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Building wind turbine towers from wood

A German company has developed technology to build wind turbine towers out of wood, making the already clean energy source even cleaner, according to OilPrice.com.

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Bernadett Szabo/Reuters/File
A worker checks the top of a wind turbine in a wind farm near the town of Babolna, 62 miles west of Budapest, Hungary in this May 2011 file photo. A German company is aiming to construct wind turbine towers from wood, according to OilPrice.com.
  • By Charles Kennedy Guest blogger

How could you make a renewable energy even more environmentally friendly?

The German company, Timber Tower, believes it may have an answer. Create wind turbines from renewable materials, in their case wood. (RELATED: Delta Airlines Buys its Own Refinery to Cut Fuel Costs)

They have created the technology to build wooden wind turbine towers that can be as tall as 200 metres. The towers are hollow, multi-faceted structures which are developed using ecologically sourced, PERC certified wood.

A test turbine is currently in place in Hannover, and uses a 1.5 MW Vensys wind turbine to generate sufficient electricity to power 1,000 homes. (RELATED: Encouraging Solar Energy to Stand on its Own two Feet)

One of the main advantages of using wood from a business point of view is the cost. Steel, which is normally used to build wind turbine towers, can be very expensive, whereas locally sourced timber is much cheaper. Transportation of timber pieces is also much easier than large tubular steel sections.

Timber Tower guarantees the wooden towers to have a minimum life cycle of twenty years, at which point the tower can be replaced, and the material recycled.

Source: http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Building-Wind-Turbine-Towers-from-Wood.html

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