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January 11, 2008
Windy Friday

bigger

Six megawatt wind turbine Enercon E 126 near Emden, Germany, build late 2007.

Expected output 20 million kilo watt-hours per year, enough for 5,000+ households. High of hub 430 feet (131m), rotor diameter 416 feet (127m), tower base diameter 48 feet (14,5m) – more here (pdf, page 6f)

This year they will build one of these some 3 miles from my places. Can’t wait to see it growing …

Posted by b on January 11, 2008 at 19:55 UTC | Permalink
Comments

Beautiful photo.
Once, terribly lost in Spain on a frosty muddy slippery ridge road, a stand of these monsters loomed out of the fog like ancient dragons. Quite eerie.
And completely OT, post-dinner and a bottle of Spanish red, here’s this:
The legacy tour.

Posted by: Hamburger | Jan 11 2008 21:28 utc | 1

sweet. must be nice to live in a country that’s thinking, planning, preparing, and building for a more sustainable future.

Posted by: ran | Jan 11 2008 21:47 utc | 2

Totally awesome!

Posted by: Ben | Jan 12 2008 0:25 utc | 3

Beautiful! [was going to say totally awesome but it was taken 🙂 ]
Is this one of yours b?

Posted by: beq | Jan 12 2008 2:25 utc | 4

There is still a future somewhere on this earth.
If you haven’t seen the video, here’s the Grove GTK 1100:
http://www.manitowoccranegroup.com/MCG_GRO/Products/EN/GTK1100.asp
http://forum.bauforum24.biz/forum/uploads/post-501-1194694345_thumb.jpg (the big one)
http://directory.forconstructionpros.com/productguide/images/8/75408-large_GroveWorl_GTK1100Cr_21795.jpg
Incredible video, must be why Vertikal.net crashed.
http://www.vertikal.net/en/videos.php when it’s back.
http://www.kransite.de/english/companys.htm
Enjoy, b.

Posted by: Tante Aime | Jan 12 2008 3:15 utc | 5

We are building a similar windmill right on our campus and 10 miles south of us 20 or so have been mounted on a small ridge. It’s cool to see the wind provide our energy. These things work just fine in our -25 degree weather too. I’ll try to snag some pictures. Up close those blades are amazingly large.

Posted by: Diogenes | Jan 12 2008 3:18 utc | 6

Now that is beautiful. I have always wanted to work for a crew who installs these babies. I’d love to work on a wind farm and maintain these things.
*Big Smile*

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 12 2008 3:29 utc | 7

http://www.kransite.de/english/companys.htm

Posted by: Petey | Jan 12 2008 3:34 utc | 8

hard to get past the doorman:
http://www.kransite.de/__krane/ltm1400-1/ga-prenz-jun04/images/ltm1400-1ga-prenz-01.jpg

Posted by: Hardy Plank | Jan 12 2008 3:39 utc | 9

@beq – Is this one of yours b? No – I don’t know the author.
I’ve been at that site and made some pictures too, but it was rainy that day.

Posted by: b | Jan 12 2008 6:17 utc | 10

wow. they’ve really improved on those things compared to the one 3 miles from my place 😉

Posted by: b real | Jan 12 2008 7:06 utc | 11

Well, as I’ve said before, everybody in Denmark knows that windmills were invented here, along with the first airplane and typewriter and how to be racist and humanitarian at the same with a squeaky clean conscience.

Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Jan 12 2008 7:31 utc | 12

We have several of them on the hillside just outside of Bacharach on the Rhine. The foundations were old Pershing missile silos. Talk about swords into ploughshares.
And a really brilliant American inventor came up with a system to make wind energy even more attractive: instead of just powering a generator, the windmills runs an air compressor; the compressed air can be then tapped to generate electricity even when the wind isn’t blowing.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Jan 12 2008 11:35 utc | 13

The Danish invented the airplane? As a North Carolinian who lives about three hours from Kitty Hawk, that is news to me! I thought it was the French.

Posted by: Growth Factor | Jan 12 2008 20:39 utc | 14

The Wright Brothers flew a powered glider at Kitty Hawk in 1903, lots of inventors all over the world had done that before then.
But the Wright Brothers were the first aircraft manufacturers to offer an airplane to sale on based on its ability to perform to set specifications – that it would fly at least one mile at a height of at least 100 feet and land within 400 yards of its starting place – in 1908.
And up to that point, nobody else in the world had built or offered for sale an airplane that could be expected to perform to any such specifications.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Jan 12 2008 21:31 utc | 15

But, if it’s that tall, won’t it interfere with the view from the Kennedy’s summer house in Hyannis?

Posted by: Peter VE | Jan 12 2008 22:16 utc | 16

#5 If you haven’t seen the video, here’s the Grove GTK 1100:
Tante Aime
#5Tante Aime(the big one)
#5Tante Aime
#5 Incredible video, must be why Vertikal.net crashed.Tante Aime when it’s back.
#8Petey
#9Hardy Plank

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 13 2008 3:28 utc | 17

So how come Africa is not peppered with steel windmills, solar ovens, hydrogen plants, very light rail, and those great new solar panels on many flat surfaces, powering electric bikes, pumps for water, light for the hospital at night?
Because such gadgets costs a bomb, are on the whole not energy efficient (hard to calculate), require heavy maintainance, roads, trucks, engineers, Gvmt.subisidies….
Because only the rich west, guzzling oil, can afford them as emblems of green hopes. Because Africa is to be exploited, kept down, never helped or merely left alone.

Posted by: Tangerine | Jan 14 2008 18:03 utc | 18

Africa and others don’t have them because their govts are so corrupt the established energy industries can buy them off. See the story about the new Kenian dictator, it’s like that. France is just dying to sell its reactors to anyone as is everyone else.
In Germany these windmills are most often financed and run by small dedicated companies. They’re actually those who work against the quasi-monopolies of the multinational energy giants who have no intention to have their high-tech industrial mafia structures replaced with this kind of low-tech, decentralised industry.

Posted by: antonymous | Jan 15 2008 11:34 utc | 19

If the “high of hub” is 430 feet, and the rotor diameter is 416 feet, how close do the rotor tips come to the ground?!

Posted by: ferd | Jan 15 2008 22:33 utc | 20

@ferd
430-416/2= 222 feet

Posted by: b | Jan 15 2008 22:41 utc | 21

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