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Steelwinds

Catherine & I are just back from visiting our friends in Kent, OH. On the way there, I knew we’d pass the new Steelwinds wind farm in Lackawanna, but I didn’t realise just how striking it would be from the Buffalo border crossing. We drove into Lackawanna, and parked on the lake shore. Steelwinds looks like this:

Steelwinds, Lackawanna, NY

The Clipper turbines turn extremely slowly, and are some of the most graceful ones I’ve seen. Good work!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 24th, 2007 at 22:57:41 and is filed under Wind Things. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Steelwinds”

  1. Rob Scovell Says:
    June 24th, 2007 at 23:45:18
    Excuse my ignorance, but is slow turning good? I’m assuming it indicates efficiency, right?

    Rob

  2. scruss Says:
    June 25th, 2007 at 07:04:09
    They’re slow only because they’re big. Big or small, turbine blade tips have about the same linear velocity, so the longer the blade, the less the rotational speed (since v = rĪ‰).

    These turbines are about 96-100m in diameter. The first ones I worked with were about ⅓ of that, and the (quarter century old!) one on Fair Isle is about ⅙.

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