Wind turbines are already huge, but they’re about to get way, way bigger
…..Taller turbines, the report said, will be critical to an outlined DOE vision in which wind comes to supply 20 percent of all U.S. power by the year 2030, and then, 35 percent by the year 2050. For the 2030 vision to be realized, wind power must be expanded to 49 out of 50 U.S. states — not all of which have lower-level winds that are strong or reliable enough to be tapped with the technologies most commonly used now.
Because of friction, wind generally blows with less energy lower to the ground than it does as you ascend into the atmosphere. Thus, the key trick for expanding wind power to new areas is to build turbines tall enough and also strong enough to capture wind energy at greater altitudes. According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), a height of 80 meters for wind turbines has been the “state of the art for multiple years,” but there are already some thousand wind turbines in the United States that are taller than 100 meters.
