Wood Could be the Future of Wind Turbine Masts

TreeHugger has a post on German experiments with wooden wind turbine towers - Wood Could be the Future of Wind Turbine Masts.

In a bid to lower the costs of wind turbine masts, as well as enable taller installations, a German engineering firm is pursuing a novel method of building them - using wood instead of steel.

The new design for wind turbine masts uses timber and laminated wood panels (all from sustainable and certified timber suppliers) for the structure, covered by a plastic skin to protect the wood from weather, and the company, TimberTower, claims that their wooden masts will save 300 tons of steel for each 100 meter tall tower.

TimberTower believes that their new design could revolutionize the wind power industry by not only lowering the cost associated with turbine masts, but also by enabling the building of towers with turbine heights up to 200 meters high, as they can be easily transported via standard cargo containers and assembled in place.