Letter to the Editor – Turbines

Dear Editor

Understanding the difference

I wonder how many people reading this letter truly understand the very significant difference between conventional power stations and wind generators (they are not wind turbines). To be sure, all fossil-fuel and nuclear fission power stations employ gas (steam) turbines to turn the rotor of their respective generators. Whereas a wind driven generator employs a large aerofoil (propeller) to propel a relatively slow moving shaft, via a gearbox, to a faster turning shaft to turn the rotor of a generator – there is absolutely no turbine is involved. A turbine is a fairly complex piece of machinery consisting of numerous blades along a shaft fitted within a casing i.e. an engine in which steam, water or gas is made to spin a rotating shaft by pushing on angled blades, like a fan; turbines are among the most powerful machines. Charles Algernon Parsons (1854-1931) the inventor of the compound steam turbine must be turning in his grave (pun intended) at the audacity of the wind industry. The term ‘Wind Turbine’ is a clever marketing ploy by the wind industry to dupe the public – and to exacerbate the situation, politicians and indeed the media, ignorantly persist in the use of this misleading term. The description conjures up a much more sophisticated and powerful machine than it actually is, and it is all smoke and mirrors. To reiterate, the limited machines the wind industry employ are simply electrical generators connected directly, or via a gear box and clutch, to a large wind driven propeller. Remember, we do not call the large blades on a helicopter turbines but simply rotors, and it would be interesting for the wind industry to explain the workings of a turbo-prop aircraft which effectively uses both a propeller and turbine in its design.

Dave Haskell

Cardigan

SA43 1ER

Tel: 01239 614671