February 24, 2024
By Jerremiah Budin

The world’s longest onshore wind turbine blade creates a diameter
 as long as three football fields — and it’s set to debut soon

The blade, which will be attached to a 15-megawatt wind turbine, is super light and super strong.

A Chinese manufacturer has built the new longest onshore wind turbine blade in the world, which is expected to be put to use after it completes its testing phase

SANY Renewable Energy’s enormous blade is 430 feet long, creating a diameter of 860 feet in motion, nearly as long as three football fields, Electrek reported

The blade, which will be attached to SANY’s 15-megawatt wind turbine unit, assuming it passes testing, is also super light and super strong, using an optimized airfoil shape and layout, according to Electrek

China continues to make incredible progress in the area of harvesting clean, renewable energy from the wind. According to the China Energy Council, cited by Electrek, wind and solar together will make up around 40% of the country’s installed power generation capacity by the end of 2024. For 2023, that number stood at 36%

China already boasts several of the largest wind turbines in the world, all offshore. The MySE 16-260, from Mingyang Smart Energy, has a rotor diameter of 853 feet. The MySE 18.X-28X, also from Mingyang, was the world’s largest at the time of its completion, according to the company cited by New Atlas

Although China also still relies heavily on dirty energy sources like coal and gas, in addition to its quickly growing renewable sources, the country has an official goal of achieving net carbon neutrality within the next 36 years (which has still been judged “highly insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker)

In 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that the country will “aim to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.”

Other countries have similar goals. The United States, for example, has an official goal to be net zero by 2050 (also judged “insufficient” overall). And this target may be in jeopardy, according to experts, as the Biden Administration continues to greenlight new dirty energy projects along with its significant clean energy investments. 

The U.S. lags far behind China in terms of wind power capacity, in part due to dirty energy industry lobbyists spreading misinformation about the reliability and safety of wind turbines. 

There is, however, some room for optimism, as several major U.S. wind projects are starting to get approval and come online.

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