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'Windmill': China tests world’s first megawatt-level airship to capture high winds (interestingengineering.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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"High-altitude winds between 1,640 and 3,281 feet (500 and 10,000 meters) above the ground are stronger and steadier than surface winds. These winds are abundant, widely available, and carbon-free.

"The physics of wind power makes this resource extremely valuable. “When wind speed doubles, the energy it carries increases eightfold, triple the speed, and you have 27 times the energy,” explained Gong Zeqi "

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[–] 26 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Its cubic actually

https://thundersaidenergy.com/downloads/wind-power-impacts-of-larger-turbines/

I don't understand the physics, but every model of power output from wind turbines uses V^3 for the formula

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    That's a good link.

    During the stampede scene in the Lion King, imagine the wildebeests were stampeding twice as fast. Then Simba's dad Mufasa would not only have quadruple the amount of energy imparted by each wildebeest, but also be trampled by twice as many wildebeests per second, so the rate of energy imparted on Mufasa per second would be 4 x 2 = 8 times greater when velocity doubles.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    thx for the link! just spent the last hr reading about windmills. and although I live in a country full of them I've often wondered, but never really paused to ponder about the intricacies that go into windmill design. fascinating stuff!

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I work with statistics and joined a wind power forecast project, so I have been reading papers on wind power generation for the past month. There's other more complex formulas that the one shared on the link, but that was the first I found not pay walled.

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