The World’s Largest Wind Turbine Has Been Switched On::It’s turbo time.
50,000 square meters (nearly 540,000 square feet)
That’s approximately 3 square Walmarts
just one of these turbines should be able to produce enough electricity to power 36,000 households of three people each for one year.
per year? per lifetime? per second?
One year per year. And no, they obviously don’t understand basic math.
According to the corporation, just one of these turbines should be able to produce enough electricity to power 36,000 households of three people each for one year.
These types of statements always trip me up. Why one year? If it’s producing that amount of energy in that same year, shouldn’t it just be “…power 36,000 households of three people.”?
As an engineer feels like the turbine will only work for a year
They’re leaving out an important part of the claim.
I can set up some piezoelectric things in my office chair such that when I sit my fat ass down it generates a small electrical charge. I can say that my ass can generate enough electricity to power a million homes for 10 years, assuming I don’t tell you how long it takes to generate that power, which would be on the order of decades, if not centuries, if not longer.
I’d wager someone saw the average energy output for the expected service lifetime of the turbine, then was like, “How much energy does one 3-person household use?” and started playing with Excel until they got a good mix of time and # of households for the press release.
Because it does not run at the same capacity 24/7. Sometimes it produces energy for 0 households and sometimes for 50,000. Total production in one year corresponds to the yearly consumption of 36,000 households.
So they could just as accurately say “…power 36,000 households” And then fill in anything afterwards. “for 1 year”, “for 5 years”, “for the life of the turbine”. Or just leave it at 36,000 households. The “1 year” is so meaninglessly superfluous it annoys me. I mean, everyone knows they don’t produce power 24/365. That fact is always one of the disingenuous anti-renewable energy talking points.
But it’s not superflouos? The number is apparently based on yearly average. Not on 5 year or over the total lifetime. And it does not produce only for 36,000 households but likely for many more. I don’t see why thin seems so meaningless to you or annoys you so much.
Why would the 5 year average be different than a 1 year average?
How should I know? Maybe it contains downtime for maintenance or sth? Point is these numbers are based on yearly average so why write about 5 years?
