What is made from the same wood as a Christmas tree, held together by glue and manufactured in a Swedish factory for assembly later?
If that calls to mind flat-pack furniture and meatballs, you’re wrong.
If you answered “a wooden wind turbine”, you could be a visionary.
According to Modvion, the Swedish start-up that has just built the world’s tallest wooden turbine tower, using wood for wind power is the future.
“It’s got great potential,” Otto Lundman, the company’s chief executive, says as we gaze upwards at the firm’s brand new turbine, a short drive outside Gothenburg.
It’s 150m (492ft) to the tip of the highest blade and we are the first journalists to be invited to have a look inside. The 2 megawatt generator on top has just started supplying electricity to the Swedish grid, providing power for about 400 homes.
The dream of Lundman and Modvion is to take the wood and wind much higher.
I want to see how big their bottle of Titebond III is.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“It’s got great potential,” Otto Lundman, the company’s chief executive, says as we gaze upwards at the firm’s brand new turbine, a short drive outside Gothenburg.
As demand has grown for taller turbines that harvest stronger winds with larger generators, the diameter of the cylindrical steel towers to support them has had to grow too.
Lundman and Olivegren tell me their turbine’s big selling point is that, by using wood and glue, towers can be built in smaller, more easily transported modules.
However, Dr Maximilian Schnippering, head of sustainability at Siemens Gamesa - one of the worlds largest turbine manufacturers - says more pieces are likely to mean more trucks, more people and more time to complete the installation.
Though wind power is cheaper and cleaner than almost all other forms of electricity generation, making steel involves extremely hot furnaces and almost always the burning of fossil fuels.
SSE Renewables, one of the UK’s largest producers of wind power, told the BBC it was aware of Modvion’s work and that it would be looking into wooden towers as “an alternative technology” to steel.
The original article contains 1,073 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 83%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I would hope they waxed the part near the motor or it’s going to be really awkward if it ever catches fire.
Seems like only the… Stem? Pylon? Well, the base, is actually made of wood.
