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Jim Elbrecht Jim Elbrecht is offline
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Default Wide vs narrow blades (was: New study on wind energy)

On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 06:09:59 -0700 (PDT), jamesgangnc
wrote:

On Jul 20, 9:03*am, Home Guy wrote:
HeyBub wrote:
"The wind energy business is the electric sector's equivalent of
the corn ethanol scam: it's an over-subsidized industry that
depends wholly on taxpayer dollars to remain solvent while
providing an inferior product to consumers that does little, if
anything, to reduce our need for hydrocarbons or cut carbon dioxide
emissions."


When you look at an ordinary fan, it has large blades that occupy a
significant portion of the cross-sectional swept area.

When you look at a wind turbine, the blades are very thin, occupying a
very minimal amount of swept area, allowing much of the wind energy to
flow right through or between the blades.

If a fan has fan blades that are designed to *efficiently move air*,
then why won't that same basic blade design also be *efficiently moved
by air* ?


That's not true. Look at a propeller airplane. It's blades move air
and they are long and thin.


I feel an aerodynamics lesson coming.

Jim