If Wind turbines look so ugly, why don’t we just…?

Question

Why don’t people just make small tiny ones, & put them all over the city, all over the buildings?

Think about it, why have one big one when you could have millions of small ones?

Answer 1

Smaller bladed turbines need a higher sustained wind speed. Larger bladed turbines can capture more wind at a lower sustained speed. This is because the power of the wind that the turbine blade captures is proportional to the square of its blade-length.

Smaller bladed turbines will stall in low wind conditions. Whereas large bladed turbines will keep moving in even the slightest breeze. Motion equals power...

Answer 2

In general the larger the wind turbine the more efficient it is. Unfortunately if you make to too small it will become so inefficient that it will not be able to generate any power.

Also as others have noted the small the wind turbine the more expensive it is. The other answers have not said why this is true. Wind turbines generate power proportional to the swept area of the blades, that is the area of a circle the diameter of the blades. The way that works, if you double the length of the blades you will increase the swept area by a factor of four.

So basically a wind turbine that has blades twice as long will cost twice a much to build but will produce four times the power.

If you were to make a tiny windmill that was 100 times smaller than a large windmill to generate the same amount of power you would need 10,000 windmills, which would cost about 100 times more than a single large windmill.

One good way to use large windmills is to put them on large floating platforms out in the ocean far from land. That way no one needs to look at them. Another great part of that idea is that because the ocean is flat the wind is much more steady and strong than it is on land so it is really a very good place to put wind mills. Windmills do not really have to be that far away to be hard to see. Between 5 and 10 miles from shore is all it takes to make them invisible. There are a number of other advantages to putting windmills out at sea.

The article below: "Giant Wind Turbines: Floating wind farms placed far offshore could lead to affordable electricity -- without cluttering the view" was published in May of this year.

Answer 3

thats a neat idea with some cool imagery (all the little fans)

but it just costs too much to do it that way

not only does a thousand little turbines cost way more than one big turbine that can make the same electricity, the equipment and wiring to connect one turbine to the grid is much much less than what it would take to connect many many turbines here and there and everywhere

maybe with the development of self replicating machinery (to take care of the manufacturing of many little turbines) and some sort of beamed energy transfer (to fix the connection problems) we could see something like that

seems very very unlikely that that could ever be cost effective

even big turbines are not cost effective (not worth building and operating for the amount of electricity you will get) except in certain places where the wind and topography are right

remember, to be used, an energy source can't cost more than other energy sources available at the same time and place

Answer 4

Wwhat's the point? Having more millions make it worse, it's better to have a big one therefore you can produce more wind energy to power more houses than have 20 mini-wind turbines at the roof of your house to power your house. Right?

Answer 5

1) we wouldnt have that much space to install the millions of small wind turbines

2) all the mechanical and electrical would have to be miniaturized (nanotechnology) which would make it economically unviable

3) Energy losses would be more in million of small wind turbines as compared to a bigger one producing same power

Answer 6

You have to locate where winds are high and steady such as a mountain pass. Your way would produce little power even with millions of them and the power would be erratic. Also, I doubt it would be cost effective.

Answer 7

A news report indicates one wind farm is now using more (43% I think) energy than it is producing. So much for solving the energy crisis.

Answer 8

even in the alternate reality where making wind turbines is free, that is a bad idea

Answer 9

I say who cares if they look ugly? In a few years, the whole Earth will look uglier than ever before if we don't get over how "ugly" they look and use some alternate energy.

People are so petty! You don't think that smog and pollution are ugly? If it helps the Earth out..whats the difference if it doesn't look 'pretty'?!

DEAL WITH IT. SAVE THE EARTH.

Answer 10

its simple, the wind will blow them off. although being small, they wont fxn as a wind turbine.