250 feet up a wind turbine

Can you imagine being a tech on this job? I can hear it now " AHH CRAP, I left my screwdriver in the truck!!!" LOL

Added another thread with some construction photos in it as folks seemed interested to see that side.

There are a bunch of these on a mountain in E.Tennessee that you can see from a ridge where my sister lives. They are WAAAAy off in the distance but you can tell how large they are. Clean energy...what a concept!
Karen

Citizensmith wrote in post #4522659
These are over near Rio Vista, just the other side of the river to Antioch so should be well accessible to you. Public access wise the road you want to be on is Montezuma Hills Road which loops away from and back to Highway 12. Birds Landing to Collinsville Road to Talbert Road also is all public roads and gets you close to some turbines. There are plenty of turn outs and its fairly quiet, but it is just a two lane road with no shoulder so you do need to be careful.

In this area, and visible from the road, you'll see everything from the older Kenetech scafold towers which are in real bad shape, to the more modern single tower type ranging in height from 47m hub to these that are 80m hub.

Early morning is definitely the best, I've had some great shots from getting out there before sunrise.

Thanks for the tip! If I find out how to get to the ones at the Altamont Pass, I'll reciprocate. They must have four different kinds there.

GREAT shoots! Wow is about all I can say, I could never climb that high.

Great shots,a little different and interesting view from up there.

Wow thats cool.

Is the ladder on the outside of the structure or inside?

Inside, the towers are about 20 feet across so there is plenty of room.

Location, location, location. A very interesting series which gives me a bit of vertigo. I do not like heights at all. So I'm glad you took these. Thanks for sharing.

Having only seen these from a distance, it really puts the size into perspective.

Clean Energy, but not in my back yard - Doesnt that sound like the typical American thing to say!?

You could put them in my yard all day long and I think they would be great to look at, and the cheap electric bill would only compound their beauty!!

Thanks for posting them

Pat

Fantastic shots there,there's a big push to get more wind power in the UK and it's stirring up the nimbyism. It's a tough call to get the balance right and i don't have the scientific,political or ecological savvy to give a definate answer. This is a very interesting article http://www.guardian.co​.uk …ry/0,2763,12113​14,00.html
from a UK perspective at least.

We have a couple of large wind turbines up near me... about 40-50 km apart... They supposedly generate 6 MW (??) each, but these two are it in the Toronto area... Both of them feature 3 blades that are each 100 feet long. The power they can capture is impressive, but with so few, they seem little more than window dressing. If they (the powers that be) were serious about harvesting the wind, there would be a lot more turbines in existance. Interesting shots.

The article does make some reasonable points, but until someone invents an invisible power station they are kind of irrelevant. Despite best efforts power usage is going up, and fossil fuels are obviously diminishing. We need new sources of power, and wind (in concert with pumped storage) is one of the cleanest. If we didn't need these alternate sources this wouldn't be a discussion. I wonder how many of the complaining folks ever lived near a coal fired power station and all the impacts associated with that. Maybe they think fossil fuels just magically appear at power stations and there also isn't a huge and intrusive infrastructure involved in getting them there.

Michael Bottoms wrote in post #4548340
We have a couple of large wind turbines up near me... about 40-50 km apart... They supposedly generate 6 MW (??) each, but these two are it in the Toronto area... Both of them feature 3 blades that are each 100 feet long. The power they can capture is impressive, but with so few, they seem little more than window dressing. If they (the powers that be) were serious about harvesting the wind, there would be a lot more turbines in existance. Interesting shots.

I could well be wrong, but with blades only 100 feet long its more likely to be a 1.5 or 2MW generator. The Vestas V90 has a 3MW generator and 145-foot blades. 6MW is also really high unless they are very new test units. I think there is a turbine in Germany that was 5MW but it was big enough they used a helicopter to get to the nacelle.

I'll try to get over to the one nearest me, and check out the data they have posted outside of it... Been awhile, and memories fade... I'd love to have the chance to visit the same size ones as you visited.