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Comment by jchung | Hacker News Reader

Super curious about this. Do you have a source? Any idea what equipment is needed to build these blades? I wonder at what point it becomes cheaper to move the equipment instead of the finished blades and build them on site. Or take a hard look at airships again http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/29/a-new-generatio...

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I will try to find. It was in peak oil/the oil drum years. The user was a guy called Jerome a Paris - investment banker that specialized/s in making wind farms happen. He made a breakdown of the costs withing a project.

I think he had profile both in eurotrib and dailykos. Sadly my inability to formulate a coherent google search fails me now.

Google gives me zillions of hits on "cost of windfarm is transporting the blades". The first I looked at is http://windpower.sandia.gov/other/031428.pdf, which computes costs of transport in the 6-7% range.

The second I opened is http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/61063.pdf. From a quick glance, it has transport costs at around 10% of capital costs.

Of course, transport prices can go up a lot by increasing transport distance or by changing location. Tops of mountains or densely populated areas may be way more expensive.

I do not rule out that transport costs in some cases are way higher, but I don't think it is generaLily true.

And that Jerome de Paris text may be on http://www.theoildrum.com/user/Jerome%20a%20Paris.

That was 8-10 years ago. The industry now is more mature. With pipelines of projects and know how and economy of scale. Back then everything was invented on the fly/ad-hoc and so on.

It used to be about $10k/mile for the hardest routes in the US - where they would have to literally widen t-junctions, increase bridge height clearance etc.

I also got most of my info back in the day by "Jerome A Paris" thread on Eurotribune - sadly that forums is no longer active now.

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