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Wind turbine blade transportation challenges

The world’s largest airplane, when it’s built, will stretch more than a football field from tip to tail. Sixty percent longer than the biggest existing aircraft, with 12 times as much cargo space as a 747, the behemoth will look like an oil tanker that’s sprouted wings—aeronautical engineering at a preposterous scale. Called WindRunner, and expected by 2030, it’ll haul just one thing: massive wind-turbine blades. In most parts of the world, onshore wind-turbine blades can be built to a length o

If We Want Bigger Wind Turbines, We're Gonna Need Bigger Airplanes

The world’s largest airplane, when it’s built, will stretch more than a football field from tip to tail. Sixty percent longer than the biggest existing aircraft, with 12 times as much cargo space as a 747, the behemoth will look like an oil tanker that’s sprouted wings—aeronautical engineering at a preposterous scale. Called WindRunner, and expected by 2030, it’ll haul just one thing: massive wind-turbine blades. In most parts of the world, onshore wind-turbine blades can be built to a length o

Misunderstood “photophoresis” effect could loft metal sheets to exosphere

Most people would recognize the device in the image above, although they probably wouldn't know it by its formal name: the Crookes radiometer. As its name implies, placing the radiometer in light produces a measurable change: the blades start spinning. Unfortunately, many people misunderstand the physics of its operation (which we'll return to shortly). The actual forces that drive the blades to spin, called photophoresis, can act on a variety of structures as long as they're placed in a suffic

I Thought Robot Lawn Mowers Would be Simple: I Was Wrong

I spent most of spring and a good chunk of summer turning my backyard into a parking lot to test the best robot lawn mowers. In the process of doing that, I learned a lot about their benefits and their shortfalls. One of the biggest lessons was that, like most forms of automation, they can be a real pain to set up initially, but once they're ready to go, they save you a ton of effort and time compared with regular electric lawn mowers. I didn't expect that initial annoyance going into that proj

I Spent Weeks Testing Robot Lawn Mowers. Here Are 6 Things That Surprised Me

I spent the end of my spring and the beginning of my summer turning my backyard into a parking lot to test the best robot lawn mowers. In the process of doing that, I learned a lot about their benefits and their shortfalls. One of the biggest lessons was that, like most forms of automation, they can be a real pain to set up initially, but once they're ready to go, they save you a ton of effort and time compared with regular electric lawn mowers. I didn't expect that initial annoyance going into