How does wind spin those giant turbines? It seems like even high-speed winds wouldn’t move it very quickly with how heavy the turbine blades must be.
In: Planetary Science
1. It is designed to spin with as little friction as possible.
2. Air has more mass than we give credit for. We hear a lot about the scary pressures of the weight of the ocean, but the atmosphere is no different, we are just don’t feel it because our bodies are adapted for it.
Examples of it’s force:
If a train metal container is cleaned with vapor and sealed before it’s cooled off, it will be crushed by the weight of the atmosphere just like a aluminum can.
Have you see the explanations of how a airplane can fly, and they tell you about pressure difference of the wing and you just nod and pretend you understood. In a nutshell there is a “vacuum” of pressure above the airplane, and the weight of the air bellow is being pushed up by the rest of the atmosphere to fix that pressure difference.
The wind that pushes the turbines is actually tons and tons of air being heated and expanded by the sun, and even at low speeds it builds momentum, at high speeds I’ve seen videos of turbines being torn off.
TLDR: If the atmosphere can lift a airplane, it can move turbines.
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