Had issues with the link.
Pretty cool stuff
Is the tower mast material really a problem? I would think the blade material (glass and carbon fiber composites) is much more of a problem. The steel in the masts can after all be sold as scrap metal and be recycled.
The 30 minute interview goes over that. I think the article also. Here is a timestamped link where they talk about the higher specific strength of wood, allowing you to build taller towers, somewhat counterintuitively. The tower is also modular, allowing you to make it wider than the 4.5 meter diameter road transportation limit. Both combine to allow you to build much higher towers, kilometers high in theory and ignoring wind loading. The taller you go, the more advantageous their concept is, they say.
It also stores carbon, instead of producing it. And it is also probably cheaper.
The taller you can go, the lower the need to go offshore also they say as the wind gradient they say becomes marginal above 300 meters.
The interview is a nice intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C31jhvEKFNk
From that, here a timestamped link to the discussion on tower height.
I love wood as a material, but steel is also good. This wooden tower concept is often mentioned in Scandinavian circles, but the idea that someone could not make modular towers of steel is just changing the subject. Last I knew they were at least talking about moving the steel tower fabrication onsite so the steel could travel the roads as standard rolls of steel, on trucks.
They call this a “Wooden Wind Turbine”, but it is a steel and fiberglass turbine - on a wooden tower. I was hoping for wooden blades, which is a whole 'nother press-release breakthrough…
You can see it has a direct-drive generator. The ladder is, uncharacteristically, placed on the outside of the tower. By comparing the scale of the ladder, you can see it is not a very large turbine by today’s standards.
World’s tallest wooden wind turbine installed in Sweden (interestingengineering.com)
I’m wondering, if every wind turbine tower in the world were made of wood, how much carbon would that sequester from the atmosphere? Enough for anyone to notice?