That’s one hell of a sea bird chopper.
I wonder what the speed at the point of the blade can reach?
The Earth’s ecosystem distributes energy using various atmospheric levels of wind currents and ocean depth levels of sea currents.
Siphon off a high enough percent of that energy distribution and climate change will become a very real unintended consequence.
Dang! You guys always beat me to it. :(
I was going to add to that: Knowing those industrious Chinese, they will start a side business selling “sea bird slurry”...!
Speed of sound at sea level is about 1126 ft/s. From their info on swept area total radius is about 397 ft. That means circumference at blade tip is about 2492 ft. So if they go "faster" than one revolution every 2.2 sec (just over 27 rpm) the blade tips will exceed the speed of sound.
That doesn't account for the wind blowing past the blade tips perpendicular to the plane of rotation. That would add relative velocity, and thus slightly reduce the rotational speed at which the blade tips go supersonic.
Not much danger of this - most "normal" sized wind turbines run about 10 to 20 rpm. I'm sure they'll keep this monster turning pretty slow.
Sea gulls? That thing would knock down a jet airliner.
Hell, it would disperse clouds and change the climate in unexpected ways.
“I wonder what the speed at the point of the blade can reach?”
I believe the max limit on turbine size and speed is that if they get much larger than this the tips of the blades go faster than the speed of sound.