Observing wind farms from 35,000 feet

[phantom power]

Last week I was flying cross country, and on the way we passed three wind farm installations. Thoughts that ran though my head, in no particular order

1) It's kind of cool that you can see three wind farms, on a single great-circle between PHX and DTW.

2) Less happily, I noticed that none of the rotors was turning, in any of the three.

3) I could see the rotors pretty easily from 35 thousand feet. These things are big.

4) Each turbine was serviced by it a road. These roads appeared to be constructed specifically to access the turbines. It caused me to wonder what that would be like when we have hundreds of thousands of turbines, or millions. Lots of new road.

[ixion]

1. lots of new road... using the road as a passive solar collector

that's just all the more energy the farm can produce. :)

[Dead_Parrot]

2. Interesting point

Any idea if they were paved? (Not easy to tell from 6½ miles up, but I thought I'd ask ;))

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. The ones I've seen seem to have been dirt

(Like this one.)

[Dead_Parrot]

7. I've never seen a paved one

but then, I'd never really thought about it...

[phantom power]

6. I'm pretty sure none of it was paved.

Also, I was interested that the access roads used a lot of spurs, sort of like this:






As opposed to something more systematic, like this:






I'm sure such things must be dictated by site characteristics.

[Dead_Parrot]

8. I'm guessing there's lots of automated optimisation in there.

The famous "Traveling Don Quixote" problem. :D

That systematic one looks ghastly, for some reason: Maybe that's just me, though.

[phantom power]

9. It made me think "optimal spanning trees" but it may also be just topography

If you have a bunch of turbines up on ridge-lines, the roads are likely to follow ridges and/or valleys. On a flat plain, the boring grid-based layout is probably the most straightforward.

[Ian David]

3. If you watch "Life after People" you'll know that roads don't last forever.

When the wind farm is either closed, or becomes serviced by people using anti-gravity jetpacks, the roads will vanish.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Yeah, I don't need a TV show to tell me that

I've seen first hand what happens to abandoned stretches of road.

[JohnWxy]

10. visible from 35,000 ft. I wouldn't have guessed!

You could have gotten them spinning if your pilot would have just buzzed them. :evilgrin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeIKAypmI9k -- hold onto your hat!