In this episode we discuss 3D printed wind turbine towers and how this tech can change the efficiency of wind power by allowing much higher tower heights, which will reach much higher wind speeds. We also go in-depth on floating wind farm technology, and discuss whether this will end up powering American homes in the near future. The United States has lots of deep water off its coasts, yet so far only the Scotland Hywind wind farm uses floating turbine designs.

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Full Transcript: EP15 - 3D Printed Wind Turbine Towers, Floating Wind Farm Technology Breakdown

https://youtu.be/Uvj7HbEI5Vw

Dan: This episode is brought to you by weather guard, lightening tech at weather guard, we make wind turbine lightning protection easy. If you're a wind farm operator, stop settling for damaged turbine blades and constant downtime. Get your uptime back with our StrikeTape lightning protection system. Learn more in today's show notes or visit weatherguard.com/striketape

Allen Hall: Welcome back I'm Allen hall.

Dan: I'm Dan Blewett and this is the uptime podcast where we talk about wind energy engineering, lightning protection, and ways to keep your wind turbines running.

Alright, Allen. So interesting news with a wind turbine based technology. So 3D printing, it looks like they're testing the capabilities to 3D print, these concrete bases, which is gonna have the implication of allowing 3D printed wind turbine towers to get a lot taller. So. What do you got on the subject?

Allen Hall: Well, it's, it's the evolution of 3D printing, right?

It's gone from making little plastic toys, to making jet engine parts, which GE has done for a number of years now. And now we're into concrete. Why not? Right. Concrete's the next step. Why not make it out of concrete? So the article I saw was really interesting about how they're just sort of zigzagging these little it's like a nozzle.

So it kind of looked like it was like a squirting out nozzle of concrete.

Dan: Yeah. So I know you're, you're not a millennial, so you're not on Instagram as much, but I've seen some of this on Instagram. And they've actually been doing this, like trying to build houses in, in lower socio socioeconomic, places, you know, like some small countries, they can whip out a whole house by 3D printing the walls like that.

So I've seen this before plastic and out of concrete--out of concrete. So this isn't, this is the first time I've seen this, but it's the first time I've heard about it in the winter, by an industry. So yeah, they like the,