In this episode we discuss research that showed a 70% decrease in bird deaths when just one wind turbine blade was painted black—is this a real effect or do we need to do more studies? We also go in-depth discussing vortex generators for wind turbine efficiency, and whether they actually live up to the 1-3% AEP claims made by companies that sell them. We also discuss WhalePower and whether a turbine blade design inspired by the humpback whale’s dorsal fin can make it to market.

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EP25 Full Transcript - How Do Vortex Generators Work, and Do Black Painted Blades Save Birds? Plus, Whalepower wind turbine blades?

All right, welcome back. This is the uptime podcast, episode 25. I'm your cohost, Dan Blewett. And I'm joined here by. Lightening protection expert, Allen Hall, Allen, how are you? Dan, uh, just another crazy busy week in wind turbine world. Uh, so when he got on the list of news for the week, well, to start off with news, we've got some bird strike, uh, mitigation techniques, old ones, old school, AKA paint, um, where it's talking about a barrage of a lightning in Oklahoma, which I'm curious on your take about this because obviously.

You know, a lot of climates, pretty conducive, delighting somewhere, not so much Oklahoma doesn't strike me as one. That's crazy, but maybe I'm wrong along here. Um, and then our engineering segment, we got some more animal inspiration. So whale power, so well inspired leading edges, which is really interesting and unique.

And then we're also gonna talk about vortex, generators, bunch and internet of things, devices that can help detect faults in the field. So. First let's talk about, uh, let's, let's talk about Oklahoma. So 30, 30,000 strikes, uh, within eight miles or flashes. So I know there's a difference there, but what did, what was your take on this story out of the Washington post?

Um, why such a barrage of, of, of lightning strikes and maybe because of the Washington post doesn't. See a lot of weather like that, but the Midwest particularly between, so if you know your geography, like a sort of mid middle of Kansas South, all the way down into Texas, um, and even a little bit further North and in Nebraska can be really, really huge thunder storms.

I mean, I mean, tens of miles of thunderstorms and if the. If the weather is right and it's hot and you've have enough fuel in the air. And it starts to usually come in from the sort of the Colorado New Mexico area, it starts to build up and yeah, and look out, uh, or in this case, West, Texas, you know, it starts building up and you can get these huge storms if they start to churn and that, and it happens at the right time of day.

You get these gigantic hailstorms, which, and then in terms create all these lightning strikes and that is not abnormal. I think we're just paying more attention to it now. But if you ever, if you have the opportunity to drive through the middle of the United States and wonder all the trees are that they...