I love passing by wind turbines. They are such an essential solarpunk element to me. Seeing one feels like a sign of hope: a different future is possible.
@vicgrinberg driving north from Berlin at night, you pass through fields and fields of them, their red lights blinking slowly in sync, it’s an experience that is absolutely out of this world!
@vicgrinberg Last Saturday I passed the biggest ones in our area, in an electric bus, while reading Cory Doctorow. This is the most solarpunk I’ve ever been.
@scruss a perfect card 😊 (especially if the things you have to say do not hold up to the truth...)
My plan was to try to find something in the wind energy direction of I had ended up leaving research in my field (astrophysics). Did not need to do it, but I'm pretty sure it would have made me happy if I did!
@vicgrinberg love to hear this - I have been working in the wind industry for more than 13 years now. Working in renewables provides purpose and meaning to my daily work, and it is the same for many of my colleagues. Glad to see the myths dispelled in the chat (birds, noise, …) It may not be perfect but it sure is better than a smoking coal stack or producer of nuclear waste, in my humble opinion. And we work on making it better every day, more competitive, more sustainable (recyclable blades)
@vicgrinberg In Iowa along Interstate 80 there is a 40-mile stretch of turbines. At night, the tower lights blink in unison. Disconcerting to anyone who lives nearby and seems like it would trigger an epileptic fit in others.
@vicgrinberg oh my gosh I just passed one or 2? On the road from Spokane to Seattle…. Those things are freeeeeekin cool. Was having trouble focusing on the road … and if I wasn’t worried about missing my flight I would have stopped and stared at them for hours. I want one in my back yard!!!! Whoosh whoosh whoosh. I love that they look like they are spinning slow but actually aren’t .
@littlescraps we hiked below one last year and, after reading the explanatory sign below I, made a back of envelope estimate for how fast they are and it's just mindblowing...
@vicgrinberg In my future wind turbine vision, I hear a constant 'woosh woosh woosh woosh woosh woosh woosh woosh', get stress from infrasound, and headaches from flickering light.
@quidcumque Oooh, this is so cool! If I ended up leaving science/astrophysics (which was very much a possibility), I would habe tried to get into wind energy somehow...
@vicgrinberg We’ve had wind turbines in California way before people were talking about renewable energy and I always thought they looked cool when we would pass them on road trips.
@vicgrinberg In Portugal, many times this past year, we had effectively 0€/kWh energy (free-price energy) based-off wind turbines production. We're killing it in renewables—the average % of renewables in the grid sits in the 60-80% usually if not more 90-100% at certain times. #thisistheway#endfossilfuels#EndFossilFuelsNow#fossilfools
@vicgrinberg Exactly this. And it makes me proud to 'own' part of one, which provides 80-90% of all electricity I use. I'd love to go visit it, but it's in the middle of nowhere and I don't drive. I just don't get people who consider them ugly. They're the future made real.
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