World's Largest Wind Turbine

PeteJones writes "'Construction work on the REpower 5M was successfully completed last night with the installation of the rotor. Thus the main work on the prototype of the 5-megawatt, world's largest wind turbine has finally been completed.' The pictures are quite impressive. With 3 18-ton rotor blades pumping out 5 MW I wonder if my neighbours would mind one in my backyard?"

New from Ronco.

[Moby Cock]

It slices! It dices! It makes julienne fries!

Now if they attach a heater

[Anonymous Coward]

...they could create a politician and run for public office. The amount of hot air produced would give it an insurmountable advantage.

IN the middle of an election year

[Anonymous Coward]

It should get plenty of hot air to spin it,

Re:New from Ronco.

[MouseR]

Yeah... I bet the bird collector down at the bottom is quite large.

I hope it doesn't break

[Anonymous Coward]

That'd reall blow.

Uhm.. NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

With 3 18-ton rotor blades pumping out 5 MW I wonder if my neighbours would mind one in my backyard?

This is Joe from down the street.
Please.. just please, stay in your mother's basement, you creep.

Re:Wind Requirement

[pmazer]

Convert to mph or your favorite units at will.

"I believe I read that it will run with winds of between 7.82927702 mph and 55.9234073 mph. With a nominal wind of 29.0801718 mph."

And somewhere.....

[ShatteredDream]

Some nerd is thinking, "where can I get THAT kind of power for my beanie....."

Re:Wind Requirement

[Naffer]

I for one, hail our new significant-digit cognizant overlords.

Re:Wind power efficiency

[Whyte]

If anything, those windmills will bring back more "natural" conditions.

Minus the part with whirling steel blades that regularly vivisect birds and flying mammals you mean?

Re:Wind power efficiency

[gnalle]

The large windmills are effective because there is more wind at higher altitudes [windpower.org]. The windspeed v(z) as function of height z is given by

v(z) = v0 ln(z/z0 )/ln(z1 /z0 )

Here v0, z0 and z1 are constants. Here is a nice site [windpower.org] about windmill engineering.

Re:Wind Requirement

[ThatsNotFunny]

I don't know... how many politicians do you have?

Re:Why don't we do cleaner energy all over

[MikeCapone]

But how are oil exec and the politicians they buy supposed to make a decent living? Think of their children!

Re:Unfortunately, birds save weight on brain...

[Rolo Tomasi]

Wouldn't this produce smarter birds though? I mean, if the landscape were plastered with windmills, all the stupid birds would die out after a few generations, resulting in a new species of hyper-intelligent birds that would take over the world and start a fast food franchise called Kentucky Fried Human!!1!!

That's What I'm After

[Anonymous Coward]

If I can figure out a way to blow it over the mobo - my cooling problems are OVER !!!
*for now*

Re:Wind Requirement - everyone's favorite units

[Analogy Man]

21045.09663 to 78167.5018 furlongs/fortnight

Re:De-FUD'ing windpower.

[Ziviyr]

The key to a sensible energy future is to not be fanatical for/against any one source, but to exploit them all where and how it makes sense.

Yeah, human furnaces are really being ignored here.

When I die I want to be contributed to the energy grid.

Re:Wind Requirement

[ErikZ]

Because walls make very poor windmills?