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How the World’s Biggest Plane Would Supersize Wind Energy (www.wsj.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/energy@slrpnk.net
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[–] 4 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

I'm interested, although a lot of this sounds very carbon intensive, which is not discussed in the article. I could imagine that it might still be carbon negative after a certain number of years of operation, but it wouldn't surprise me if the benefits were negligible.

Also: you know how in the Onion, the last line is usually the punchline to the article? I think it's pretty hilarious that this article finishes this way:

The plane would be able to fit one large, offshore-sized blade at a time, or it could carry as many as four shorter blades. Lundstrom also thinks it has other uses for moving large equipment for the military or oil-and-gas industry.

I'm glad wind is taking off, but Jesus tap dancing Christ, the Wall Street Journal crowd is so fucking determined to pretend that this isn't all taking place against the backdrop of a civilization-scale threat. It's... it's exhausting.

I like the zeppelin idea, btw. They actually mention blimps in the article and say "they can't land in wind". Yeah, neither can planes if it's strong enough, and you also have to build a 6000 ft runway. So... tradeoffs, you know? I wish airships got more consideration.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    That last bit: yeah I imagine that's a foghorn out to investors so they can get funded.

    For the carbon footprint, I think it'll be negligible. For the purpose of moving blades, you'll only need a handful of these planes. Until the wind farms really get spun up but you could easily use 1 plane per 1-5 giant windmills at a time since the transport of the blades will far outpace the construction and assembly. So unless we're building a lot all at once, a small fleet will be all that's needed. And the costs of this aircraft to fuel will only be a few times a normal big jet, that we have going thousands a day.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    I think that's probably true. I think the fuel is almost certainly negligible, but the overall construction of these windmills sounds like it at least deserves discussion.

    I just think it's weird that the WSJ appears to cover the transition to renewables with some kind of petty insistence on NOT discussing any climate issues.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    I like the zeppelin idea, btw.

    That is really a good idea indeed!

    As the plane seems not to solve the current problem at all. Large blades can already be transported via river barge close to the onshore locations. Or via road, as long as those are wide and straight enough. The problem are the last few kilometres narrow roads through protected forest, along small creeks, up the mountains etc. Alternatively to building a runway in such a remote location, one could also build a wider road. It would impact nature, protection laws and residents in similar ways and completely avoid new problems coming with the plane idea.

    A Zeppelin on the other hand could skip the part with a huge runway or wide road completely and just hover over the location and lower the payload, like a helicopter. I have no clue if that is doable from weight, wind influence etc, but the idea seems way smarter than a large aircraft requiring a huge runway.

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