JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

Here’s a big idea:  a fantastically oversized, super-heavyweight wind turbine from 1932.  This monster was 1400 feet tall, fully 700 feet taller than the tallest modern wind turbine.  Actually, by conjecture, it looks as though the wind collecting units (or blades, or whatever these things are) might be 250′ long just by themselves, forming collecting space over 500 feet wide.  So that’s six blades at 250′ each per collecting unit, times three.  18 250′-foot long blades per structure.  It feels as though you could ride this thing to the Moon.  I have no idea how much the structure weighed.

For comparison’s sake, here’s a photo of the first successful wind turbine:

 Charles F. Brush’s 1887 accomplishment, built in Cleveland (Ohio) was 60 feet tall and weighed 4 tons.  The beast above would have single blades that were four times the size of this entire structure. (Or thereabouts–the 60′ tall thing doesn’t look quite right in this photo, seems to be somewhat taller.)