WEBVTT - TechStuff Gets Breezy 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:12.160 Get in touch with technology with tex stuff from either 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.440 is welcome to text uff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, and today 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.800 joining me in the studio is uh, you know a 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.280 good friend of mine, pillworker guy who also works with 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:27.400 me on Forward Thinking, Joe McCormick. No stranger to the program. Hi, everybody. 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:29.520 I think last time I was here was a few 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.840 weeks ago and we were talking about ghost voices coming 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.319 through the radio. Yeah, so I figured we should talk 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.720 about something a little more conventional this time. Okay, all right, 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:42.959 that sounds good. But not boring. No, not not boring, No, 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:46.640 we're not. I just mean not bordering on the realms 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:50.240 of the paranormal. Yeah, although the topic we picked does 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:56.960 have its share of interesting controversy, that being wind turbines. 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:00.640 And the reason we picked this is because our listener 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:03.840 Justin on Twitter quite some time ago, said I think 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:05.440 it would be great if you could do a podcast 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.880 on wind turbines if you haven't already. Frankly, I am shocked. 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:11.080 You've been doing tech stuff this long and you have 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.120 not done wind turbines. I'm shocked too, and I'm scared 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:18.319 to do a search right now to make absolutely certain 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.280 that you didn't do it a few years ago. Yeah, 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.000 I mean it's possible, but that doesn't stop me from 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:26.760 doing a full episode. I mean, for one thing, if 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:28.559 we did cover it, it was back when I didn't 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:33.160 even know anything. You were lies. I knew nothing, John Snow. 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.400 So now I feel like I know a lot, and 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:39.640 or at least my research food is stronger, and so 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.720 I feel that we can have fun talking about this 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.440 and do the subject matter justice. So first of all, 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:49.000 I guess we should just mention what a wind turbine is, 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:52.920 and dudes, you probably know, but just in case, it 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.840 is a device that converts the kinetic energy from wind 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:02.440 into electricity. Sounds some well enough, except if you take 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:05.960 out that electricity part and get a little more loosey 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.119 goosey with the definition, I think the topic becomes even 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:12.160 more interesting because then you can really look way back 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:14.840 into history and find examples. Oh sure, I mean, like 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:19.480 using wind to do work for us dates back millennia, 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.280 and we're talking about like that's the principle behind sale. 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:26.840 It's one of the oldest ways to leverage natural forces 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.280 to do our jobs for us, apart from living on 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.400 a high place and needing to get down to a 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.880 low place. It's one of those really simple ways of 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.919 of exploiting really the natural world. And so if you're 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:42.680 not very imaginative, you may be thinking, wait a minute, 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:46.200 how do we use wind power things in the ancient world? Well, 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:50.840 you may have seen something before called a windmill. Yeah. Yeah, 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.600 windmills date pretty far back that Some of the earliest 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:59.320 ones are the day date back to the two in China. 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:03.720 They were before don Quixote. Even. Yes, they were used 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:07.000 to pump water, so all ancient water pumps. And then 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:11.519 you also around that same time had vertical axis windmills 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.280 in Persia and the Middle East to grind grain. Wait 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.680 a minute, vertical axis, So that means that the windmill 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.000 is sort of being blown laying flat instead of standing 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:23.799 up right, well, instead of it looking like a fan 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.880 and and turning on that axis, you rotate that access 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:32.040 ninety degrees. So it's like a food processor. Yeah, more 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:33.880 like a food process. We'll talk we'll talk about the 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:37.240 differences between vertical access and horizontal access and why the 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.320 horizontal axis is the one we're mostly familiar with. That's 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.080 the if you think of modern wind farms, you're thinking 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:47.320 horizontal axis. Uh, turbines. But well, we'll get into that later, okay. 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.040 So we can use them to pump water, we can 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:51.760 use them to to turn a big stone and grind 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.000 grain into dust. That's really what we were using it for, 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:57.960 starting with the Middle Ages and moving forward, especially in 0:03:57.960 --> 0:03:59.960 the Western world. You know, that was that was when 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.360 the rest of the when the Western world started to 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.760 catch on to this technology that had been used for 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.440 hundreds of years and other parts of the world. Uh. 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.120 And really to get to the point where we're using 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:13.880 wind to generate electricity, you have to get to about 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:17.839 eight seven. And that's when a physicist and engineer named 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:23.360 James Blyth or Blithe depending upon your pronunciation. Yeah, there's 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:25.840 some spellings of his name that includes an e at 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.520 the end, which which lends credence to that pronunciation. He 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:33.640 installed a wind turbine with blades made of sailcloth at 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:39.440 a vacation home he had and yeah, seven it stored 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:43.039 electricity and what he called accumulators, which are essentially batteries, 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:47.440 so had that was a storage methodology. They were full 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:51.200 of lead and quite lethal. Yeah. I read one account. 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:55.359 Now I hesitate to even mention this account because it 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.440 feels like it might be apocryphal to me, but I 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.479 read one account where he even offered to sell his 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:06.320 excess electricity to the surrounding village, but they discounted it 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:11.440 for it was the devil's work. I I have no 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:13.479 it sounds like one of those legends. Yeah, it's it 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.440 feels a little, a little on the legendary side to me. 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:20.239 But a few months after Blythe had installed his first 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:24.800 wind turbine, an American engineer named Charles F. Brush installed 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.480 a wind powered turbine of his own behind his mansion 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.880 in Ohio. The tower was sixty ft high, which is 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:36.280 about eighteen meters, so this was This was no tiny structure. 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:41.080 It was quite large. And sometimes brush is um is 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.400 mentioned as the first person to make a wind turbine 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:48.000 that generates electricity, which gets all the blythe fans up 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:51.480 in arms. At any rate, it's around this time, late 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.080 nineteenth century that people first started to create these sort 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.880 of things. That's really interesting. But I'm wondering, maybe I 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:01.080 just don't have a good sense of history at this point. 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.400 What were they doing with all that electricity in eighteen seven, 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:09.800 probably powering very early light bulbs that didn't last terribly long. 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:11.960 That would be the most that that would what be 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:14.680 what I would expect most of the electricity would go towards, 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:19.159 especially since these were both attached to residences. So these 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.520 weren't you know, these weren't the early days of a 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:26.719 power grid. This was for a specific location. As for 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.240 wind turbines, well, by the early nineteen hundreds, you had 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.039 more engineers experimenting with ways to use wind power to 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:37.240 generate electricity, and by the nineteen forties it became pretty important, 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:41.880 particularly in places that were involved with World War Two, 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.360 because things like coal we're really important for the war effort, 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:47.800 which meant that we had to be we had to 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:51.480 find ways of conserving it back at home, and so 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:53.640 it had a lot of people looking to things like 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:57.720 wind power to supplement what would normally be a cold 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:03.080 based energy grid. And uh by the time World War 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:06.760 two had ended, we started seeing fuel prices come down, 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:10.760 and it ended up killing wind power pretty much because 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.600 unlike wind power it was cheap, wind power was actually 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:19.080 expensive to build and maintain. And uh so why would 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.080 you spend the money for wind power when you have 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:27.400 this enormous source of fossil fuels that are much less expensive. Yeah, Well, 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.600 making use of wind powers seems to require more foresight. 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:32.880 You've got to have infrastructure in place, You've got to 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.200 have you know, appliances that take advantage of great electricity 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:39.440 using coal and oil. That's just easy, just set fire 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:43.880 to it. Yeah, and only that you also had less 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:48.080 of an awareness of the effects of using fossil fuels 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:52.600 and what they're long term consequences could be. So without 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.800 that knowledge, there was very little incentive to pursue wind 0:07:55.840 --> 0:08:00.880 power as a meaningful supplement to our our energy needs. 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:04.040 And so it really wasn't until the nineteen seventies when 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.600 we started getting oil shortages that win power started to 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:11.160 rise to prominence again because now suddenly it was much 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:13.760 more expensive to get hold of fuel, and so it 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:16.080 made sense to look for alternatives. And then you get 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:18.640 into the environmental movement of the late seventies and into 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:22.240 the eighties, and that kind of helped perpetuate wind power, 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:25.800 and by the nineteen nineties we got to an era 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:29.760 where that was again a big focus, and that kind 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:31.760 of leads us up to today where we now have 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.640 lots of different companies and people looking into wind power 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.360 and finding out if it's if it's an all a 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.400 you know, a viable means of generating enough electricity for 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.520 it to be worth the investment, which is that's a 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:49.480 legitimate question. Yeah, well it seems to be a money question, right, 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:53.199 I mean, it is certainly a viable means of generating electricity. 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:57.080 The question is will it generate enough electricity um and 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.880 be cheap enough to be worthwhile to invest in, right 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.520 or could there be alternatives that would make more sense? 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:06.160 So that that's the question that people are asking, and 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.000 it's a good question to ask because it'll direct us 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:13.640 to the the most likely candidates to meet our needs 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:18.760 while we hope um not contributing to the problems that 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:21.120 we've seen with fossil fuels. Well, let's talk about how 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.920 wind turbines actually work. All right. So air is a fluid, 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.440 just let you know start that off. Gases are essentially 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:32.640 they work by fluid dynamics. Wait, I thought fluid was 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:35.800 synonymous with liquid. Well, liquids are fluids, but that's not 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.240 I didn't really know. I know that. But you know, 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.040 air will fill up a container and take the shape 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:44.560 of whatever containers in Then if you open up that 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.960 container and the air is whatever whatever gas is in there, 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:49.720 if it's lighter than the surrounding air, it will of 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.360 course come out of the container. It'll also pour into 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.480 a vacuum if given the opportunity. That is correct, And 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:58.320 so when this air is in motion, that's what we 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.760 call wind. Yeah, I know, I'm not I know all 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.400 of this is really simple, but it's the basis for 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:06.840 wind power. That that when that wind is moving, when 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:09.800 those air particles are moving, they carry force. But you 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.280 might step back a bit and say, wait a minute, 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:14.840 why does the air move in the first place. That 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:16.760 doesn't make any sense. You know. What I used to 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:18.920 think when I was a kid was that, Well, it's 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.920 because the Earth is turning, right, and the gas is 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.040 just kind of floating around on top of it. So 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.280 like the gases is free floating and not at all 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.720 affected by by the gravity that the rest of us are. 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.840 And so since the world is turning, the wind is 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:38.240 blowing against us. That's that's quaint it also would you 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.520 know it seems very intuitive because you think about the 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:44.600 way weather patterns move in the United States from west 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.040 to east. That's what you would expect with the way 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:49.240 the Earth rotates. Well, you know, I can't say that 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:53.120 there is no effect of the rotation is a part 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:55.800 of that. There is some effect, but it's mainly caused, 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:59.120 I believe we know now by the Sun's effect on 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.760 the surface of the Earth. Yes, ultimately wind energy is 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.520 solar energy. Yeah, it's heat differentials, So you have the 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.760 Sun doesn't heat every part of the Earth exactly the 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.760 same in exactly the same time. Right, So sometimes you 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.480 have some places that get hotter than other places. When 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.319 a place gets hotter than somewhere else, the warm air 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:22.680 there rises up off the surface and creates a vacuum, right. Yeah, 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.120 that that warm air is less dense than the cold 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.840 air that are that's in surrounding regions. Uh, the you know, 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.079 you can think of it. It's it's kind of weird 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:33.520 to say that the warm air just simply rises. In 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:36.280 a sense, the cold air pushes the warm air out 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.160 of the way because it's denser and is trying to 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.680 move into that space. But yeah, you've got the warm 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.720 air that moves faster, it starts to rise up. That 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.560 creates this vacuum that the cold air rushes in to fill. 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:51.240 That creates wind, which has kinetic energy and pushes against you. Yeah, 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:54.199 there's a funny side actually, we can argue about the 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:57.719 pushing the pulling. I've actually heard a story that Buckminster 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.360 Fuller used to like to correct people out what caused wind. 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.320 He would say that the wind doesn't blow, it sucks. 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:09.080 Think about it for a second. Well, I mean, it 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:11.800 does kind of make sense because to to blow, that 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.480 means you're pushing what what would actually be pushing the air? 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:20.080 Pushing is a local action caused by compression. Uh. And 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:22.120 it doesn't seem to be able to create the kind 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.680 of global weather patterns we observe. But suction can can 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.360 You can create a vacuum, and that suction can occur 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:32.880 over vast distances and cause these global effects. So in 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.120 a certain way, thinking about a cold north wind, it's 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:41.040 actually a warm south suck. Let's not give the Yankees 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:45.800 more more more cruel words to use toward us. Uh. No, 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.280 that that is I would say, that seems accurate to me. 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:53.240 That sounds it sounds logical to So next time you're 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.400 standing in the wind, think about this. The action is 0:12:56.440 --> 0:13:01.120 happening on the part of you that's not getting blown upon. Yeah. 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:03.480 Well this also kind of makes me think of the 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.960 argument about being in a space capsule and there's a 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.240 breach that you don't get sucked out into space, you're 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:14.400 blown out into space because of the difference in pressure. Yeah, 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:17.640 there's a whole star Trek next generation where data correct 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:19.720 somebody for using that. Well, I would like to see 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.880 a debate schedule between data and buckminster Fuller, you would. Unfortunately, 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.840 neither of them are actually alive. Right, Well, I mean 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:30.920 even if data were a real thing, then you have 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.640 the whole alive debate. There. We're getting off top right, right, right, Okay, 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:36.959 let's go back to wind turbines. Okay, sure, So so 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:41.440 we we've established this kinetic energy occurs because gas molecules 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:43.720 are being pushed or pulled, however you want to think 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.319 about it, back and forth across the surface of the Earth. 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:48.880 We figured out, hey, let's take advantage of that. So 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.720 we build a big thing that looks like a fan. 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:55.560 How on earth does that take advantage of the wind 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.160 to turn it into electricity? Well, first of all, Joe, 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:01.480 have you ever or been in a car and put 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.280 your hand out the window and just to you know, 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:06.600 kind of feel the wind against your hands. Usually I 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:09.200 lean out the window and hang my tongue out my mouth. 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:11.319 All right, well, let's just pretend like you're a normal 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.920 human being and you would put your hand out now, 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:15.520 have you ever you've done this right where you put 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.280 your hand out a window where of course, okay, well 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.280 they've gotta go with me on this, Joe. This is 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:23.240 an analogy I'm trying to make here. So you know what, 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:25.840 It feels very different if you put your hands, say, 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.440 parallel to the ground, versus if you tilt it so 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:31.800 that the top the you know, like the the inner 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.480 edge of your hand is higher than the outer edge, 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:37.200 and then you can feel more resistance and you feel 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:41.040 like that lift. Well, the blades on a wind turbine 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.080 are designed in order to have a similar effect. They 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.240 are designed so that they take advantage of a lift 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:51.000 to drag ratio that makes it very efficient to translate 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:55.840 the kinetic movement of wind into rotational energy, meaning it 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.360 will turn the rotor. The rotor is the thing that 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.040 the blades are attached to. In fact, you would consider 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.960 the diameter of the rotor to be the full diameter 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.120 of the blades all the way out. That's that's the 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:09.800 diameter of the rotor. It's not just the centerpiece of 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:14.600 of where the fan blades connect to so the wind 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:19.600 blows against these fan blades, which generates this rotational energy. 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.320 It rotates the rotor which is connected to a shaft. 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:26.440 The shaft rotates, it is connected to a generator, and 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:30.120 the generator is what creates the electricity. It it actually 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.800 converts the rotational kinetic energy into electricity. Because as we know, 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.560 energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but you can 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:42.880 convert energy from one form to another, and that's important. 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:46.080 So none of this is making energy, right, We're just 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:51.760 harvesting energy and transforming it into another form of energy. Uh, 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.400 Because I mean, it's very easy to say, like we 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:57.840 we throw around the word energy and electricity often interchangeably, 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:01.280 but it is a little I mean, it's it's inaccurate 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:05.280 to do that. So the rotor blade designs are pretty cool. 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:08.880 They are meant to be like an airplane's wing, so 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.160 they are meant to take advantage of that lift to 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.640 drag ratio. Unlike an airplane wing. Obviously, it's not meant 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.600 to keep an aircraft in the air. It's meant to 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:22.080 be as advantageous to translating that wind into rotational energy 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.960 as possible. Although a lot of wind turbines either have 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:30.520 special blades that can move, uh like you can actually 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:35.360 change the orientation of the blade itself within the rotor, 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:38.160 or they are designed in such a way that if 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:42.080 the wind is blowing beyond a certain speed, the blades 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:45.160 won't turn anymore. We'll talk about why that isn't a 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:49.640 little bit uh So it's you know that that I 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.040 think alone is pretty cool. The blades themselves are long 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:55.520 because longer blades mean that you have a larger rotor diameter, 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.160 and that translates into more energy captured from the wind. 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.440 That makes sense, kind of like how a longer lever 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:05.080 will give you more leverage. Yeah, kind of like that. 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:08.639 So in general, if you double the rotors diameter, meaning 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:10.680 that you have these longer blades, like you double the 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.720 length of the blades, it quadruples the amount of energy output. 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:19.320 But large rotors need stronger winds to move, right, They're 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.399 heavier because you've got more materials, So there is a 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:26.240 law diminishing returns here. You could create a rotor that 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.440 is has blades that are so long that it's it's 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:32.359 so massive and heavy that no wind is going to 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:34.720 move it, which means it's it's useless. It's energy. I'll 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:36.840 put zero. So you get to a point where like, okay, 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.320 we can't go any higher than that, because it would 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:41.159 require a wind so strong that we're never going to 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:45.520 have that experience. So that's an important thing to remember. 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:49.119 So in some places, shorter blades are used instead of 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:53.159 longer blades exactly. So you want to be able to 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:56.120 capture energy, you know, or to at least harvest energy 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.200 and convert it to electricity. But you know, you can't 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.800 these huge rotors because the wind is just not powerful 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:04.840 enough to turn them. You could still do do the 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:06.760 same sort of thing with smaller rotors. It just means 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.720 that each individual wind turbine is going to be generating 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:15.480 less electricity than a larger one operating under ideal conditions. 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.080 So you would probably need lots of them right in 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.239 order to generate the same amount of electricity. All right, Well, 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:22.800 let's let's look at that electricity part. What's going on 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:25.719 at the generator level. We've taken the energy that turns 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.840 the blades, and that moves something inside the wind turbine itself, 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:34.679 inside the the generator housing. How does that turn into electricity? Okay, 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:38.480 so a generator is The very basic generator is all 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:42.880 based on electromagnetic induction, and we talk about this all 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.480 the time, both on tech stuff and on forward thinking. 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.679 Electromagnetic induction plays a huge role in a lot of 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:53.560 technologies today, and the basic idea is really simple. This 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.760 goes all the way back to Faraday Faraday's law. Now, 0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:00.879 Faraday observed that if you brought a coil of copper 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.280 wire within the field of a fluctuating magnetic field, it 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.600 induced electricity to flow through the copper wire. So that's 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:12.040 that taught us that a fluctuating magnetic field can induce, 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:17.440 actually really technically induces voltage in a conductor. So a 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:23.800 generator electromagnetic generators essentially a a copper coil of wire 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:29.040 that normally surrounds a rotating shaft with magnets on it. 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:32.080 Permanent magnets maybe that's a possibility. Doesn't have to be 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.160 permanent magnets, but that's a very common one. And as 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:39.800 that chef rotates, those rotating magnets create this fluctuating magnetic field, 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.560 and that induces the voltage in your conductor. Now voltage, 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:47.280 you can think of it as like pressure for electricity. 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:50.879 So it pushes a current of electricity through and you 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:54.680 can then send that electricity down toward a transformer, and 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:57.879 transformer steps up the voltage so that you can actually 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:02.320 transmit it to the grid because the voltage is involved 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:04.600 are going to be fairly low. But transformer is a 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.680 very easy way of stepping up voltage. It's the basis 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.280 of AC power transmission. Actually. But we are talking alternating 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:15.720 current here, um, because there was realized that didn't Yeah, yeah, 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:18.240 because direct current you can't. That's not the way you 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:20.119 would transmit direct current. You would need a lot of 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.600 repeaters along that way. Direct current is great if whatever 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:27.120 load you're putting on the circuit is close to the 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:31.359 actual uh source of power. So a battery is a 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:35.360 great example that's direct current. But we're talking alternating so yeah, 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.880 really basic electronics here. I mean, this is the very 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:42.280 basis of alternating current that we're talking about. And and 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:48.280 so this is just a physical device that generates electricity 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.560 through this matter. It's actually pretty dern simple. Yeah, it's 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:55.760 really elegant when you look at it. Now. Granted, the 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:58.520 generators that you're going to find in modern wind turbines 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.680 are more advanced than what I've just described, but they 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:06.159 all are based on this fundamental idea. So, uh you know, 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:10.560 that's that's your that's the way that when turbines generate electricity. Okay, well, 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:13.560 let's talk about these different designs. Earlier we mentioned sort 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.959 of the difference between the vertical axis and the horizontal axis. 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:19.280 I think the ones that we see most oft under 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:21.639 the horizontal axis, right, yeah, those are the ones that 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:23.600 were most familiar with. So let's start with the vertical 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.560 axis ones. Yeah. Yeah, these, uh, these spin around like 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:30.000 I would I would say the spinning is similar to 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:32.200 that you would see with a carousel or bring around 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:35.399 or a record player, that kind of thing. Uh, you know, 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:37.960 dat it would be rotating in such a way that 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:40.760 you could you could look down on it from above 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:44.280 and see the axis for rotation, right right, So, uh 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:48.040 you know they look pretty funky now h I mentioned 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.600 a specific one because it's one that's actually in commercial 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:54.880 use today, the Darius turbine. And I said it looks 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:56.879 like a giant whisk sticking up in the air. But 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.439 you had a difference, Well, it looks like a wizard staff, 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:02.679 or typically the top of a wizard staff like gandalfs 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:08.520 or something has little Yeah, beautiful elegant, swirling kind of shape. 0:22:08.960 --> 0:22:12.600 It looks like it should house a crystal of magnificent 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:17.280 ancient power. Yeah, because when you said it looks like 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:19.320 the top of a wizard staff, immediately thought of the 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:22.560 Discworld series, which has a naughty song called the wizard 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:25.000 Staff has a knob on the end. But I don't 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:27.680 think that's the kind you're talking about. Okay, Well, at 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:30.919 any rate, this thing looks a little funky, and uh, 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:33.960 you might ask, well, why don't we see more of these? 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:36.480 Because one of the big advantages of the vertical axis 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:40.399 wind turbine because that doesn't matter from which direction wind 0:22:40.480 --> 0:22:43.040 is blowing, it will turn that turbine because the way 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:46.560 it's oriented, right, that's the fact it's vertically oriented. Yeah, 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:50.080