in the

917
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:40,080
Speaker 1: United States it's a fairly new idea. It's offshore wind farms.

918
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 1: Now we have two different coasts with two different, very

919
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:46,960
Speaker 1: very different environments here in the United States. On the

920
00:51:46,960 --> 00:51:51,320
Speaker 1: Atlantic side, it's a nice gradual drop off for the

921
00:51:51,440 --> 00:51:54,400
Speaker 1: offshore area, so you could actually have wind turbines that

922
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:59,040
Speaker 1: are anchored to the ground fairly effectively. Uh. The West

923
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:01,800
Speaker 1: Coast is different. The West Coast, the continental shelf drops

924
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:04,600
Speaker 1: off steeply, so you can't do that. So there's some

925
00:52:04,719 --> 00:52:08,760
Speaker 1: experiments like off the coast of Oregon with floating wind farms.

926
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:12,200
Speaker 1: They're essentially on floating platforms that are anchored um, which

927
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:14,080
Speaker 1: is challenging. You know, you have to make sure that

928
00:52:14,120 --> 00:52:16,440
Speaker 1: this thing is going to be stable, especially since it's

929
00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:19,800
Speaker 1: gonna be capturing wind. So there are some engineering challenges

930
00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:24,000
Speaker 1: around that, but it's pretty exciting stuff. Uh. And this

931
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:27,319
Speaker 1: one demonstration project off the coast of Oregon was coming

932
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:31,239
Speaker 1: online this year and UH, we're eager to see how

933
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:33,760
Speaker 1: it plays out, whether or not it it's a success.

934
00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 1: There's another one that's going to be off the east

935
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:38,239
Speaker 1: coast in two thousand and sixteen. Let to stay off

936
00:52:38,239 --> 00:52:41,719
Speaker 1: the coast of Massachusetts. Um. There are some states that

937
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:47,040
Speaker 1: are opposed to this for various reasons, largely because a

938
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:51,600
Speaker 1: certain family is very influential in some of those states.

939
00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:53,839
Speaker 1: It's a family that starts with a K and ends

940
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:57,520
Speaker 1: with an O C H. But anyway, Uh, yeah, it's

941
00:52:57,560 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 1: really it really is true. It's a political thing, not

942
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:03,799
Speaker 1: just environmental or energy thing. Uh. Then we have inflatable

943
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:07,719
Speaker 1: wind turbines. These are like the giant turbine balloons. Have

944
00:53:07,760 --> 00:53:10,279
Speaker 1: you seen these? Oh, it's so cool. Think of like

945
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:16,800
Speaker 1: a giant inflated doughnut and in the center pictures of these, Yeah,

946
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:20,000
Speaker 1: obviously I haven't seen them in person. They look amazing.

947
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:23,000
Speaker 1: So imagine like a big hot air balloon type thing,

948
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:25,800
Speaker 1: except in the shape of a donut and it floats,

949
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:29,320
Speaker 1: and in the center, suspended by cables is an actual

950
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:32,960
Speaker 1: wind turbine. So wind blows through this kind of inflated

951
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:36,880
Speaker 1: wind tunnel and gets captured by this wind turbine, and uh,

952
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:39,560
Speaker 1: it's tethered to the ground by power cables as well

953
00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:42,319
Speaker 1: as you know, a strong tether and sends the electricity

954
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:45,919
Speaker 1: down that way. Uh. These are largely meant for out

955
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:49,080
Speaker 1: of the way, small locations, like a little village that

956
00:53:49,280 --> 00:53:52,480
Speaker 1: isn't near anything else. It's not necessarily meant to supplement

957
00:53:52,600 --> 00:53:56,000
Speaker 1: a power grid of a large like city. But it's

958
00:53:56,000 --> 00:53:58,640
Speaker 1: still a really cool idea and the images are great,

959
00:53:58,680 --> 00:54:00,759
Speaker 1: and it reminds me a Big Hero six, which if

960
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:02,839
Speaker 1: you haven't seen, you need to go out and see that.

961
00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:07,319
Speaker 1: But they have floating wind turbines as part of the

962
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:10,520
Speaker 1: world that is shown off in that movie, and it's gorgeous.

963
00:54:11,520 --> 00:54:12,920
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it. You told me it was a

964
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:16,319
Speaker 1: sort of beautiful future. It is. Yeah. And when I

965
00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:18,799
Speaker 1: when I do a forward thinking episode and I talk

966
00:54:18,840 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 1: about the amazing future, I imagine a future that looks

967
00:54:22,080 --> 00:54:24,400
Speaker 1: a lot like the city in Big Ero six. You

968
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 1: know what that actually reminds me of is the other

969
00:54:26,840 --> 00:54:30,680
Speaker 1: airborne wind power generation method we've talked about before, which

970
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:35,360
Speaker 1: is wind power drones, the ones from mccannie Power that

971
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:38,520
Speaker 1: Google X ended up acquiring. Okay, so Google x is

972
00:54:38,600 --> 00:54:42,160
Speaker 1: the the super secret art research and development arm of Google.

973
00:54:42,719 --> 00:54:45,200
Speaker 1: That's where the driverless cars came out of, as well

974
00:54:45,239 --> 00:54:49,320
Speaker 1: as other stuff and mcconnie power. They created a a

975
00:54:49,480 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 1: drone and automated drone that looks kind of like a

976
00:54:53,719 --> 00:54:58,400
Speaker 1: particularly large model airplane with a really wide wingspan and

977
00:54:58,480 --> 00:55:01,920
Speaker 1: multiple propellers UM and what they do is they launch

978
00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 1: it up into the air. It's it is like a kite.

979
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:08,840
Speaker 1: It's it's tethered to the ground, and it flies in

980
00:55:08,920 --> 00:55:12,920
Speaker 1: a big circular pattern vertical circle to the ground and

981
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:15,360
Speaker 1: orientation to the ground, so it kind of mimics the

982
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:20,839
Speaker 1: pathway that a wind turbine blade would take. So it

983
00:55:20,920 --> 00:55:24,560
Speaker 1: goes in these big circles and it captures wind energy

984
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:28,040
Speaker 1: that way. Now, the the CEO of mccannie Power, the

985
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:30,600
Speaker 1: head of mccannie power, has said that he believes he

986
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:34,839
Speaker 1: can get the price down to three cents per kilowatt hour,

987
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 1: which would make it cheaper than coal, if that's in

988
00:55:38,520 --> 00:55:40,920
Speaker 1: fact true. Now, I've seen some skepticism about whether or

989
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:44,239
Speaker 1: not that's actually attainable, but it is a really interesting

990
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:48,200
Speaker 1: figure if that's actually possible. And uh, the I guess

991
00:55:48,239 --> 00:55:50,600
Speaker 1: these things have to be super light. Yeah, they talk

992
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:53,279
Speaker 1: about making it out of carbon fiber, so it would

993
00:55:53,320 --> 00:55:56,920
Speaker 1: be much lighter than any sort of existing wind turbine

994
00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:00,880
Speaker 1: UM and so they weigh very little. They really efficient,

995
00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:04,600
Speaker 1: really cheap. At least the energy production would be really cheap.

996
00:56:04,600 --> 00:56:06,759
Speaker 1: I don't I don't imagine the actual production of the

997
00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:10,200
Speaker 1: drone would be that cheap, but it Uh. It's really

998
00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:13,759
Speaker 1: an interesting approach because it also would require much less

999
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:17,360
Speaker 1: space than your typical wind farm. It would be deployable.

1000
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:19,120
Speaker 1: You'd be able to pull it in if the wind

1001
00:56:19,160 --> 00:56:21,440
Speaker 1: were ever getting to a point where you're thinking, well

1002
00:56:21,440 --> 00:56:23,960
Speaker 1: that there's no sense in generating it's not going to

1003
00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:26,839
Speaker 1: generate enough electricity to justify having it out. You could

1004
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:29,440
Speaker 1: actually pull it in if you wanted to. UM. So

1005
00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:31,839
Speaker 1: it's kind of an interesting approach. Whether or not it'll

1006
00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:36,160
Speaker 1: ever be practical for large scale electricity production, I don't know,

1007
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:40,160
Speaker 1: but it's The videos out there are really neat, so

1008
00:56:40,239 --> 00:56:43,120
Speaker 1: I recommend checking them out if you can. So, Joe,

1009
00:56:44,000 --> 00:56:47,919
Speaker 1: you're ready to wrap up wind power? Okay, I think

1010
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:51,600
Speaker 1: I think I've been full of hot air this entire episode,

1011
00:56:51,640 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna spare everybody else anymore. Joe, thank you

1012
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:57,960
Speaker 1: so much for joining us, Thanks for having me so

1013
00:56:57,960 --> 00:56:59,600
Speaker 1: so tell him what you do here at how stuff

1014
00:56:59,640 --> 00:57:04,320
Speaker 1: works Well. I am a writer and podcaster for Forward Thinking,

1015
00:57:04,760 --> 00:57:07,359
Speaker 1: which is the other show that Jonathan's on. So if

1016
00:57:07,400 --> 00:57:09,879
Speaker 1: you can't get enough of this man's ego, I can't

1017
00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:12,839
Speaker 1: imagine that you come over and listen to Forward Thinking,

1018
00:57:12,840 --> 00:57:15,279
Speaker 1: where we talk about the future. Yeah, tech stuff here

1019
00:57:15,360 --> 00:57:17,880
Speaker 1: is technology. There's a little bit of overlap before thing,

1020
00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:19,760
Speaker 1: and we talked about technology a lot. We also talk

1021
00:57:19,800 --> 00:57:24,320
Speaker 1: about science and what the future is gonna monsters. We've

1022
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:27,280
Speaker 1: done episodes about the monsters. We've done X Men, we

1023
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:30,200
Speaker 1: just recently did one on how to catch a time traveler.

1024
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:34,680
Speaker 1: We've done a lot of fun, done a lot about bugs. Well,

1025
00:57:34,720 --> 00:57:37,320
Speaker 1: a big I think a big topic for future technology

1026
00:57:37,360 --> 00:57:40,720
Speaker 1: is bio memetics. How you turn bugs into the technology

1027
00:57:40,760 --> 00:57:44,240
Speaker 1: of tomorrow sometimes literally. Yeah, it's pretty cool stuff. So

1028
00:57:44,240 --> 00:57:46,080
Speaker 1: go check that out, guys, and remember if you have

1029
00:57:46,120 --> 00:57:49,640
Speaker 1: any suggestions or subjects here for tech stuff or guests

1030
00:57:49,760 --> 00:57:52,640
Speaker 1: or you know, interviews, anything like that, send me a message,

1031
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:54,960
Speaker 1: let me know about it. Our email is tech stuff

1032
00:57:55,040 --> 00:57:57,400
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, or drop us a

1033
00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:00,720
Speaker 1: line on Facebook, Tumbler or Twitter. They handle it. All

1034
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:03,240
Speaker 1: three is tech stuff hs W and we'll talk to

1035
00:58:03,280 --> 00:58:09,880
Speaker 1: you again really soon for more on this and thousands

1036
00:58:09,920 --> 00:58:21,960
Speaker 1: of other topics. Because it has to works. Dot Com