Today we travelled to the wind energy farm. It was really interesting to see that the cows were roaming around the wind turbines. They did this because the land that the wind energy company uses is rented from farmers! This way, the farms get a little extra profit and the company gets to use land in the most optimal places. Unlike the coal plant we saw yesterday, the technology here was all digital. The manager of the company was telling us that he could potentially control the turbines from his house. This allows for inspection of the turbines 24/7, which is critical when even the slightest error can cause less energy intake!
The turbines are very advanced in that they can stop their blades when they detect "storm winds" or winds higher than 40m/s. When we got there, the wind was at 9m/s and it was really windy. We watched as birds couldn't even fly due to the wind! The birds had to fly close to the ground. It was strange to see how the turbines affected the local wildlife. There were hardly any birds in the sky, when Brazil usually has a lot of birds flying all around. Watching the bird struggle to fight against the wind made me realize that the wind turbines do a lot more damage to birds than I previously thought. After we saw the wind turbines we headed back to Florianopolis!
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